I am really enjoying this report. I think hubby's little bro would really fit with Negril. It is great to see you getting to share the experience. I laughed out loud at the picture of the crab.
I am really enjoying this report. I think hubby's little bro would really fit with Negril. It is great to see you getting to share the experience. I laughed out loud at the picture of the crab.
We tell the driver to pick us up at 330pm for the Ricks/Ivans/LTU trip. We had discussed the “goat BBQ” amongst ourselves on the long walk to Red Dragon and decided that we would do it on Thursday if that was going to work for all of our Jamaican friends. We pack up towels, change of clothes, a bunch of monopoly money (JA$$) and walk down to the road to meet up with our driver.
Upon getting in, I say, “Thursday OK for the BBQ, mon??” “Yeah mon, Thursday OK.” Of course we were curious about the whole experience and wondered what we needed to contribute (money, beer, rum, etc). “We will go to Chiney-mon tomorrow for beer and Whiterum, and milk; we drink the Whiterum with milk.” “OK I said, so are you supplying the goat?” "Yeah, mon, we will take him with us.” Wow, I thought, this should really be interesting…..
My brother and I fancy ourselves as amateur chefs and I was interested in helping out, not just hanging out having the Jamaicans cook for me. “Yeah mon,” I said, “I’m happy to help cut stuff up and assist with the cooking if that will be OK.” Almost immediately our driver responded, “Ok, mon, you can cut de goat’s neck.” Damn…..did you catch that, I went from chopping up onions and garlic to killing a goat in the matter of like 5 seconds. It was already too late, my brother was all over it, “Yeah mon, Monty kill the goat!!” I think he was on Facebook, Twitter and Text Messages letting everyone that I had ever met or known in my life that it was going to happen, Thursday at high noon. I wasn’t so sure, but what the hell, I wasn’t going to spoil JMA’s fun, so I just laughed along with everyone else in the car.
Thankfully, we quickly arrived at Ricks and climbed out of the car. Now I know Ricks is a total tourist trap and big rip-off when it comes to food and drink, but we have found that if you show up, buy a beer immediately you can generally stretch that beer into an hour’s worth of refreshment and assuming you don’t stay much longer than that, you get out pretty cheaply. We don’t normally go to Ricks unless we have a newbie with us, I think it is some sort of unwritten rule that you have to take a newbie to Ricks just for the spectacle of it all. We arrive, find a place on the stairs to hang out and get a Red Stripe.
While cliff jumping from the top didn’t appeal to me (any more!!!), I wanted to get the girls in the water (my brother can’t handle the pressure change of jumping in deep water….drives his ears crazy, or maybe he is just a wimp, the jury is still out!!). I was amazed that it didn’t take much coaxing to get the girls to jump from a platform about 15 feet up. Here we are after the jump swimming in the deep blue sea:
I’ll bet the view from up there is pretty good
One of the best things about Ricks is the people watching and getting to meet folks from the big all-inclusive hotels here for their trip to the “real Jamaica.” This particular day the group was from the Grand Palladium. They spent most of the afternoon at Margaritaville and now were at Ricks. So much for the “real Jamaica” I thought, but I didn’t judge, they all seemed to be having a good time. We hung out at Ricks until right about 5pm and then we changed clothes and walked down to Catcha.
Melo and I had been there before, but my brother had not been there and to say he was impressed was an understatement. He and LG loved Catcha and Ivan’s. LG took pictures forever and hanging at the bar listening to Shaggy (It wasn’t me!!!) was one of the highlights of the trip. The sunset wasn’t great that night, but colors in the sky and in the water were still pretty outstanding. Here is a shot of the sky around time the sun went down.
Here is another pic, taken of Melo and JMA at the bar
After Ivan’s we headed for LTU. Love LTU, the food is awesome and the mixture of locals, ex-pats and tourists always makes for an eclectic group. We were pretty tired of the camera by the time we got to LTU, so I only have this one picture of me and my much better half
After a long day of moving around and drinking, I forgot exactly what I had at LTU, but I do remember that it was awesome and of course the Pumpkin Soup that comes with every meal is beyond good. We called our driver and got him to come retrieve us so that we could retire for the evening. We had another pretty good day planned for tomorrow (Wednesday), including the first ever trip to the Chiney-Mon shop and dinner at Bentley’s which of course means a visit to Bentley’s during the day to arrange things for the evening, more moving and getting out and about, my favorite…….
