JAMAICA: After a night of rum.....

This morning I woke up early and walked to the water. The staff wasn't even up yet, only Aaron the security guy. Last night I had a fun evening of trying to convince Needles that I could come up with a drink that was worthy of being on their menu. I had some fresh squeezed sour sop juice, which many say is like a cross in flavor between a banana and a pineapple with just a little sourness to it. I think it's a unique enough flavor on it's own.

So here I am, going back to my kitchen where I grab my sour sop juice with some sugar to sweeten it and lime to ..... Well... um... Add lime I guess. Then I asked Jennie if she could blend that with some fresh pineapple and then add some.... Yep that's right........ Coconut rum! This was one nice ass drink. Funny thing is, that the combination almost entirely neutralized the sense that there was ANY alcohol in it whatsoever. When Needles came back he saw me sipping away with a pitcher of this tropical concoction on the bar. He himself had some and swore it tasted like there was no alcohol in it either. Wow were we wrong. All I know is that the night grew funnier, I became worse at Dominos, my English went down hill, and my understanding of Patois was getting better.

So after a brutal beating at Dominos, I put my baseball cap on, ran along the sandy beach (in the dark mind you), when all of the sudden I almost knock myself out by running into a low hanging portion of a tree. I can laugh now. But DAMN, where did that tree come from? The rest of the night may as well be described as just wanting to kick back in the hammock and chill with Jerry Ann and my rambunctious little 9 year old who asked if she could sleep in her bikini so that she would have a jump start on getting ready in the morning. Lol that made me smile.

We decided, after swimming all morning, to go for a walk down Norman Manley Blvd, the main drag so to speak in Negril. We passed up some colorful little joints along our walk and were talking about what we should do for lunch when one of the local cab drivers pulled up just as it started to rain. We went down the road a couple hundred feet and we ran down a little alley way of sorts until we reached a building with a covered open bar and hunkered down until the rain stopped. Jerry Ann and myself were watching the clouds trying to predict when the rain would stop based on what we saw on the horizon, its angle of approach, and speed. I snapped a few photos of us and the rain.