Your Jamaican journal excerps

[R00TS]

Inspired by Marilyn and Orbra
Please add your own <span style="font-style: italic">excerps </span>

Feb 20, 2000...exchange rate $1=41.55J

Up early watching channel 35 out of Erie. So strange to see local news and weather down here. We are off to Moxons today for the night. We will have the whole place to ourselves for 50$ Arrived and was given the keys to the castle. The caretaker takes off, carrying a pot of soup, going to the jail in St Ann to see his brother who got a DUI.
Rest and pipe dreams all day. Capt Simms pulls up by boat and DV and Gaye show up also. There are tabletops and floors in this 5 bdrm residence that were made from the Ancient coconut trees that were distroyed all over the island. There are also 10 rooms of different personalities here.
We comb this beautiful peice of property and party on every deck and balcony here.
We walk over to Skips and have a bite to eat and check out the neighborhood.
Later, we are looking at photos on the walls and realize that one of the owners is the sister to a former Prime Minister. Interesting.

Off to Port Royal in the morning..

[Marilyn]

Re: Your Jamaican journal excerps

June, 2006

With the coming of age I find transitioning is a difficult thing. I find that I do not like change, I want my world to be the same. The one exception to this had been Jamaica. But still....Jamaica shocks my sensibilities, albeit in a &quot;good&quot; way.

Anyone who has traveled there with me is prepared to hear the broken record, &quot;I can't believe I'm here&quot; for the first 48 hours or so. After a years' absence, I expected tears to flow upon arrival, sensory overload, awe.

It's been a year, how will I react, how will I stand it? As smoothly as the Northwest plane glided onto Sangter's runway, I glided into the arms of Jamaica. I felt.....nothing....just home, this is where I should be.

[Nanook]

Re: Your Jamaican journal excerps

I just found a little booklet that I put together from a 3 week trip the summer of 1999 when I brought my bicycle. Roots, it's like you were reading my mind because I have been sitting here laughing at my memories.

Here's one. I had brought down a bicycle and rode it everywhere by this day, including Little Bay. By the end of a week I was bored with the same places. I have a need to roam and see things!

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'">
So as I'm headed back to Negril on this now all to familiar road it finally dawns on me that I want to see other new places, and also get back to Little Bay again and that I have gone as far in every direction that I can go on a bicycle, so if I want more I must rent a scooter.

I get back to Jah B's and tell my friend Chris that I want the RED one. So I take off on the little red scooter wondering if I had some kind of death wish, I had only driven in Jamaica twice before, but as soon as I hit the road I was having a blast. The only thing that bothered me is that the speedometer was broken and stuck on the numbers 666, and because of that I wanted to turn around and get a different one! But I didn't, I just kept heading out and straight for Little Bay.
</span>

So anyway, there you have it. How I got addicted to scooter riding and why I now own two of them!

[Nanook]

Re: Your Jamaican journal excerps

I had to laugh at this one. It's the morning I rode my bicycle to Little Bay from jah B's. I took the road through the west end in Negril, then through Orange Hill and down through Brighton. I left Jah B's about 6am so I could get there before it got too hot.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'">I had my backpack with a bottle of water and 100J in my pocket. Soon I am spending a lot more time pushing the bicycle up the steep hills than I am riding it. The people were starting to get up and greet the day and coming out into their yards and there I was, pushing my bicycle up the hills. Everyone greeted me with huge smiles and we all wish each other a great day. It was great fun and the hills seemed so much less, and it was so easy to just keep on pushing through like that I really hadn't noticed how far I'd gone or how much work it was at all. </span>

yeah well, even though it was fun and all...and Uncle Sam showed me the short cut and lifted my bicycle up over the three fences on the way back to Negril, i still didn't ride the bicycle back to Little Bay again!

[Nanook]

Re: Your Jamaican journal excerps

And for a laugh, here is one from my ever first trip, when I landed in Alligator Pond...

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'">On leaving day I was finally privileged to make the aquantince of Shorty, remember him from the beginning of the story? Shorty came to Alligator pond to visit with Peggy &amp; Roger and take us to Negril, the scenic route. Shorty has fairly recently lost his arm to a motorcycle accident and I remember jokingly asking him if he drove a car any better, and I also remember that I got a lot of laughs for that one, heheh…



That and more can be found in the archives:

hereso
</span>

[R00TS]

Re: Your Jamaican journal excerps



Are your friends Peggy&amp;Roger still traveling there?

[Laurel]

Re: Your Jamaican journal excerps

these are fun to read ...

[Nanook]

Re: Your Jamaican journal excerps

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: R00TS</div><div class="ubbcode-body">

Are your friends Peggy&amp;Roger still traveling there?

</div></div>

Peggy is still going. The report was dedicated to the memory of Roger, who has been flown to Zion.

