Laid back breakfast on the deck, looking out to the water...
We indulge while on vacation, by having blue mountain coffee with sweetened condensed milk.
I wander over to the new little palm tree to check out the view down the beach.
G *loves* her banana pancakes
A typical breakfast for me here is porridge and toast. This morning it's cornmeal porridge.
...maybe I shoot a few photos of the emerging wildlife.
I love the color on this lizard's tail
Optional captions for this photo...
Hey, get a room!
Aw come on, I'm trying to eat my breakfast here.
What happens in Jamaica stays in Jamaica
*bow chicka wow wow*
Have our chairs set up (three chairs, one table, one umbrella, this year by the new little palm tree)
...slather on sunscreen, grab the snorkels, get into the water to feed the fish, and cool down from the already hot sun.
Once waterlogged, we sit under the umbrella for a while to warm up, maybe read, maybe nap. Rinse off the seawater, wander the beach for lunch.
Today's lunch turned into an adventure, as we stepped out just at the beginning of the daily offering of rain. We grabbed a cab which took us to a highly recommended pizza place that happened to not open for another 3 hours (though we did not discover this until after the cab was gone, and the rain turned to amazing downpour)
And the rain rain rain came down down down... as we hid out under a bar's roof.
When the rain let up, we went to two other highly recommended pizza places, both of which were not open until 3, and finally ended up hitting Kuyaba simply because it was the closest option. We loved them for dinner last year, but found their lunch menu somewhat lacking in options. Still, it was food, and my veggie quesadilla (filled with mushrooms, calallo, onions and peppers - a sort of Mexican/Jamaican fusion) was plenty tasty for me.
I walked back to the room ahead of D and G, opting for the route up the beach now that the clouds had passed. I don't often walk anywhere alone, and while the beach is not an unsafe place during the day... I have noticed that the salespeople along this way normally address D - calling out "Hey Dad! Hey Mon, come see what I make!", maybe indicating me in a "come and see if der is someting for da mamma". Alone, however, I am the one they address... come shake my hand, welcome to Jamaica, where are you from? Where are you staying? How do you like to get high?" They seem honestly stunned that I don't smoke... and this is about the point where I need to point out that I'm here with my family, I don't party, and I'm now going to continue walking.
One guy, after registering the word "Husband", leaned closer and said "You are on vacation, you can let loose a little"... I shrugged and said I don't party, he said "You know what happens here stays here."
I shook my head, "No... that's Vegas man."
He full on laughed, fist bumped me and said "respect mon, enjoy your vacation!" and walked away still kind of giggling, back to his booth.
One of the other gentlemen who chatted me up ended the conversation by complimenting me on my arm hair. Weird thing to mention, right? That is the second man here to comment on how I have dark arm hair (though the first time was on my first trip, and that guy was more laughing in a bemused way and pointing my arms out to his buddies) Am I really that much of a rarity? I don't believe I'm the only white woman with dark hair that visits the island. Granted my hair is dark and relatively thick, but it's not like I'm a furry.
On my walk I did get to see an exciting site... a nice sized stingray, about a good 6 feet across, making her way down the length of the beach. I tried to hop in the water and get a shot of her but as soon as my foot hit the water she veered away from shore, and swam too fast for me to get close enough for an underwater pic.
The shy stingray. Frankly I'm kind of glad to know she is shy.
Back to the room after lunch, we let our food settle while we re-apply a layer of sunblock, then it's back out to the beach for the combination swimming, fish feeding, lounging and reading until we begin to get the urge to figure out dinner. When we are done with our sand adventures for the day we gather up our stuff, head into the room to shower up, and decide where we want to dine. After having the hit-and-miss attempt to find food for lunch, we decided to just stay close to the room and eat dinner right out on the deck. After ordering, I wandered out to the water's edge to get a shot of the dramatic cloud formation at sunset.
I ordered the blackened mahi mahi, served with a mango salsa, that was just the right combination of sweet and spicy.
Mmmmm, mahi mahi
I devoured it.
We spent the rest of the night hanging around the bar, playing a few games of dominoes and chatting with Needle and some of the other guests.
Needle high-fives G for beating him at dominoes... a Kodak moment!
The folks staying here this time around are all generally very friendly, regulars who come here once or twice a year... some know each other from previous trips, some from reputation. All in all it's a great crowd of people, and I've been enjoying the random conversations and introductions.
At night, we fall asleep to what sounds like a million bugs... they begin singing at sundown and continue throughout the night. I don't have much of an image, but I took this video in order to share the audio:
On the rare occasion that I wake, it's easy enough for me to tell whether we're close to dawn or not if the bugs are still singing.
There are mosquitoes, but they seem to be smaller than back home and for the most part we haven't been bothered by them (which is unusual, as D and G are both usually big mosquito magnets) There are some kind of sand fleas or something that bite from about the knee down if you go into the sand around sunset. I have a few bites, but they don't itch, I just notice them the next day and wonder where they came from. We have mostly been on the coast though, not really hung out inland in the jungley area yet, so I'll let you know if that's different.
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