Today was a day with zero agenda, which
made for a nice recovery after all the big adventure of the day
before. I woke around 6:30 a.m., grabbed my camera with the zoom
lens, and meandered down to the restaurant to pick up a cup of
coffee. The staff are all kind, wishing me a good morning and
keeping their voices low as I pause to look for birds. One of the
groundskeepers, Mikey, kept quietly getting my attention to point out
birds in the gardens for me to get photos of, and then he would name
the birds... “here is a lionsquit... over there is what we call a
ground pigeon”. I have seen several hummingbirds in the gardens,
however they have unfortunately been far to swift for me to capture
on film.
There was a woman staying at the hotel
who looked familiar to me, but I could not exactly place her face.
For the most part I saw her sitting alone in the restaurant reading
her book during her meals. I overheard her speaking to another guest
at breakfast this morning about yoga, which is why the conversation
caught my attention, and then I also thought her voice sounded really
familiar. It turns out she was Karen Allen (the actress from Indiana
Jones – Raiders and Crystal Skull) I had heard before that a lot
of actors like to stay at this hotel, and the one next door, however
this was the first time I ever noticed one in person. I suppose I am
too narrowly focused on the birds and other critters.
This heron was hanging out in and around the pool all morning, up until more guests came out of their rooms for breakfast.
Standing on the edge of the property looking north... this is one of my first attempts to use my Lensbaby with the optic80 glass.
This lizard on the next table is what I end up noticing, as opposed to Karen Allen eating breakfast at the table on the other side of me.
This morning I had the pleasure of
finally attending one of the yoga classes at Tensing Pen. (I have
always missed them in the past due to the timing of our visits) G
joined us, along with one of my nieces and another guest staying on
the property. The teacher was very interesting... the yoga was a
very slow pace and all poses that I have done before, however we
entered into each pose in a new way. In addition, she gave us a talk
about “body habits”... the way we clasp our hands in one
direction and cross our legs in one direction. She instructed us to
always do the action, then immediately switch our legs/hand/fingers
(whatever is crossed) so that we can begin to find more balance.
Otherwise, one side of your body is always longer than the other.
One of the reasons I enjoy trying new yoga classes is because I
always learn at least one new technique from every teacher.
Most of the rest of the day was very
laid back for us all... we walked across the street for food and I
had a combination Ital meal from Ras Rody's. Ras Rody is currently
living in the US and no longer runs the stand himself, but his kids
are keeping up the family tradition.
Lunch... pumpkin soup on the left, then calaloo, mixed vegetables, soy, and another veggie mix on top of a bed of rice and peas.
The afternoon was spent relaxing in the
pool for some of us, and swimming in the ocean for others, and
generally just enjoying the warm air and sounds of the ocean waves.
D jumping off the cliff
G was very proud to show everyone how she made the leap to jumping into the pool, all by herself!
We all gathered back at the house as a wave of rain came in, so we
cleaned up and began discussing dinner. Nobody really wanted to
travel far, so we sent a few scouts out to grab some food and bring
it back to the room. Unfortunately, the first place tried was out of
jerk chicken, the next place was closed, and the night ended up being
a series of hop-scotches around Negril trying to track down some jerk
pork and jerk chicken. Back in the room, I was experimenting with
drinks and came up with a nice combo of one part pineapple juice, one
part guava juice, and one part coconut rum (but only CocoMania will
do... all the others taste like sun tan lotion) As our hunting party
returned, foil wrapped packages of jerk chicken, jerk pork, cocobread
and festival were laid out in the center island of the kitchen and we
all dug in. As our evening progressed, we all dropped off to bed one
by one, to be well rested and ready for the next day of adventures.
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