I was hoping there would be some more excerpt here cause this IS fun!

[R00TS]

Re: Your Jamaican journal excerps

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> <span style="font-weight: bold"> It's been a year , how will I react,</span> how will I stand it? As smoothly as the Northwest plane glided onto Sangter's runway, I glided into the arms of Jamaica. I felt.....nothing....just home, this is where I should be.</div></div>

Its been 18 months for me, the longest absence ever. I'm real interested in my reaction

[R00TS]

Re: Your Jamaican journal excerps

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Nanook</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: R00TS</div><div class="ubbcode-body">

Are your friends Peggy&amp;Roger still traveling there?

</div></div>

Peggy is still going. The report was dedicated to the memory of Roger, who has been flown to Zion.

I was hoping there would be some more excerpt here cause this IS fun! </div></div>

ic RIP Roger
Party on! Peggy

Its cool.. Were just gettin goin

[QK13]

Re: Your Jamaican journal excerps

Cool!! I have never kept a journal. Photos always bring back my memories. But when I returned after 3 years, I got teary when my plane lifted off heading for Jamaica, but once I hit Jamaican soil, I was just relieved to be home again. Things fell into place like I never left. Smooth &amp; easy.

Loving these excerpts, keep them coming!!

[Laurel]

Re: Your Jamaican journal excerps

I have never been a 'journaler' either ...

but - I remember every detail of every trip - along with each 'feeling' of every experience as well.

[R00TS]

Re: Your Jamaican journal excerps

Wowsa! you two are good!


April 1999
US 1-33$Ja

Sun is shining! finally looks like a beach day. Lots of Italians here maybe 80%, we being the only Americans. Joe enjoys the topless sunbathers and I enjoy their freedom to do so..kinda haha
Plenty of coconuts have washed ashore these last few days. Were on the beach by 730.
I go up to lunch alone and enjoy the paper and alot of service. I notice the Marigolds are everybit of 5 to 6 ft tall and all in bloom. cool abounds!
After showers and a call for a ride to dinner we share bottle of Debonne and celebrate to the nice hum that is Jamaica. Dinner at Harmony Hall again ..Lasagna&amp;Leg of Lamb excellent once again

Rainy night

[Nanook]

Re: Your Jamaican journal excerps

Sounds like a nice time Roots!

Here's a little story about the time I ran across a bull loose from the Jackson farm at Negril Spots. I had just turned up that road on the way to Little Bay. I think it was my second scooter ride or so...



<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'">Up the road from the ice factory there was a farm with many beef cattle. As I got closer 2 men were on the road with the BIGGEST black bull I have ever seen, am I in Spain? This huge bull was NOT a happy camper to say the least. The men were attempting to drive the bull across the road and up another road that went straight up a hill, but he didn't want to go! So, not wanting to distract the bull, I sat back quietly on my scooter and watched them. They were trying hard to get the mad bull to cooperate and throwing stones and waving sticks behind him. The bull started running up the hill and the men waved me on, and I only made it a few feet when OH OH mr. bull turned around and runs down the hill, across the road...and RIGHT AT ME! There was really nothing I could do, I was straddled there on my red scooter and this huge madder than hell bull was running fast as he could and I was just frozen in place and about to shout at him when he put on his brakes and came to a slide stop just feet in front of me with FIRE in his eyes! I am pretty sure he spotted the red scooter and it startled him, and that had I been standing there without it he would have kept on coming! The men got him going back up the road towards the hill and the last time I saw them all, the bull had just ran into a 5 or 6 strand barb wire fence, and about 25 feet of it was laying on the ground! exit stage left...</span>

So you see...all scooter rides were adventures and to prove that...here's what happened just a couple miles up the road in Brighton. It's how I met Shaggy...



N<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'">ext I was in Brighton climbing the hill and going around the corners and coming up a steep hill was a huge tractor with a big trailer behind it and about 6 men throwing downed trees on the trailer. As I was slowly going down the hill past them, just coasting...my scooter just quit running. Great, I thought...just doesn't seem to be my day today. One of the men came over to have a look and give me a hand but he couldn't get it started either. Fortunately, I was at Shaggy's Hilltop Villa a little bar and guesthouse and Shaggy was one of the men and he pointed to the bar and said &quot;go there and rest the scooter, that's my bar&quot;...one of the men pushed the scooter to the driveway and off the road and I thanked him. Marion was there scrubbing the bar from top to bottom and she gave me a tour of the lovely villa. It is tall and round and very nice. There is a verandah around it from where you can see the sea from 3 sides. A gorgeous view! Only 20.US a night!</span>

I'm tellin ya, my thirst for adventure was constantly quenched while out there on the scooter rides!

[R00TS]

Re: Your Jamaican journal excerps

yeah Nanook ... but nice doesn't begin to compare with running into a wild bull and Shaggy!