Thursday May 12 - Beach and shopping day

I've found that when the water is calm and the fish are hanging out in the shallows, it is incredibly peaceful to just float on the surface of the water with my snorkel and mask on... breathing calmly while I watch the fish meander around.  It's not quite sensory deprivation, but with my ears below the surface I hear mainly the sound of my own breath through the snorkel and a distant muted sound of waves lapping against the beach.  The fish are both soothing and interesting to watch, as they shift lazily with the movement of the waves, only really putting effort into swimming when one suddenly notices food, and the rest - as if having heard an announcement - zip along to follow the leader.

 The water, first thing in the morning... from here the fish blend in completely with the sand below

D at one of our regular tables on the corner of the deck, finishing up breakfast

Today was a quite day for us... a majority of the people we'd been hanging out with in the hotel were checking out and taking off, so breakfast was a lot of exchanging of information and last minute chats before they had to pack.  As our vacation winds to an end, we plot out the last of our shopping.
There is a rastafarian named Jimmy who puts up a stand on Idle Awhile's property every Thursday, and every year we buy one or two things from him.  This year G found a shoulder bag that she just couldn't live without (and his wife makes them herself, as opposed to the ones in gift shops that are probably made in China) and I found a fun necklace that has a stone fish pendant on it which is shaped like the shad we've been feeding throughout our vacation.
We also wanted to stop off at the Hi Lo for some Jamaican specific ingredients and a decent supply of Blue Mountain Coffee.  We also asked Ty for his recommendation on a local coffee roaster, and he brought us to
 Jessie's Coffee Shop.

 The outside of Jessies shop.

Jessie hand roasts her coffee - and by that I don't mean she does it at home in the oven... I mean she roasts it by hand over a fire.
Jessie was an absolutely delightful woman, very energetic in describing her coffee and telling us about her process.  The interior of her shop ceiling is decorated entirely in flags, mostly the Jamaican flag but also a lot of smaller flags with other symbols or faces on them (Bob Marley, etc...)  As she packed up our coffee for us she told us how happy she was that we came to her shop.  Just that morning she'd been thinking about how she needed to sell some coffee and had prayed that someone would stop by that day.  Then she took a nap in the heat of the afternoon, and woke up just an hour before we arrived.  She opened up the doors and windows for air, put on some music and was talking to a friend who had stopped by when she looked up and saw Ty's van pulling up, and she got so excited that he brought us there to see her coffee.

 Pay no attention to the bad hair day... me and Jessie

Jessie had the tiniest little kittens we've ever seen. 

After shopping we went back to the beach to hang out for a bit longer in the water before it was time to clean up and think about dinner.  Our hotel was setting up for a wedding so we decided to make ourselves scarce rather than stand over the reception.

The wedding party's archway at sunset.

We'd been debating for a while about where to go (because we knew our last night would be at Idle Awhile again)  and after much discussion we agreed to try something new and finally get in to Push Cart while it was open.

Push cart surprised the hell out of me.  After having seen so many road side stands selling food out of makeshift kitchens, I actually expected Push Cart to be something of a push cart. It turns out it is a relatively large space on the cliffs, with a big hexagon shaped bar in the center, darts on one wall, a huge statue of a pirate at the entrance, and tables overlooking the ocean.

 G standing by our table

The interior is lit by strings of lights

Me and S at the table

Their menu was a fantastic variety of Jamaican options.  I decided to try the jerk pork - which I'd only had a few bites of from a beach vendor once, so I was excited to have an entire meal of the wonderful stuff.

My jerk pork, roasted plantain, veggies and a side of callalo. The texture was like carnitas, but the spice was absolutely purely Jamaican hot.

 G enjoyed her fried chicken and a side order of festival... a fried cornmeal bread

We were also pleasantly surprised to find out that there was a live reggae band playing that night, so we were treated to a great variety of songs while we enjoyed our meal.  Besides the most popular "Three Little Birds" and "She's Royal" they also played "Here I Am Baby" and "Jump in the Line".

Me, watching the band

We enjoyed it so much we bought one of their CD's, then since we bought a CD they stayed and played a couple extra encore songs (one of them was "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" they did especially for G)

 For the last song, they invited G up to take a photo with them.

After a long full day of adventure and good food, we were ready to ease into the night with a few rounds of dominoes at the bar before calling it a night.