Monty & Melo's "5 Months Mon Goat Can Eat" Trip Report - Oct 2012

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Le Mirage is on my list. Nice pix

[Monty&Melo]

Up and at em early on Saturday morning, 2nd day of vacation, but the first morning of the trip. I love, love, love mornings in Negril. When staying on the beach at Rondel, I take off walking down the beach towards the all-inclusives and walk all the way to Sandals, which is almost 3 miles, so I get 6 miles in before getting my day started. Needless to say, staying on the cliffs presents a little bit of a logistical challenge when it comes to a nice morning walk. I figured what the hell and took off out of Le Mirage towards Ricks. I walked and walked, for about an hour and 20 minutes, almost 3 miles, and I arrived at the end of West End Road, not technically of course, but I got to the place where there appears to be some sort of development that stopped a few years ago. The sign said to turn left away from the Cliffs to go to the Westender. I thought about walking that way, but I was pretty far from home already and quite frankly, while my comfort level walking on the beach was always 100%, I was at about 80-85% on my west-end walk, never really scared, but not 100% comfortable with the unknown surroundings. I am sure once I stay on the west end a few times, I will no longer have any fears of that walk.

Back at the hotel and Melo is getting ready for her day, and is blow-drying her hair when all of sudden, poof, no current. She was convinced that her Turbo 1000 hair dryer blew a fuse somewhere, but sure enough, one of the things the west end is most famous for, a current outage as far as you could see in each direction. She was almost done, so we figured we wouldn’t be in the room much during the day and as long as it was back on for later we would be fine. Out for a little quick breakfast of coffee, toast, banana bread, etc and we are down at the wata, getting ready to enjoy the day.

I bring my own snorkel gear and I couldn’t wait to give it a try in the crystal blue waters. Here are a few shots of me in the sea…..





Soon after I was finished, LG wanted to give it a try, so off she went….



After swimming and snorkeling for a while, my brother and I decided that we would head into town for the first Red Dragon visit of the trip. I absolutely love the Red Dragon, the place is just so damned cool, the pork is awesome and the beer is cold (although later in this trip I discovered JB and Ting, more on that later). Anyway, we called our driver because our friends from Montego Bay were headed over and we needed to get back too quick to walk all of that way. Our driver is also a fan of the pork, so we always buy him a beer and some pork while we are there. This time we decided to suck down a couple of cold ones, eat half-a-pound of pork, and then get a pound to go. We also wanted to stop at Juicy Patties to load up on those too, so we would have something to eat around the pool and wata for the rest of the day. The plan was executed to perfection as we arrived at Red Dragon, said hi to Gardo (he works the store side on Saturday, while his brother works the bar) and proceeded to eat pork and drink beer.

After heading out from Red Dragon (we would be back!!!) we stopped down at Juicy Patties and ordered what seemed like a ton of Patties and some Coco Breads and only spent like $15. Crazy pricing and good stuff.

Back at Le Mirage and our friends had arrived, so everyone was lying around the pool relaxing. Funny thing I have found about a lot of Jamaicans, even though they have been surrounded by water all of their lives, a lot of them don’t swim and even if they get in the water on the beach or the pool where it is shallow, they are not interested in swimming where they can’t touch the bottom. I realize this is not everyone, but I have been surprised over the years about how common this is.

We relax, talk, figure out how to get our friend hooked up with my youngest brother (who is not on the trip with us), and have a great time just hanging around the pool at Le Mirage. There was no one else there, the current was still out so there was no “whirring” of the air conditioners or even the sound of the pool filter running. It was a great afternoon.

About 4ish we decide it is time for the first Canoe visit of the trip (another place I really like), we had stopped by there on the way to Red Dragon and found out that they were not officially open from the renovations yet, but that they were “sort of” open so we could stop by if we wanted too. Bonus!!! Rum Punch here I come.
We took a few shots while we were sitting around Canoe, here are a couple of samples…

Me and our Montego Bay Friend….I think we make a cute couple!!!!



My brother (JMA) and his girlfriend (LG) officially in Negril Mode



After many rum punches, we headed for dinner at 3 Dives. I have heard various things (both good and bad) about this place over the years, but we figured what the hell, let’s try it. Current was still out, so it was dinner by candlelight for most of the evening, we ordered on our way in, a bunch of chicken and some shrimp. The food arrived after about 30 minutes (or 3 beers) and as we were about halfway through the meal the current came on, and to tell you the truth, I wish it hadn’t, sitting there in the dark with candles lit, eating chicken and shrimp, rice and peas and some Callaloo, was a great experience. And with it being dark sometimes you couldn’t tell how much granny sauce you were pouring on, so that made it even better. That sauce is fantastic, almost addicting, like you couldn’t stop eating it. I love a good endorphin high, if those guys on the beach could capture that feeling and put it in baggie and sell it, I might buy some!!! The Shrimp were awesome as well, we agreed that we would probably be back later in the week.

The best thing about the current coming back on was that we were going to have air-conditioning. I will be the first to admit that I am a wimp about AC, I have to have it, I will pay extra for it and I cannot handle the idea of not having it at night when I sleep. No sooner had we gotten back at the room the current went off again. Damn…..but as soon as the words came out of my mouth it was back on again. I couldn’t help but think about that scene in Airplane when the guy unplugs the runway lights and then says “just kidding.” Current back on, AC is cooling and off to bed we go (not all four of us together, get your mind out of the gutter!!!!). First full day in Jamaica in the books. I would call the day an overwhelming success. Day three soon come…..