I'm not sure in my entire life that I have ever "woken up to the sound of the rooster crowing in real life...but for the city people like myself - let me tell you it is an actual thing... and they are LOUD! This pic is actually from a few days later when I located the rooster in his cage - and it was far, far, far, far from our rooms :) This guy can make noise.
It's not annoying though! It feels like real life.... another lesson we learned in Jamaica (just how far from the natural way of living, the way people survived for thousands of years, we actually are in cities in North America...
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Anyway.... this is a picture of the resident rooster at Blue Hole Mineral Springs in his cage.
He literally went "cock a doodle doo!" every morning waking us up with the sun.
If it wasn't for that rooster waking us up, we would have missed this awesome breakfast....
The Blue Springs Mineral Hole hotel serves meals family style - there is one menu and everyone gathers together in the beautiful outside dining area. Breakfast on the first day we woke up in Jamaica was soooooo good porridge, bacon, plantains, melons, watermelon, pineapple and bananas.
While enjoying this early morning feast, we had what ended up being the only actual business meeting during the entire business trip. My client and his wife, his daughter and grandchildren, my husband and son, the other couple, and the other guy who was travelling with us, all enjoyed breakfast then the grownups talked business. I have to say, I have never experienced a business meeting in SUCH a lovely location!
In the pic above, husband Dave and I wait for it to begin.
Ahhhhhhh Jamaica!!! This is the life!
The view from the balcony at Blue Hole Mineral Springs Hotel in the morning
Who can resist a dip in the pool after breakfast?
My husband grabbed these pics of my son and myself having a quick soak.
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OHHHHH and did I mention... the pool is filled with natural mineral water from the 35 foot deep natural mineral springs hole the Blue Hole Mineral Springs is named for...They refill it every couple of days, so if like me you are nowhere near brave enough to take that crazy leap, you and your skin can still benefit from the natural mineral spring water....
My client who brought the group to Jamaica tells us we are heading in to Negril to briefly take a look at the beach (we're promised we'll get to do more of that later!) and check out a well known "tourist trap" called Rick's Cafe. We'll stop in at a tourist shop to grab a tshirt or something, and coffee for my husband's elderly father who asked us to grab him some when he heard we were going to Jamaica, and the entire group will have lunch together at Rick's... and then my client and his family are heading to Kingston for meetings with government representatives regarding his projects, and we'll be free to enjoy a Jamaican vacation for the rest of the week.
Son Cassidy chills out at Blue Hole Mineral Springs waiting for the car taking us to Negri
The view from the other side
So, we got back into the same van that had brought us to the Blue Hole just the night before.
Let me repeat.
We got back into the van.
For those who don't understand the potentially terrifying implications of this simple phrase, please read the previous blog entry, in which I tell the story of our arrival in Jamaica- and the way that we learned that driving - or even being a passenger - in a car in Jamaica is a far different experience than driving or riding in a car in North America! Without exaggeration, there were points in the journey to the Blue Hole the day before where I literally questioned my parenting wisdom in bringing my 15 year old here, and promised myself we'd stay put at the hotel, if we made it through that ride alive! But then, if you remember, I realized that our driver, Lion, was actually an incredibly skilled driver - and that the others driving on the road were actually taking a lot more care than it looked like - otherwise no one would make it up and down that what looked like one way but was actually a two way mountain road alive....
So , like I said...we got back into the van.
Lion drove us to Negril, about a half an hour away.
First thing we had to do is stop at the bank machine. It didn't seem particularly scary in the day but there were security guards standing around AND you didn't do your interac banking transaction like you do here - there you go into a private individual cubicle where the door locks behind you and then you collect your money, unlock the door and go out and notice a lot of people looking at you. That same action and that same place DID seem a lot more sketchy and the vibe was pretty strong that it wasn't a good place to hang around and you should watch your ass there when we stopped by at 6 PM just before dusk to use the bank machine again on the way back to Blue Hole....
But that was later.
First we stopped into a little hard sell tourist shop...
It ended up that I walked out with this gift from the shop owner, named Joy.
