First trip to Negril - Travel Report : Coco La Palm - DAY 5

[Hubby-man]

There was no denying it. The rain season had begun midway through our trip and showers were noticeably more frequent than in the first 3 days. I am not saying that to deter anyone from coming to Jamaica during late April. Quite the opposite.



As I have mentioned before the reaction nature has to the change is absolutely astonishing. If part of the reason why you travel is to see new, rare and otherworldly wildlife; Jamaica is the place to go. A lot of the birds and insects found here can't be seen anywhere else, or at least only in a very few other places.

Even the pigeons are special. With their heads topped with little white caps and and their neck ringed with strange shimmering plates, they seem to be sprung from Avatars Pandora or some other far away Galaxy.

As we walked back through the coco la palm grounds, I saw the huge black underside of a beetle laying on the beach. I bend down and checked for signs of life, but he seemed to have passed on. I gently picked him up and yelled over to Daisy in excitement.

Me: “ Hey, look at this! Isn't he amazing!”.
Daisy: “Yuck! Put that down!”

We don't all appreciate the same phenomena.

Daisy: “You are not going to bring that back to the room, will you ?” she gave me a stern look.
Me: “Well, we have to document it.”
Daisy: “I don't think so!”

I stick my nose up in the air and do my best impression of a British Dr Livingston.
Me: “Did you know that from the estimated 1 to 100 Million species of beetle only about 300.000 are documented? We don't even know how many are out there. I mean 1 – 100 million, you caaaan't even call that an estimate. This is our duty, dear! You may fall back in line now!”

With that I marched firmly ahead, not allowing any further debate on the matter. Daisy followed with a disgusted look.

Inside I carefully place the beetle in a well lit area to take some pictures from all sides. Daisy busied herself with what ever she could do far away from the carcass.





I later found out that this was unfortunately not one of the unknown species, but a already classified Jewel beetle called Chromeus Gigantea, non-the-less a rather rare species with much media attention. Among other things, he had had his own Magazine cover in the 90's with a picture very similar to this one. So there!



When I was done photographing and Daisy needed a nap. I was just in the right mood to go exploring Nature around our honeymoon, extravaganza luxury suite.

[Hubby-man]

If you look closely every fence post every tree stem and branch is claimed by one of the many lizards.



Not the size of a Mexican Iguana, they still proudly flash the colorful flap below their throat trying to make a memorable impression when observed.

On the fence to the neighboring hotel I found a lively flock of Banana-quits. Just like my bird-book had described they were busy piercing flowers with their curve shaped beaks. Unlike most nectar feeding animals they just don't play by the rules and avoid the whole getting-dusted-with-pollen and fertilizing business by cracking the petal vault from behind, sucking out the nectar without any benefit to the plant. So cute and yet so sneaky!



I was getting hungry at this point. So I headed back to the hotel room

I'll hand this narrative back over to Daisy..

[Clarity]

Afterwards we had a round of Dirty Banana's (2 for 1 happy hour CCLP) and then sat on the sand to watch another beautiful sunset.







The security guard at CCLP offered to take our picture and we happily handed him our camera








After the sunset, I looked at my watch and realized it was time to head over to the SeaStar to see Luciano live in concert...

I was really looking forward to seeing this show and I couldn't wait to catch a glimpse of the famous Rob and Lisa, perhaps meet a few of the other boardies that had helped us plan our trip.

To be continued..