:cool: The Catz and Herding Turtles. - What a Trip!

[spottycatz]

Marcus, the whole vacation was fuelled by Red Stripe and sandwiches. Putting this together is like writing someone else's holiday.
The nice thing, is that so many others have mentioned days and places on their photo's, I can kinda remember being there, which is good.
And the Alice in Wonderland touch, as you so magically put it, is the way our life is in general. This Negril holiday has just added to the story.

[gerryg123]

Great report. i love the details and pics.

[Jim-Donna]

Keep it coming.... Loving every bit!

[TizzyATX]

Hey SpottyCatz! I see you online...come with it!!!

[spottycatz]

Is that the little green light?

[TizzyATX]

Yes dear

[booger]

Yes dear

Waiting on yours to start.........

[spottycatz]

Monday was a day of relative rest in anticipation of what was to come.

Tuesday - Chickens Magic Bus Trip

So, here it was. The day out that had been planned months previously by Marley and ‘spoken’ about continuously on Negril.com for as long. The group of around 20 would be picked up at their various hotels after 7.30 - 8 in the morning, for a full day visit to YS falls and the Pelican Bar.

Excited………..Oh yes, it was also the first real time we would be with the group that has now written it’s name in the history of the Negril.com board. We set the alarm in case we slept in, but woke as the sun was rising with smiley faces. Breakfast (for me anyway) consisted of a four inch sub and a glass of orange juice. Now I was ready. Packing a couple of bags with Red Stripes and crisps and biscuits and my Homer opener, we lumbered our way to the gate of Idle Awhile and waited. Before too long the bus arrived. Here they all were, faces recognisable from months of looking at photo’s. Wow Marcus is taller than I thought, Ninja, look at that smile, who’s that with the hat, must be Guirigay, so many new faces! It would help if I’d not had so much breakfast. Everyone was so pleased to see us, so to break the ice, I opened the bag of beer. First one up, ‘Hi I’m Michael, I’d love one of those’. Excellent, a man after our own hearts, beer at 8.30 in the morning. We’re on holiday after all. Booger, Sandy, Marcus, Daisy, beers all round, this is gonna be a good day. We rumble our way back to Negril town, music playing, laughter, early morning singing and stop for cash and carry at the ATM.

The bus empties and bodies disappear into the throng of the day. Time passes, what’s happened? Marcus is stuck in the ATM booth!!! Really? Where is everyone, ah, there’s Booger and Sandy and there’s Shauna and Raul, it takes a while, but everyone’s back on. Of we go again, past the roundabout, go about 100 yards, stop again for beer and supplies. Everyone off the bus. Time passes, gradually people start to wander slowly back in the direction of the vehicle.

It was then that the phrase I’d never heard before, became such an integral part of the day and the rest of the vacation. beccajean, sitting behind me, ‘Jees, it’s just like herding turtles!’ It summed up the start to the trip. We’d all gotten into Negril time and both speed of thought and movement had slowed accordingly. Beer was loaded into coolers at the front of the bus, but wait, Chicken’s here with another bus. I haven’t got a clue what’s going on. ‘Everyone off the bus and into the other one’……..OK, people, bags, coolers, more people, ready?

It’s 10 before we leave Negril, the Turtles are on the move.

Sandy was tired from the night before, this photo isn’t upside down.



Brasi’s head popped up at the back of the bus. He’s also suffering from the night and (probably) days previous. I should point out at this time, that the ‘back of the bus’ actually took up all the seats apart from the front couple. So we’re moving down the road, trying to loosen the load, windows open, with the bus from the outside probably looking like a 1950’s steam train!!



The views from the bus was great, there’s some great country once you start to go inland and before long we arrived at YS. The weather was wonderful, warm and sunny, a perfect day, Marley had even organised that properly. Everyone off the bus, turtles totter here there and everywhere. So what now? We have to get on a trailer and get towed up to the falls. Yeh right!!! These are turtles after all, some make the first trailer, some don’t. ‘We should stay together!’………… Yeh right!!!







So we get to the bit where we get out. ‘Lets wait for the others’, no probs there. We’re all expert at not going far. The gang eventually group and the climb up the falls starts.





So now I get to a really important bit.

Before we left the UK, there was lot’s of ‘board’ conversation about jumping off cliffs and videos and photo’s posted. At the time, Jacky said to me, ‘You’re not jumping off the cliff are you?’ ‘No way Jose, I’m far too on the wrong side of 20 to be jumping off anything’, I said.

So, here we are walking up the wooden stairs and we arrive at a large pool of water.



Above the large pool of water is a rickity platform with a rope, where there is a queue of ‘nutters’ swinging and jumping and falling into the pool from about 100 feet. (Well it looked like it to me!!) Suddenly, Jacky is gone!!! Oh there she is, where’s she going, why is she wearing washing up gloves? She’s not……….is she?.…..she bloody well is!!!!!





I must say, I was very proud of her for doing that. It’s something I would never have dreamed she would’ve done. But it’s the holiday isn’t it? It’s the team, the trip, the accumulating mass madness that is gradually seeping into everyone. There’s nooooooo way you’ll get me doing that!!!

