Alright, I know everyone has been checking my blog every ten minutes in anxious expectation for the final part of my trip. (okay maybe not! :) So here it is!
So picking up where we left off, the next day, we took the public transportation through Annotto Bay, Ocho Rios, Falmouth, Montego Bay, Lucea and we finally ended up in Negril. It was a long day of travel, but it was fun!
Alright, so if you have to, make this map bigger. So near this end -> and to the top, you will find the city of Port Antonio. So that is where we were for the first part of our trip. It is very green and really laid back there. It was cloudy almost the entire time we were there, but it was beautiful.
So for the final part of our journey, we decided we should try out another part of the island, so we headed clear to the other side to the city of Negril. Much different. Negril is the home of the 7 mile beach, which means much more tourism, but it also meant a whole lot of sun. Not too many mountains on this side of the island, so no clouds. (which means I got very, very sunburnt!)
Alright with that said, here's how the rest of the vacation turned out.
When we got there, it was already dark, so we found our "cottage" and we got settled. We decided we'd like to find something to eat and so we headed out. As we wandered down the beach, we met a lot of new friends. Jamaicans are very friendly. And they love women, so two white girls... we made a lot of friends! :) Come to find out, that night was thursday night, which meant it was ladies night at the local club "the Jungle". I couldn't resist. Going to the jungle with the majority of men there being black. Jungle fever at the jungle. I thought it was too funny to pass up, so we got ready and we went.
Although it was fun, we got there at like 10 and apparently clubs in Jamaica don't start hopping til about 1am. So we danced, we got offered "the good stuff" and we decided dancing was maybe not our thing, so we had our jungle experience and then we left.
After we left the club, we were headed home when we met this fine gentleman. He was pretty boisterous and funny. When he found out that we were from Utah his first response was, "You guys are mormons!" Yup we replied. Well he just could not believe that in all the world he had ran into Mormons on the beach in Jamaica. He was getting louder and more boisterous when suddenly he got serious, bent his head down a bit, and whispered, "Don't worry, I'm a school teacher from Canada. And I'm only semi-drunk!" So funny! He was pretty nice, he then told us he has a good friend who is Mormon and he thinks our religion is weird, but he likes the people. Oh Canada!
Well, since we weren't really into the club scene and it seemed that every soul in all of Negril was at the Jungle, we decided to do our own craziness. I won't go into all the details, but we took several pictures and Emily kept telling me I didn't quite look crazy enough for what we were about to do, so here is our "we're a little out of minds" picture. Don't worry, I still am a worthy temple recommend holder! :)
Alright so the next morning we woke up and this was the sight that filled our eyes. Our room was totally on the beach and the water was clear and blue and the sun was warm and it was very, very beautiful.
Yup, that's how close our cottage was to the beach! Awesome!
Here is our little cottage. We were the room on the right.
One full size bed, private bathroom and kitchenette. Who says staying in hostels was a bad idea?! I think this room was $30 a night/ person. Not too bad.
Us on the beach.
Relaxing. "Don't worry, bout a thing..." and I wasn't!
"I've got my toes in the water. Toes in the sand. Not a worry in the world, [a good book] in my hand. Life is good today, life is good today!" -Zach Brown Band
We went to lunch at Alfred's. It was pretty delicious. I got blackened chicken and Emily got shrimp scampi, which was amazing because it was so fresh! Also, if you'll notice, I never have got the hang of applying sunscreen. Bless MY heart!
Outside our room. So gorgeous!
Everyone in Negril goes to this place called Rick's Cafe to watch the sunset. You can watch the sunset anywhere, but at Rick's you're up on the hill a bit and there was a live band. We actually got there to find just enough clouds were about to make the sunset hard to see, but we did get some fabulous after sunset pictures!
Toes!
We were dancing our way around the place when the lead singer of the band came and danced with us for a bit. It was fun! Off to the left of this picture is a place where people can actually cliff jump into the ocean. I was hoping to be able to do it, but we got there too late.
This was probably my favorite friend of the whole trip. Marcus is to my left, but he was pretty into himself. Peter is in the middle of Emily and I. I really liked Peter. He was very nice and seemed more genuine that many other people we met, especially in Negril. We talked to him a little about the gospel and I really hope he is able to find the church, because he seemed so much like he was looking for it!
The next morning was day we should depart, so we got up early to make the trip back to Montego Bay to catch our flight. I was in the bathroom getting ready when Emily said, "You are never gonna believe this! Oh my gosh, you are never gonna believe this!" I went to the window and it was hard to believe. The missionaries were right on our beach having a baptismal service. We felt kinda like creepers, but it was so cool. We watched the service from our room and then as they went down to baptize her, we walked out and watched. It was awesome!
Yes, the Elders and the Branch President! So, so cool! (yes I really was that red!)
And that was an amazing way to end our little vacation in Jamaica. We gave the missionaries Peter's info and the we checked out and headed toward the airport. We caught a cab and the driver was so nice, he ended up taking us all the way to Mo Bay and didn't charge us a private taxi fee, just the regular public fee.
We made it back to the states about 5pm and finally back to Utah at midnight Saturday.
It was an incredible trip. My favorite part was Port Antonio! But we made some good friends along the way. Ya Mon!
I realize I never blogged about my room in Port Antonio and since we did stay in Hostels, I feel it only fair to share with everyone how cozy they were.
Here is the view from the door. Full size bed, and large window.
The nice mirror and slanted roof.
Personal sink and a small closet.
And me! We shared a bathroom with the 3 other rooms on the floor, but luck for us, just Claire and Cris were the only other people on the floor, so we just shared with them. Definitely not a hot shower, but in the tropics I would not say that is the most important thing! :)