I'll just copy and paste from how I told the story on my instagram #Hashtags included :
So I went into a total #tourist trap #store where they usher you in and stay with you showing everything in full sales mode. I told the lady there I wanted a #Tshirt for my #son and something for my #daughter and something for my friends daughter. It’s full push push push sales. I choose the #shirt I came in for, #coffee for my husbands dad and something for my daughter - then I start telling them I am from Canada not America and that talking to them feels like being home because my school was 40 percent #Jamaican and that #beefpatties were the most common #lunch and asking if they had family in Toronto. When I was leaving I laughed how I bought for everyone but myself and the owner, Joy, stopped me and told the other worker to grab me this #bracelet priced at 12 dollars “This is my gift to you. For you to remember #Jamaica...”. I said “wow thank you so much, do you know that had just caught my eye and I was going to buy that!” She said “It is a gift for you to remember your friends here.” And I told her that it means so much more now as a gift than if I had bought it.... beautiful moment. I sat outside with the other lady for a few minutes chatting after that. #jamaicamoments #gift #newfriends
After that, we went to Rick's Cafe. Rick's, from what I understand, is a legendary tourist spot dating to 1974, when some guy - I assume named Rick opened it. At that time, Negril wasn't much of a tourist destination, and they say the opening of Rick's started to attract more tourism to Negril.
It has been voted as one of the ten best bars in the world. It's hard to argue with the amazing cliff views and all that, but to be honest it's way too American and doesn't feel much like Jamaica at all. The bar menu was on the expensive side, 15 bucks US for a veggie burger kind of thing (bought one for my son who was thrilled that they had them there).
Talk about touristy - instead of "men" and "women" signs, the bathroom signs said "Mon" and "Womon" (*lol give me a break, that's kinda of cringeworthy silly and not something you would see in an actual Jamaican owned establishment, I am sure......)
Dave got some video of tourists enjoying the famous jump.
Now I don't know this guy, Rick, but he seems nice enough. I mean, you can't argue with this sign that says "Peace, Love, Rick's"....
But wait, huh?
Isn't this JAMAICA?
Like my husband posted to his Instagram, it looks like "Rick don't smoke!"
And like I immediately posted under it.... "Tracy don't stay long!"
I posted about it in Instagram, too...
Then we left Rick's Cafe for our first experience of Seven Mile Beach at Woodstock area one of the most famous and said to be one of the most fabulous beaches in the world.
We didn't stay long, it was just sort of a passing through on our way back to Blue Hole Mineral Springs (we were already making plans for Lion to bring us back the next day or the day after)
I got to dip my toes in the ocean - and chill out on the sand.
Husband Dave poses by the sign on the beach
And my fifteen year old sees the ocean for the first time ever
Husband Dave had time to enjoy a Red Stripe on the beach
Cassidy let me take more pics!
And then we all piled back into the van with Lion who was waiting for us. A few of us had spent more money than we had meant to at the beach (those people selling things don't give up and even when you think you are prepared for the hard sell you'll inevitably buy more than you intend to) in addition to the expensive drinks and food at Rick's. Lion took us back to the same Scotia Bank with all those little ATM machines in seperate little locked rooms that I mentioned before - but this time - around 6 PM just as the sun was starting to go down, the vibe there was pretty uncool to say the least. I travel a lot, and I never get nervous, but it was impossible not to feel sketchy - you could tell our driver Lion was on high alert, people were WATCHING us, I got my cash and got back into the car where my son was waiting for us FAST. I read later that it is not advised to take money out of that bank machine and I second that - can totally understand why. It's not paranoid, it's just not a good scene. Take note of that, and if you're visiting Negril, be careful there.
This is part of the reason why, a couple of days later, when we were preparing for our day at the beach at Negril, Mamma Wabba who I mentioned in the previous blog, looked super concerned at her guests going to Negril. She tried to direct us to the beautiful, small, local beach the people who lived in the community near Brighton, the locals, used themselves. When we tried to alleviate her concerns and tell her we knew tourists had to be careful, she still seemed worried. She asked who was taking us and when we said it was Lion, from Lion Tours, who they knew well at Blue Hole, she said she thought he would take good care of us, but also told us to "Watch out for the idle boys!"
I thought of the bank machine here at Negril when she told us that...
But, for now, the day at the Beach was still to come... and we got safely back to Blue Hole Mineral Springs just in time to have the lovely ladies from the kitchen put this amazing meal in front of us :
The rest of the evening was taken up with chilling out by the pool, smoking with the Rastas, and late night talks with the elders about life and love and politics and music and everything under the moon....
End of the day thought :
LIVE LIFE BE WELL
Son Cassidy's Tshirt that we brought from home couldn't be more appropriate for Jamaica!