So, why am I standing on a rickity wooden platform with blue washing up gloves on?????

There’s reasons we do things in life. Peer pressure, excitement, The Dare, money, love………….well friends, it was none of those, it was the beer and sub that got me there. Looking back, I can’t even remember walking up there, I just remember this damp slick rope being shoved at me and someone shouting , Go!, over the noise of the waterfall. I’m flying………I’m wet and cold……I’m drowning……No, I can breath……..I can’t feel the bottom……..I’m alive……who’s all these people……why have I got blue washing up gloves on?

Other’s did it. I know Booger did, I think Sandy did, Tizzy might have, I really can’t remember. The next 10 minutes were lost in a haze of finding clothes, finding Jacky, wandering back down the stairs looking at the faces of the people walking up.
Sitting at a bench at the bottom of the falls with Booger and Sandy and Tizzy and I’m sure Guirigay was there with Sweetie Pie, Sneaking another sub out the bag, more Stripes, keeping it topped up, gradually the turtles gathered and at some point boarded the trailer back down the hill and back onto the bus. I am having one of the best days I’ve ever had in Jamaica and it's not even lunchtime!

[spottycatz]

We hadn’t gone far when we stopped again. Grub up! Didn’t gave a clue where we were as usual, but we had stopped at an amazing low slung open kitchen, with massive cauldrons of stuff bubbling and popping away. The smells were insane. I had the munchies anyway, and suddenly I had been deposited in front of the Jamaican equivalent of Willie Wonka’s!

‘I’ll have some of that and some of that and what’s that, it doesn’t matter, put some on there anyway and, ****e, I’m running out of room!’

There were turtles everywhere, hands full of plates and bowls of hot tasty food. Boy this trip was well organised. Fun, food and frolics.




So, all fed, back on the bus and on our way to the Pelican Bar. Marcus was applying cream to his delicate features. I think it was sun cream………….



At some point along the road, this happened……..



……..and before too long we were here.



Now turtles are supposed to be able to swim, but we were kitted out in the latest must have fashion before we got on our way. Loaded into large wooden canoe’s, the two teams set off on the 30 minute race to the Pelican Bar. Sweetness not too keen on the latest fashion item, but Sandy reassures her she looks fine. Orange is such a subtle colour!!!!



We arrived and climbed into a scene straight out of a Tom Hanks film.





How to describe the Pelican Bar on the inside. It’s much bigger than you think. Almost multi-dimensional! There space for a carving section, with stuff you can buy. There’s a bar, well enough stocked. There’s space to stand, there’s places to sit and there’s stuff hanging up. In fact, we kinda knew that flags and emblems would be welcomed, so we had taken a Scottish flag with us to leave as a memento.



More Stripes were drunk and the sun began to lower. The water around the Pelican Bar is very shallow and most of the turtles duly splashed about, beers in hand, with so many smiles and so much laughter.
Then disaster…………the curse of Clarity struck. Not content with hating Lionfish and bats, a new hate was being swiftly added to the list. The black spiny sea urchin!! Years ago, a friend of ours trod on one of these at the Blue Cave Castle and almost couldn’t walk for a week. Suddenly, Clarity was being helped into the bar with a toe full of black pin pricks!!!

Hey, we’re the ‘Not So Teenage Negril Ninja Turtles’, right? Sandy to the rescue. ‘Has anyone got a knife’, one was produced. It had probably just been used to carve a name in the floor of the bar, but no matter, surgery was needed. ‘Hold the woman down, stuff a rag in her mouth and let me at her’, I think that’s what Sandy said, but I was pretty out of it, so it might have been something like that. And I got a ringside seat.



Only Clarity can tell you the pain and anguish suffered during that 10 minute spell, but Sandy did a wonderful job and the little black spines were removed one by one. It reminded me of the biblical story of Daniel and the Lion. Not really, it just fits!!!

Time passed and friendships reinforced. This is a magical place and anyone who hasn’t been to the Pelican must try and make the effort.

[spottycatz]

Soon it was time to go and we sadly loaded ourselves back into the boats for the trip back to shore. This time, it was a race, not just against each other, but against time itself. As usual, our return to land was later than planned and the sun was setting. Who wants to be in a wooden canoe, doing 25 knots in the pitch black. Hands up! No-one? Great, gun that engine my man and don’t spare the horses.


By now, Sweetness was happy wearing the latest fashion item


The race to beat each other.


The race to beat the sun.

We stopped again on the way home, for spicy shrimps and prawns and a soup that was to die for. Perfect!!!

And really, for us two, that was it. We sang, laughed and chatted our way back to Negril like kids who had just been to see Santa on a school trip. Much more beer was drunk, a few more sandwiches shared and tired heads rested.
Brasi, who was with us every step of the day, finally announced he was feeling much better and was ready to party……….good on you my son, you did more than I could have done that day.

We were dropped at Idle Awhile around 9 and the bus rumbled into the distance.

What to say about the whole thing.
I can’t remember laughing and smiling for so many hours at one go.
It was what a day out with friends should be.
It should be made into a movie.
We’re both so glad we’d been there.