Food and philosophy

Jamaica day 10!
Once again packed the stuff we'd brought to Devon's place and moved back to the castle and went for a morning dip and a snorkel. We visited the turtle who lives in a hole in the cliffs around the corner from here, and saw another ray! This time I saw it from far, it looked HUGE and at first I didn't realise what it was. Tried to show it to Albin and Valle but it swam away before they could see it and I thought we wouldn't see it again. A few moments later we were all above the surface, fixing our masks and talking - when we went back under the gigantic ray was just beneath us, moving all majestic-y. We got super lucky!

After relaxing a bit in the sun we went for lunch at Ras Rody. This was mine and Julia's favourite place to go when we were here last, we rode our bikes here all the time. Rody's is a little shack just by the road, there is space for about 8 people if you squeeze in. "Let your food be your medicine." - The place is all organic, vegetarian and of course made with so much love you can taste it. Mmmm. All in the spirit of the Rastafari lifestyle. "People come here for food and philosophy".

After we'd finished lunch we took a walk up to Rick's Cafe, which is one of Negril's top tourist attractions. This is a place to have drinks, jump in the water from the cliff and watch the "proffessional cliff divers" in action. When I last visited me and Julia had become friends with some of the divers and so we hung out here quite a bit. But god, this place is so full of tourists I can't stand it. We stayed for about ten minutes, had a juice, and left. What a huge contrast from our little lunch-shack.

Devon came and picked us up to go get cash to pay for his room, but all the ATM's refused to spit out any dollars. Valle wanted 200 us but the ATM didn't let us choose what currency so when the cash came out they were instead 200 J - about 2 dollars. Apparently this is the way it is sometimes, so we decided to come back and try again tomorrow. When we got back to the hotel there was a lady giving oil massages right up on the cliff, outside our rooms. And so we all got one while listening to the waves. Beautiful.

We tried to plan for a dinner with the Swedish couple we'd met on the glas bottom boat, but couldn't manage to get in touch. Instead we decided to go to a place where "they have the BEST jerked chicken in Negril" - according to one of our earlier cab drivers. We've walked past the place a lot of times and there it is always steaming. And lo and behold if they Swede's aren't already sitting at one of their tables. The world sure is small. Food was good, all though it took a long time to get it. Bbq'd chicken, lobster and shrimp. After dinner me and Albin went back to the hotel, we were both tired and I had to study for my study date with Moa the next morning. Papa and Valle went with the Swede's to have a couple of beers. Outside the hotel there was a street party going on, loud ass music and people dancing everywhere - awesome! When I finished up and went to bed at about one o clock in the morning, they were still going strong.

Valentine

Am sitting on my balcony watching the sun set. From the owners place below I can hear music. Slow, smooth, lovie-dovie music - chosen for the occasion, surely. What's very Jamaican about it though, and what I am having trouble understanding, are all the police sirens, gunshots and whatnots being squeezed in between the "darling love me, you are my everything, oh baby"'s.

Oh baby - police siren - you are my everything - gunshots - I looooove you - bam bam bam.

Happy Valentine's everyone!

Donkey Race

Jamaica day 9!
Returned to Peevee's for breakfast since we'd been told it was pretty good and very affordable. And it was, but it took forever to get it. We pretty much ordered some fried eggs and it took an hour to get them, even though we were almost the only ones there. If it weren't for the guy working in the bar where we were sitting we probably would have been very annoyed. He was amazing. So full of life and happy go lucky, telling us stories, making us try his juices and got us coconuts. We had a blast and walked out of there smiling (a long time after getting there). After breakfast we headed back to the beach for todays annual Donkey Race. The whole festival ground was filled with people, stands for food and souvenirs, there was carousels run by manpower and music and shouting and sheering. The racing might have been one of the strangest things I have seen, and hilarious. The only thing that disturbed me was that some of the riders beat their Donkeys to make them move - a few of them threw there riders off though, and I did enjoy that. There were three Donkeys racing each other each time. Some of them run like the wind, some of them barely moved, some pretty much walked the wrong direction. The guy who gave us the flyer a few days back got me interested when he spoke of just that. "Ya man when the race starts one donkey go backwards one doesn't move good fun man." - ok, you've got me. We didn't stay long though, the sun was blazing and we were all melting, so we went for a walk on the beach and cooled off in the water. After the race we went back to the hotel and me and Valle went snorkelling. Saw two lion fish (gorgeous!) and a ray - which scared the crap out of me. I was swimming around, minding my own bniz, looking at the little fishies and then turned to my left to check if Valle was keeping up - and there he was at the same level as me, just by the surface. Awesome.

Beach!

Jamaica day 8!
At last, a beach day! Spent the whole day at there. We left first thing in the morning, had breakfast at a little beach shack and then found a place whit sun-beds. We picket Margaritaville because of the trampolines they have out in the water. Fun! It was a hot day, and we took turns sunbathing and swimming, playing football/volleyball and trying out the trampolines. Once when me, Albin and papa were chilling in the water I saw two black shadows in the water a bit further out. Was thinking man, these guys can really hold their breath for a long time. Turned out it was two big manta rays cruising the beach. The took a turn and came right at us, we had to move not to get hit. It was awesome! After lunch we got back to the castle and once again me and Valle moved out and back into Devon's place. It was nice to see him again. Got ready and went to Push Cart for dinner and to listen to Drew's last set with The Overtakers before he leaves for the US. And then we went to Peevee's - it's a really run down bar just two buildings away from the castle. Once every year they hold a big party here, and Everyone's there. It was an amazing crowd, such a mixture of different sorts of people. A dj and a lot of different live music. Apparently Peevee, who the place is named after, went missing about 20 years ago and no  one knows what happened to him. No body was found no nothing. So every year they celebrate his birthday with a huge party. Happy Bday Peevee!