Day 4 Sunday
I can’t be certain, but I think this day the girls got up somewhat early and had breakfast and went to the beach. When they came back to the room about noon that is when I got up. I am NOT a morning person on a regular day, and I am DEFINITELY not a morning person on a out late the night before with too many drinks kind of night! Lol. I hadn’t even made it to the beach yet and it’s now day 4. Geez.
Backtrack: When I first started staying at Hidden Paradise in 2000, I quickly became friends with the “hotel crew”. I can’t really think of a better word for them…One actually worked for the hotel at the bar and the others just kind of hung out there on the beach? They were like a little club. One ran the jetski’s right next to Mama Flo’s and 3 others well…they just stood on the beach hustling most of the day, but it was a great bunch! Well over the years almost all of them moved away. A few to the states, a few to Europe. My 3 trips previous to this one I did not see ONE person I knew there anymore =( So that was one reason I hadn’t made an effort to walk over to the beach..honestly it kind of made me sad. I tried to coincide my trip with a few that were flying down in August but I couldn’t make it. (you will need to know this for later)
We decide to walk down to Kuyaba for lunch. Bobbie had seen the menu the day before and wanted to try it out. I knew it was pricey there, but it’s close and we were hungry. I got a snapper sandwich if I remember correctly and it was a HUGE plate of food! I could only eat like a quarter of it. We were contemplating whether or not we would go to Rick’s today. Bobbie wanted to get her hubby a T-shirt from there. After going back and forth we decided to save it for another day. Lisa wanted to go back to the room and take a nap, so Bobbie and I decide to change and head downtown to hit up the ATM machine (again).
We start walking up the road and decide to grab a taxi. I had explained to Bobbie at the beginning of the trip to look for a red plate because the ones parked on the side of the road are going to charge a lot more. By day 2 she had it down pat. She sees a red plate van parked on the side and the driver was just crossing the street from the cambio back over to his van. She starts to flag him down but then I tell her I’m not sure if this is quite the same as actually grabbing one that is already going down the road! Lol. Anyway she bargains with him and they agree on a fare to Scotia Bank. So I sit up front and the driver starts asking us if we have taken any tours. I tell him, been there done that and I think the best kind of trips are just up to the county to sightsee. So he says “well I just so happen to be heading up to Orange Hill to run an errand, if you guys want to ride along that’s fine with me. I won’t charge you anything extra. So I think for a minute…he has red plates, I have his business card…Ok, what the hell. So we swing by the ATM then we’re off. Well almost. He has some Motown type music playing in his van, so I ask him if he has any reggae. He hops out and goes around back to open the trunk part. He comes back with a HUGE case full of music. Woot Woot! He has all the classics…Dennis Brown, Heptones, Toots… we all agree on the Mighty Diamonds and THEN we’re off!
We head up the road past Scrub a Dub and drive for a little ways until I see a roadside bar. He asked if we wanted to stop for a beer. Um, yeah!! So we hop out and head inside. We get 3 stripes and just chit chat with the dude behind the bar about all the bills (money) up on the wall. He explains how he used to have more but someone broke in and stole a lot of them. Some he said he was able to recover, but not all. Then we notice that the back door of the bar opens up into like a rock alcove. It’s pretty cool. We take some pics then jump back in the van and keep on truckin.
Up we go, all the while chatting about legendary singers and their lives and about how some of them were taken way too soon. He tells us stories about some of the ginormous homes we pass. He tells us how Bob had a place up in that area and he would go there to chill out out back in the day. We chat about the ganja farms and how it all started years and years ago. This guy was old school and was really interesting to talk to. He stops and meets up with a rasta on the side of the road, and then we keep on moving. We cut across and end up on the West End coming down the road. As we were driving I was admiring all the beautiful homes. It didn’t help any when I saw one of them was for sale. If I ever hit the lottery, I know where I’ll be.
It was mostly dark at this point as we head down toward the roundabout. We had probably been gone a good hour or two. It was a nice little outing and I was glad we decided to go along.
-great report!
Visit #56 
soon come
