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

[billndonna]

Excellent report Monty,please keep it coming!!!

[Monty&Melo]

I'm taking the night off to watch the election results....more trip report tomorrow.....soon come!!!

[bjritz]

My favorite beer of the whole trip is that first one at the Groovy Grouper while we are telling countless taxi drivers that we don’t need a ride and that we have one prearranged. Something about that first splash of beer on the back of your throat makes you realize you are in Jamaica!! And Oh what a feeling that is.

You put me right in the Grouper with that, and I agree it was one fine Red Stripe that first one!
Great report, nice to hear about Mirage - walked by but didn't go in there.

[Smokin Kevan]

Your report rocks! Keep up the good work..We've often thought of spending some time in the Cliffs and stopping by 3 Dives..

I'd never heard the electricity thing in The Cliffs and appreciate this insite!

Look forward to more "Cliffside" adventures!


Happy Travels

SKB!

[Guirigay]

Chicken Lavish, Canoe, Red Dragon, Juicy Patties, 3 dives. One day. Wow... You need to walk 6 miles a day

[T&A]

Love it! The picture of the rainbow was really nice.

[HuskerJohn]

Wow! you walked all that way out there? I rode a bike out to Westender and I thought that was something. LOL! From where you stopped (that is kind of creepy, those empty buildings), Westender is another mile or mile and a half.

[Monty&Melo]

So it’s Sunday morning now, day 3 of our 9 day trip. I’m wide awake early after another wonderful night’s sleep at Le Mirage. The good news is that the current stayed on all night and therefore the AC was nice and cold. This is the day we were moving to the beach, back to our home at Rondel. I decided to give the West End walk one more try and my brother decided to join me this time. We took the same path I had taken the day before, all the way out to the turn where you head to Westender, away from the cliffs. Once we walked past Hylton Avenue, my brother kept asking me “so when are we turning back?” I assumed he thought we had walked far enough and of course every step we took away from Le Mirage meant another step we were going to have to take to get back. Every few minutes, he kept asking me…..I was sort of thinking to myself, “what a wimp, he can’t handle a long, brisk walk in the morning!!”

As we were almost back to Le Mirage, we were walking past Wise Choice when a voice called out to us, this voice belonged to a Jamaican dressed in chef’s pants and a chef’s coat. It was none other than BENTLEY, the man, the myth, the legend. He walks up toward the road and greets us, “Ya Mon, I’m the chef, I’m Bentley.” “I know who you are, you are the Man!!!” I barked back at him. “How do you know me mon?” he asked, and I replied “You are world famous mon, you are all over the internet.” You all know what came next, the famous Bentley laugh!!! We talked for a few minutes and I told him we had plans to come see him later in the week. He reminded me to call him first and then come see him. He said, “you need my number?” “No mon I said, 393-6768, I got it in my brain already.” I have this weird habit of remembering phone numbers and other useless information, I guess in this case it came in handy. As we walked back to the hotel my brother was freaking. So you never met that guy before?? Nope, but that was Bentley and we are going to see him later in the week for dinner, its going to be awesome, 5 things on the plate mon…and magic sauce!!!. He just shook his head at me as if he felt like his older brother was the weirdest person on the planet!

Back at the hotel for breakfast with the girls, we talked about what time we would transfer to Rondel from the Cliffs. We decided we would have our driver show up about noon and we would make a quick stop downtown at the HiLo for a couple supplies and get to Rondel about 1230pm. If the room was not ready we would already be in our beach clothes, so no problem we would dump our luggage at the front desk and check in later.

Here are a couple of shots from Le Mirage before we move to the beach. It is a great place to stay, I am not sure I could handle a full week there, maybe if I was there in high season and there were lots of other people around it would be different, but it just seemed so quiet and with no bar or restaurant around there weren’t folks from the outside stopping by. I guess it was just different, I’m certainly not complaining about it, it is wonderful place and the scenery is awesome. We all decided that we stayed there just the perfect amount of time and that it is a good way to get into the Negril groove, a couple of days of peaceful and quiet on the Cliffs before we hit the hustle and bustle of the beach.

Melo and JMA in the infinity pool


Love the shady Gazebo…like Booger said earlier, I think you can get Naked and do your thing there if you are into that…



This jet ski is not as close as it appears, I was testing the zooming and focusing abilities of my new camera



Before we knew it, it was noon and time to head to the beach and say bye to Le Mirage

[Monty&Melo]

So on the ride from the Cliffs to the beach the trip took a very interesting turn. Our driver also raises goats and sells them to restaurants in Lucea, Green Island, Orange Bay and Negril. We talk about the goat business with him every time we visit the Island. I love Goat and I eat it many times on each of my trips to Negril. I even buy frozen goat meat here in the states and cook Curry Goat at home a couple times each year. So when we get picked up at Le Mirage and are driving towards the beach, our driver informs us that he wants to have us over to a friend’s house in Lucea one day of our trip and he will bring a goat and we will make a big pot of curry goat as well as some Mannish Water and fry chicken. It’s very slow right now and if he misses a day of work it won’t be that big of a deal because this time of year literally whole days go by without him getting any paid rides.

Wow, I’ve hung out with Jamaicans plenty of times, but this would be a first for me. A day at a Jamaican home cooking and drinking and having a good time. Perfect I thought!! However, before committing, I told our driver that we would talk it over, figure out what day would be good for us and that we would let him know next time we see him.

We very quickly pull up at Rondel Village. As we suspected our rooms were not ready, but no problem, we just stashed our bags in the office and headed to the beach. We very quickly encountered Carl, one of the security guards at Rondel Village. The greatest thing about Rondel Village is the staff. We know all of them, from the housekeepers, to the security guards, to the best bartender in all of Negril, Delroy. The staff is what keeps us coming back, these folks literally feel like family to us and the first day there always feels like I am back where I am supposed to be. The Hotel recently took over the bar and restaurant after leasing it out to third parties for several years. They renovated the kitchen, added a second bathroom and now have nice changing rooms as well as separate men’s and women’s restrooms. Currently they are renovating the property across the street, adding 16 rooms (there were 8 over there before) as well as adding a spa facility. It looks like it is going to be very nice over there and we decided when we got home that we would get a room on the garden side for our upcoming February trip. The hotel just keeps getting better and better!!!

The bruddas upon arrival (I assume that is his girlfriends's purse, my brother does not carry a purse, not that there is anything wrong with that!!!)


Melo getting a hug from Carl on the beach



Home Sweet Home



We took the rest of Sunday pretty easy, hanging on the beach, enjoying the sunset and finally walking down the road to Best of the West for some jerk chicken. It was another early night for us. I almost couldn’t wait to get to bed so that I could get up early and take my first beach walk of the trip. I liked walking the West End (plenty of new things to see), but I live for my beach walks. I love watching the beach “wake up” in the morning and its damned good exercise to rid your body of the excesses of vacation, too much food, too much drink, you know the rest…..

First full beach day soon some…..

[Hettie]

Enjoying your report! I'm another big fan of the Charlotte airport. The first reach we flew Delta connecting through Atlanta, found the US Airways connection through Charlotte the next time and never looked back. I work on racking up those US Airways miles all year long!