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

[Monty&Melo]

So Tuesday, day #5 started out as usual, long walk up the beach, breakfast, beach, wash, rinse, repeat…you know the drill….

I decided to take a swim….with the beach so small, all of the sand is located out in the sea so you can go out from the beach for a long time without losing the ability to touch. I’m a decent swimmer so I don’t worry much about not being able to get back to the beach, so I float around out there for a while, or long enough to drink the beer that I have with me. I begin to work my way back in and when I get in the very shallow water I turn around with my back towards the beach and just use my hands to propel me through the water to get back to the beach. All of a sudden…damn that hurt, my back is on fire and crap, its spreading and f#$@ now my wrist hurts. I jump up out of the water and run to the Rondel Village foot wash/shower area, I figure I am going to wash off what is hurting me. The water doesn’t wash away the pain, so I head over to the bar to get my wife to rescue me. I explain what happened and immediately Carl says “Jellyfish mon, he bite you, get some Vinegar from the kitchen.” So the bartender runs into the kitchen and comes back with a teacup full of vinegar. Melo starts to apply it and immediately it feels better. She treats the two spots on my back, my upper arm and finally my wrist. 18 trips to Jamaica, swimming in the sea everyday and never a jellyfish sting. I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later and if that is as bad as it gets I guess it was not so bad. But I definitely don’t look forward to the next one!! Here is a pic of the damage.

The swelling actually went away pretty quickly



Today was the day we were walking the girls to Red Dragon with a short stop on the way. We figured we would wait until the sun got real high in the sky and the heat was at a maximum…you drink more when you are hot and isn’t that really the idea!?!? We agreed that we would leave about 1215pm and arrive at Red Dragon some time after 1pm. After hanging on the beach for a couple of hours we decided to change clothes, get our shoes on and prepare to head out.

Grab a beer from the fridge and down the road we go….first beer lasts us until we get just past Bourbon Beach, so we drop in Drinks Plus to get 4 more. They have two big freezers in there with wata, soda, ting, juice and BEER in there. Great to get beers out of the freezer, so cold!! I grab 4 beers and head to counter to pay, we turn in the four bottles that we have and I pay the lady behind the counter while Melo uses the handy bottle opener they have attached to the counter to open all 4 beers. $560 for 4 beers and we are on our way again. We usually cross the road at the Negril River bridge, I always like to walk the road with the traffic coming towards me….I figure I can jump out of the way if I actually see what is coming at me. So I always wait as long as I can to cross.

We cross the road and make our way around the roundabout, past Juicy Patties and the Shell Station and then it happened. We ended up here!!!!!



The Negril Police Station……I love stopping there for a beer on the way to Red Dragon, it is helpful to get out of the sun for a few minutes, and it’s damned interesting to see the comings and goings. On this trip there were about 100 motorcycles that had been confiscated by the Police. They were all piled in the front room, one almost on top of the other, all tangled up in each other and it really looked like a motorcycle grave yard. We were told these bikes had license issues, insurance issues, etc. Once the owner cleared everything up they could come and claim their bike back. I thought to myself, good luck getting the one out of the very back of the pile, they would literally have to move every bike to get one from the back. After a while if they are not claimed they are sold at auction. We finish our beer and head up the road to Red Ground and the Red Dragon.



I don’t usually take a camera to Red Dragon, I get it that it is not really a tourist place and that Jamaicans are living their everyday lives and use this place as a grocery store, a place to get rum, single Craven A’s, and phone cards. Trying to be as respectful as I can, I don’t usually take pictures there. This day was an exception however, because you never know if a newbie is going to be back, so on the chance that this is their one and only trip to this place, it only makes a little sense to respectfully document the experience. So we took some shots….here are a few

Melo and Gardo



Two Brothers



The pork!!!!



Like I mentioned earlier, I love the Red Dragon beer, so very cold, but on this trip for some (very odd) reason I decided that after the first beer I would get into the JB and Ting. That JB stuff is wicked but if you add enough Ting, it isn’t so bad and it goes well with the Jerk Pork. I told Gardo to give us plenty of peppers in our pound of pork, LG doesn’t like spicy so my brother didn’t have any added to their pound. WOW, those peppers made it very hot!! I ate a few of them and washed it down with JB and Ting, my scalp is actually tingling right now as I type this thinking back to it. Just a great feeling, Melo didn’t agree however and I thought she was going to kill me for getting our pork so spicy. I will remember next time to get Melo her own pork if I decide to get by Scotch Bonnet on like that. After hanging out for a while we decide to head back to the beach, I called our driver, he had a beer and some pork and we were ready to go.

When we got back to the beach we decided we might as well keep the party going and make this the Ricks/Ivans/LTU evening. So we all got ready and told our driver to come pick us up at 330pm for the trip.

More Soon Come…..