Another group had caught up with us at this point. We'd kind of been dallying along. At the top of the falls is the washing machine, the largest falls on this stretch and the top of the river walk. The water is just pounding down. It is pretty awesome.


We posed for the penultimate photo op and then had a few minutes on our own.


I did not want to get out of the water, but our time was done. I certainly never felt rushed in the tour, but I figure we had dragged the experience out as long as humanly possible. Andy disappeared to get on making photo magic and we took the slow jaunt back to the start.


It was along this walk that I have my only complaint about the whole experience. Our guide started up with the subtle sob story. I know he works for tips and I had factored that into my costs for the excursion. We planned to treat him very fairly for his time. What I didn't need at that was a lesson in how expensive things were for Jamaicans and how they were barely surviving. These are things I do want to here, but educating me wasn't his purpose. This was a poorly veiled attempt to guilt me out of my money. It made me want to give less, not more. But we didn't. Those five minutes of conversation did not undo the magic spell cast by the river.

We arrived and after changing walked back to the shop where we had rented Sunshine's shoes. Turns out it was the photo shop as well. We went back into Andy's office. I did a bit of a double take as I just didn't expect to encounter the widescreen Dell setup in the tin roofed cottage in the jungle.

I'd planned to buy the pictures all along and I was really happy with what I saw. Now we just had to negotiate the price. Andy directed us back to the lady out front. She started at $35. I my mind I had planned to pay $30, but I wanted to give $10 of it to Andy directly, as he was the guy who'd spent the time doing the work. So we start our little back and forth.

"$35! No, no, no, I'm not paying $35."

"Okay, for you a special deal, $30."

Well that was too easy. She clearly still sees me as an easy mark.

"You know all I have is a $20 bill. I will give you $20 right now and we have a deal."

"No, no, no, I can't do it for $20."

"Well a $20 is all I have, as I don't seem to have any change. That is the best I can do."

Her eyes squinted at me a bit at that point. We both know I'm talking about the change she didn't have for me when we rented to shoes. In a rather resigned tone, she agreed to the $20 and sent Andy back to burn the CD.

I followed along for one more look, as we wouldn't see the pictures again until we got home to a computer. He handed me the CD and I handed him a $10, "Thanks for taking such great pictures." His face split into the biggest, sincerest grin. He'd done his job well and not asked for thing; he'd earned it. After all the wonder of the day, that might be the moment I cherish most.

We got a curt goodbye from the women on the way out of the shop. We passed by one last time on our way out about 10 minutes later. She was sitting on the porch with Andy and we got a big wave and warm smile, with a shouted, "Hope to see you again!"

The walk back up the hill to the van almost killed me. We found Robert sitting under a tree, playing dominos with a couple of other taxi drivers. We told him to finish his game as we admired the country side.

We didn't drive out the way we drove in. I was starting to wonder if I had lost my mind when nothing seemed familiar. This route took us through Sav-le-Mar. I hadn't been joking about not having any change. I needed a bank machine and was planning on going to the RBC ATM near the roundabout in Negril. Robert knew where the RBC branch was in Sav and as it has a machine as well, he took us there instead.

I wish I had taken a picture of the sign posted on the locked door to the bank machine. "Closed Tuesdays from 3:00-3:30." It is of course Tuesday and it is 3:02. We went back to the van and said as much to Robert. He couldn't believe it so got out to check on it himself. He rattled door enough to have the security guard wander around the corner and confirm that yes indeed, the bank machine was closed. What are the chances?

We'd both expressed on a couple of occasions how much we enjoyed visiting his country. As we were passing through a more residential district, Robert asked me if I would want to live in Jamaica. I had to pause. I went with an honest response. "I don't actually know if I would. I don't think I know Jamaica well enough to answer that yet. Living someplace is very different that being a visitor."

He seemed to take my answer in stride. Kingsley called again to see how our return journey had been. We were happy with our trip with Robert and I told him so.

Before I knew it we were back in Negril. With a stop at the ATM and another at Shamrock's our excursion for the day was done. We'd move to a hotel only 8km away from where we started and had taken more than five hours to do it. We headed into CocoLaPalm to get checked in and hopefully down to the beach in time for the sunset.