Wednesday April 9th - a little more shopping and beach time

This morning I brought my camera down to the deck with me at breakfast and spent the morning split between eating my corn porridge with toast, and leaping up out of my seat to chase birds around the area.  For a bird watcher, it was a very productive morning.  Here is a sampling of some of the photos I captured...

Prarie Warbler

Bananaqut (locally called a beansquit) building a nest in the big tree off the deck

One of the many lizards

Northern Mockingbird - these birds stretch their wings when they perch, like cheerleaders trying to get a crowd of people to go from sitting to standing

Bananaquit

Northern Parula

Jamaican Woodpecker 

As our trip progresses, everyone around me seems to have fallen into the habit of getting my attention every time they spot a bird.

Here is a shot of the lush gardens on the property.

D had plans to go on a scooter adventure today, so my sister and I decided to walk down to the Waves market around mid-morning and check out some of the artist's booths.

Ready to Ride

Yeah... they're badass.

G walking down the Waves market.

I greatly prefer the Waves market over the craft market at the end of the beach... the concentration of booths at the big craft market makes the shop owners competitive, whereas the folks at the Waves are far less intrusive and more helpful than anything.  G did a good job shopping, she found a sculpture she liked, but waited and looked at all the booths before settling on anything to buy.  I found a new booth with artwork that I had never seen before.  This artist was painting woodcarvings, however rather than just using stain, he was painting using shades of sand from all over Jamaica.  The end effect made the carvings look as though they were partially made of stone.

I really loved the larger pieces hanging from the ceiling, especially the clocks, however they were all too large for me to buy without getting D's opinion.  I did find a fun palm tree with a parrot, which I thought would go well with my doctor bird carving.

This is the carving G picked out (she also bought some friendship bracelets for a few friends back home, which she tied to the sculpture so she wouldn't lose them)

Here are my two carvings... the one on the left has sand on the bird's beak and the ground part.  The doctor bird is from the large craft market from the other day.

After some successful shopping, we made it back to the hotel for lunch (Jamaican stir fry for me again) and then cooled down with a bit of swimming in the ocean.  The scooter folks arrived back at the hotel and told us about their adventures (including a guy on a motorcycle trying to sell them aloe while they were driving!) and then we all gradually cleaned up and voted on heading out to Xtabi for dinner.

Xtabi is a restaurant up on the cliffs which has a great view, and is built on top of some caves.  We sat outside, although the weather seemed to be sort of sprinkling, but not quite wanting to rain... we took our chances.  We only felt a few little sprinkles, but otherwise the weather seemed to clear out as we sat at the table. Their menu is pretty extensive... lots of local food (conch served in various ways) and several "fish of the day" options with 5 different ways to prepare the fish.  I chose steamed snapper:

My dinner came with rice and peas, veggies, and a small scoop of mashed potatoes.  The fish was a generous portion, I was barely able to finish my food.

After dinner, D took me down the stairs to check out the caves.  My niece kept calling them bat caves, which I thought was just a clever reference to Batman... however it was actually filled with bats.

After dinner we headed back to the hotel and settled into the bar with a drink and a few games of dominoes before turning in for the night.

Tuesday April 8 - some shopping and beach time

This morning I woke up around 6:30 and tip-toes out to the kitchen to make some coffee.  D had made a run to the grocery store yesterday on his scooter, so he picked up a few things for the room.  I was able to make a nice little pot of blue mountain coffee at the strength we like it, along with some sweetened condensed milk to go with it.  My sister had come up with the idea that we should get a post card and send it to my folks with everyone's signature, so after breakfast and snacking, we gathered our stuff up and started heading up the beach to visit some of the gift shops.  G and one of my nieces came with us, as D was going to head out with my brother-in-law to get a second scooter.  I haven't been shooting with my plastic film camera much, so I brought it with me on this trip instead of the digital.  After a lot of walking in the hot sand, and stopping in to quite a few shops, we settled on a couple of post cards.  I found one which is a leaf with a doctor bird painted on it... it immediately caught my eye so I picked it up quick.  We stopped off for some bottles of cold water on our way back to the hotel, and after putting our treasures away we settled in for some lunch.  I ordered the Jamaican stir fry again, just because it is one of my favorite ways to have vegetables and seems to be both light and filling at the same time.

D and my brother in law had headed out for a scooter ride with the other two nieces, they appeared back at the hotel just as our lunch was being served.  After letting my food settle and reapplying sun block, G and I went out into the water to see if we could go hunting for shells in the low waves.  We saw a group of people standing on the edge of the water and quickly realized that the stingray was circling around on our beach.

The dark blob is the stingray... I didn't want to get any closer than that.

Earlier in the day, my niece had gotten ahold of Karl Ricketts, a local artist I'd heard about online.  We've seen a lot of art in the booths around here, however she was keen on buying art directly from the artist, and I like the work of his that I have seen online, so we decided to meet with him so that we could see what he had available.  Apparently he has become quite popular and only had 10 pieces to show us today.  After some browsing and thinking and chatting, my niece bought a piece showing the cliffs, I bought two pieces... one showing sugarcane fields (which G and I both really loved) and another showing the cliffs from Xtabi looking down towards 3 Dives restaurant.

After having spent the day running around and then waiting for the artist, everyone was pretty well worn out.  We decided to take it easy for the night... D fell asleep in the hammock, I was hungry so I went down to the bar and ordered a shrimp rundown (shrimp in a coconut/papaya sauce)  G joined me after a little bit and ordered the same thing, everyone else wandered next door for dinner.  After dinner, I spent a little time reading my book and then headed to bed.