September 26th Saturday

Four am sure feels early- caught the shuttle to the airport and arrived in plenty of time- probably could have arrived a half hour later with no problems but we noted an hour later the lines at security were very long.

Breakfast (brunch) at the airport- there as is a “baked potato deli” where you can get a baked potato with lots of different topping there at terminal 5. I remember these from the early seventies but haven’t seen them around since.

When we got to Montego Bay, since we were arriving in the morning, our plan was to look around and find a place to stay. However Jamaican regulations require you to have a room reservation for your first night before you can enter the country. So we ended up pulling out the book and making a reservation at Westport Cottages in Long Bay. Stopped in Montego Bay at the “Native Restaurant and Bar” for curried goat-very good. Goats appear to run wild on the island.

The transportation is interesting. Our waiter called us a cab which took us to the “bus” depot. It is actually an intersection where all various modes meet. There are municipal buses; taxis( only take you-they don’t stop for others-fairly fast and expensive-door to door service); coasters- (private minibuses-leave when full- more or less set route); and route taxis (which are usually Toyota station wagons- operate much like coasters but run to even more isolated areas). If you tell your first driver where you are going, he will hand you off to the next transport where you are jealously guarded by the driver since there is actual tug of wars going on with passengers in the middle. If you leave your luggage unguarded for a second, it will get loaded into a vehicle and you may have to fight to get it back. Then there is a 60mph journey through twisty winding roads, with many near misses. However, we did not see any actual accidents and most of the cars and minibuses only have slight scrapes. This is a country where they drive on the left which is disconcerting enough for American.

We arrived in Negril, on the western coast of Jamaica and the driver deposited us at the guest house, which proved to be a collection of mahogany and stucco cottages, set in the owner’s back yard across the road from a wonderful bay, with sugary white soft sand. We walked along the beach, and were approached on several occasions by people wanting us to visit their shops, ride in their boats etc. However, they did back off when we told them we were not interested.

We walked to the South Negril River, where you must return back to the road to cross the bridge, and entered the little town of Negril. Since it is off season, there were few tourists-after exploring a little we headed up to the road to “Sweet Spice”, accompanied by a young woman on a bike who wanted to trade us mangoes for dinner. We declined and she left. We had escoveitched fish (pickled in vinegar and fried with onions and peppers). Very different and very good. The power went off while we were eating and although it came back on at the restaurant, it was still off at the guest house which made for a hot and muggy night.