Love your trip report and pictures. You made me want to check out the Red Dragon. Heard good things about it, but in 8 trips, haven't made it there yet. Maybe the 9th trip
So up and at em’ early on Wednesday morning, another wonderful day in Negril. After my walk and breakfast at Firefly, I decided to give Bentley a call to talk about dinner that evening. “Come see me mon,” he said. OK, give me a few minutes and I will grab a cab and head down there. I decided this would be a solo trip and since our normal Negril driver lives in Green Island and doesn’t normally get to Negril until about noon time (and sometimes even later in slow season like it was now), I was on my own for transportation. I asked Johnno at Rondel to find me someone and he did. Johnno knows I don’t like certain drivers (drive too fast, charge too much, etc) that hang around the Rondel area, so he found me someone he knew would be fair with me and who would treat me right. Off to Bentley’s.
Even though I had heard numerous stories about Bentley and had met him on the road earlier in the trip, I had never been to his place. Damn that road is rough and narrow too. I was worried whether my new driver friend would be able to get the bus up there and turned around for the trip back down the lane. Stupid me….the driver negotiated the road with no problem and had the van turned around in the lane headed back down before he even let me out. So I jump out of the bus and head up Bentley’s stairs to meet the man himself. Bentley is incredible, we sat and chatted, he showed me food pics, we talked about dinner, drinks and a little about the history of Negril. I gave him a down-payment for our dinner for 4 people and was back in the bus headed back to the beach in no time.
We all hung out on the beach for a while and my brother and his girlfriend decided to go parasailing, here are some pics from their adventure
Ready to go up!!!
Up, Up and Away!!!
After they returned from little adventure, we decided to get ready to head down to Canoe, we needed to stop at the ChineyMon store on the way to stock up on the stuff needed for the Jamaican BBQ tomorrow. We told our driver to pick us up at 330pm, our dinner with Bentley was scheduled for about 630pm. And we had Canoe’s happy hour to attend in the interim.
At 330pm we head out of Rondel towards the cliffs. First stop was the ChineyMon Store, otherwise known as First Choice Wholesale and Supermarket. Again another first for me even though I considered myself a Negril veteran.
Here is a pic of the entrance in case you are one of those that drive by this place every day in your Negril adventures and have never been in
Inside we purchased two cases of Red Stripe (in the plastic crates, not in the box), a bottle of Appletons Gold Rum for the Bentley’s trip, a bottle of WhiteRum for the host of the Jamaican BBQ, some rice, some oil, and two boxes of boxed milk. The manager (owner?) of the store sits in a little raised office right at the front door of the place. If you want phone cards or cigs you have to buy those directly from him. Everything else goes through the registers. After checking out, the receipt is handed to the manager in the perch and he checks off everything that you purchased on the receipt. This appears to me to be a NBS (No Bull****) type of place. The transactions were handled efficiently and effectively and we were on our way in no time. I thought the prices for the rum were a little better than the Hi-Lo, but I didn’t pay that much attention so I could be wrong, or maybe I was feeling the effects of drinking all day!!
Since the big BBQ was tomorrow and we had lots of questions about how this was going to go down, we made sure our driver stayed with us and had a beer at Canoe to answer our questions. Here is a pic of us all sitting around discussing the poor misfortune of one goat that was going to occur tomorrow.
I took the pic so I am not in it, but this is the rest of the crew
Obviously we were most curious about the goat, how big was it going to be, was it male or female, how old was it, etc. It was going to be a small, young goat, male. The thinking being that a young goat would cook faster and since we didn’t have a lot of time this would be best. This is where the theme of the trip came from. In response to how old a goat needed to be before it could be eaten, our driver responded, “5 months mon, goat can eat.” OK, that sounded pretty young to me, but he was the expert so 5 months sounded good to me. He then informed me that he had been at home that day sharpening up his knife for me so I would be able to kill it quickly and efficiently. I still wasn’t sure. He said that when he picked us up for the trip tomorrow the goat would be in the back of a car, but that it would be in a box in the back, so no worries.
He headed out after a beer or two and said he would return about 6pm so we could head out to Bentley’s. We continued at Canoe drinking rum punch and this night Melo even had a Caesar. Those things are yummy!!!
Somehow we got on a kick to take a picture of our bill at Canoe, here is the one from that night
Here is a picture of the expanded bar area at Canoe, they have really done a good job with the place and that is the lovely Carla behind the bar, pouring me a rum punch!!!
Pretty soon it was time to head off to Bentleys….
Great stuff! I remember when I brought my brother in law for 8 days and 7 nights... He was a trip,
as he slowly discovered his Negril groove! Looking forward to your pics and story of the Bentley meal!
Happy Travels...
Skb...
Great report!
So glad you are back with the report. I like your style, getting out and about, being adventurous. I went in the ChineyMon shop for a phone card. Thankfully my driver was with me as I felt very overwhelmed trying to buy the card with all the other locals shoving money at the owner. It was a trip!
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Love all the pics. And what an experience with the little goat.
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That goat in a box made me laugh harder than anything I think I ever read or saw on this board (I'm sorry Sandie)
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