Friday - the last full day

Our last full day in Jamaica dawns with fresh blue skies and calm waters.  It's a relatively quiet morning, and since all of our running around for this trip is done, we take our time to soak in the beach environment while we can.  Breakfast is long, slow, and laid back... as I keep popping up from my chair to snap photos of the lizards who decided to join us for the morning.

This guy was running along the chain link fence that separates the properties

This guy was in the palm tree above our heads.

I also spent some time wandering the gardens with the lensbaby lens on my camera

We spent the rest of the morning and into the afternoon taking in the last of our swimming opportunities, feeding the fish and enjoying the beach.

G being the mermaid that she has turned into

Look I'm swimming in the ocean without a floaty!  (OK it's only 3 feet deep, but still...)

D, floating and feeding the fish.  You've gotta keep the bread out of the water or it'll just turn to mush.

This is vacation... ice cold coconut water, hot sun, and perfect water.

Around mid-afternoon the stingray came back through while I was out in the water.  I didn't have the camera on me at the time, but I got to see it for the first time under the water.  Holy shit, that thing is huge... the body itself looked large from the surface, but looking under the water I got to see the 6 foot long tail trailing behind it.  It was at once beautiful, amazing, and slightly terrifying.  
We stayed at Idle Awhile all day, either in the chairs, on the deck, or at the bar playing dominoes.  D met a group from the Caymen Islands who also seem to have a Patois-like dialect and were immediately drawn to the sound of dominoes on the bar. While D got into a game for money, G and I stayed at a table and played Spot It and Uno.  (Jennie, one of the bartenders, got into our Spot It game so we ended up leaving the game for her to take home... we'll replace it through Amazon once we get back in the states.)  As D worked through his big game, we ordered lunch.

I ordered the steamed fish for lunch, which is not nearly as bland as it sounds... steamed with onions and peppers, and served with callaloo and fries for me, since I'd had my fill of rice and peas.

After lunch we stayed around the beach a bit, doing a little more swimming until the waves got too wavey and the fish had moved on.   After we turned in our towels and cleared our gear from the chairs, we headed back to the room to shower up and start semi-sorting things out for packing.

Then we decided to just shove that off until morning, and enjoy what we had left of interaction with the folks at the hotel.

Friday night at Idle Awhile is a special menu prepared deck-side and live music.  Tonight there was not even a hint of rain, so the band set up on their stage on the beach, as we gathered on the deck to hang out with the staff and get ready for dinner. As the sun set, our last sunset of our vacation, we wandered out to the beach to take some photos.

G and I in front of the sunset

G by the little palm tree where we had our chairs set up every day.

The sunset as viewed from my camera

After the sunset I packed up the camera gear and stuck around the bar, hanging out and talking with the guys before we eventually wandered over to our table for dinner.  I ordered the peppered shrimp - same dish I'd had the week before - which was excellently spicy.  D and S had both ordered the peppered steak along with some of the conch (steamed in a foil pouch with callaloo)  and they couldn't finish their dinner so I ended up with a lot of conch/callaloo as well.
There was a large group of girls who had just checked in to the hotel earlier in the week - 6 girls in their late 20's who are originally from the east coast, and for the last 5 years have made an annual trip to Jamaica all together to hang out on the beach and chill.  G made friends with them quickly (telling one about the zipline adventure, and then she would stop a friend, and then stop another friend, so that they could all hear about G's big adventures in the jungle)  They took up the big center table during dinner, and the surrounding tables were all filled with other guests of the hotel.  It was the busiest time I'd seen at the restaurant... the music was fantastic and the atmosphere was like one giant party.

D during his big game of dominoes

Needle, in the midst of taking care of tables

This is Aaron, one of the security guards that D stays up chatting with well into the night.

Tonight's band up on stage

G and I at the table after finishing up our meals

During the last song the girls got up from their table and hauled G out to dance... she wanted me to come too.

We stayed out at the bar all night... throughout dinner, after the band had cleared their gear, after the guests had all left... we were there at the bar with the crew.  Needle stayed after work to get into a game of dominoes with D, Aaron and one of the chefs from the kitchen.  It's amazing to watch how fast they play, see them calculate how many cards are left, see how they can read each other's hands... and of course I'm there to make sure Needle doesn't cheat.  (How do you cheat at dominoes?  Move quick, with authority, swap the dominoes around, and play two at once when nobody is looking.  Needle is highly skilled at sneaking hands, but even after two of his special rum punches I can still spot his attempts to cheat.  You know he's contemplating it when he asks me "Hey, don't you need to check on G?")  Needle stayed up well past closing, as it was our last time to hang out with him, and it was hugs all around when he finally had to call it a night and head home.  I went in to our room - with all our clothing strewn about, my gear spread across the bed, and not one damn thing packed, and passed out for a short night of sleep.

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.