Chapter 10

“Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”
― Benjamin Franklin

 We arrived at CocoLaPalm and they were expecting us. For the first time in the trip, someone wanted to see some ID and get my credit card information. I needed to put $100 deposit down for 'incidentals' which would be refunded at the end of the trip if we hadn't used it. I have a foot note on that detail. Other than at Catcha, we were paying in cash everywhere, including Coco; it keeps spending under control. When we checked out, they refunded the deposit. However, exchange rates weren't going our way and by the time my credit card had its fees, we were out $19. So minor really, but if I had known that was going to happen, I would have spent $100 at the bar rather than paying cash for our Red Stripe.

Check in was a breeze and the porter showed us to our room. I had been disappointed I wasn't able to book a junior suite but as it turns out I needn't have been, because we ended up in one anyway. Yippee! Seriously, this room is huge. It is a big octagon, with a beautiful double vaulted wooden ceiling. The two queen beds couldn't have taken up 20% of the floor space. There was table for four, a couch and a big wet bar. The bathroom had a big open closet, double sinks with something like five feet of counter between them and a double shower. You could practically park a car in the bathroom and still get ready in the morning. The balcony was huge, with a table and four chairs and two loungers. We were towards the street side of the property, overlooking the Coco fountain. The fountain made great white noise, so we didn't really hear the street. The greenery in the centre of that section of the property is so lush. I was totally in love.

We did make it down to the beach in time for sunset.


It was another winner, at least from the beach.


Given these clouds, I don't know how the view would have been on the West End. Looks like we moved just in time!


If you are ever looking for me in Negril, if it is around sunset I can reliably be found facing west just taking it all in. Which was exactly were Mamade11 found us. We swapped stories of the day and she suggested perhaps later we might share a few beverages around the hot tub a little later. We agreed to the concept. We each went our own way for dinner. We'd been in Negril for six days and hadn't had any barrel jerk yet, so our plan was to head across the street to Best in the West.