Sunrise ... Sunset. Is there any place better that I could get? Trip Report

[bjritz]

“Best End of the West End, Mon!� Exclaimed by a young man we met on One Love outside of Wise Choice Supermarket.

Hazy cloud filtered light seeps into hazy addled brain. Nice cool, really cool breeze sweeps the room, wraps the body in a light salt air breath of morning. Eye peeps open slightly to take in minimal lizard like view of the new day. Dark wood contrasts with white blowing shears attempting to cover the wood slats and screened windows; beyond lies tropic green in verdant layers. Song birds calling, wood smoke drifts into the mix, just a thread left from the fire at 3 Dives the night before. Ah, fine Jamaican morning, come in lift me, wake me, stir me to a peaceful start of a day with no agenda, no calls, no pressure; all good mon. Good Morning Negril!

Turns out, this is our walk to the lighthouse day. We amble up the road just having a good time seeing all the divergence in scenery. The tin walls of what we came to call “no man’s land� that crowded the road. The contrast of buildings with only upstairs residences and first floors empty, stark, with the lovely posh resorts on the other side of the street. The great line of shops opposite of Rockhouse was fun to browse through and meet the nice people along the road.

Having spent months looking at all this from above, (http://tinyurl.com/7m27ogx) it was just so cool to walk through it all at street level. Things are more compact than I had realized, and there are many things going on all around you up through about LTU and a little beyond. Then it quiets down. Traffic nearly vanishes and there is a great piece of undeveloped land across from The Caves Resort.

We popped into visit several resorts, Rockhouse, Sunset on the Cliffs, Negril Escape, and Tensing Pen. Some we looked at on the way to the light house and some on the way back. We just went in the ones with open gates or outside security. Since we weren’t eating lunch we just didn’t do the ones we knew would let us in, but would like us to drop some cash. (Cheap old guys) Two of these we spent a little time at were Negril Escape and Rockhouse.

Negril Escape was a pleasant surprise as its cliffs were quite low to the sea. We ducked into the bar and had a few beers while a squall came through. Just majestic! It was great that the bar was under that overhang so we were dry and had a wonderful view of the line of hard rain coming toward us. The waves started just pounding the rocks along the terrace and it was amazing. The spray off that little inlet that juts into the property was nice. Had we been standing out on the terrace we’d been washed off the thing the water was coming up halfway to the bar!



At Rockhouse we got a couple of beers and walked out to the massage cabana that juts out into the cove. Nice teak Adirondack chairs out there with matched ottomans to laze on. Some photo shoot was going on just on the rock path behind us, lovely model and a bunch of photographers. We had to just hang out there for a while until they were done.

Stopped by Rick’s gates for a picture, past Sexy Rexy’s and were bummed he wasn’t there. And next we went on to the lighthouse.



I most likely have my days out of order but we went into Rick’s to see a sunset, but it was too cloudy. Ricks is where all the people in Negril are, man it was packed. Next we rambled over to LTU for dinner, and that was fantastic! What a nice place hanging over such a beautiful cove.



Went back to Xtabi and stopped at 3 Dives to pick up some Spitfires for the porch talk looking into the fading of the evening as night fires burn across the cove.

Weary feet and legs were thrown onto the cabin bed, fan blasting down to cool the night heat. Drift toward a rest not often obtained in mainland towns, drop to a steady sleeping breath, dream of pelicans in flight, moon bright, luminous surf swirling around toes and on it goes, and on it goes.