Homecoming

People always say “no pain, no gain”, and we seem to prove that to be true when we travel. After another ridiculously early morning, and a very full flight, we landed in Jamaica around midday Saturday. And the first thing we noticed – it’s hot and humid here! Our jeans were entirely inappropriate!

Anyway, the locals here are very friendly; we were offered at least 4 taxi rides before we’d even left the airport! Though I suspect the folks were trying to take advantage of us, since we looked like tourists – but of course as soon as I hit them with a, “no mon, we gotta lift, alright” – they quickly realised my Jamaican heritage and left us alone!

But I wasn’t lying; we really did have a lift – Uncle Martyn and Jenni were there to greet us as soon as we exited the airport, around 1PM local time. Our first stop – lunch at Scotchies, a local outlet for jerked goods – chicken, pork, fish – and some delicious thingies called “festivals”. Yum!

After lunch, Uncle Martyn had an appointment with “Bird Bush” to go hunting, so wifey and I accompanied Jenni for a drive back to her place at Discovery Bay. On the way we stopped at Rose Hall, an old estate home previously lived in by Annie Palmer – who, if you believe the rumours, knocked off several (13, maybe?) of her husbands! There’s a tree planted for each husband at the bottom of the estate.

Next it was a quick stop in Martyn’s old hood, a little town called Falmouth, where we picked up some patties (a Jamaican original consisting of spiced meat inside pastry – delicious) for dinner. Unfortunately it was raining pretty heavily at this point, so I didn’t get to take a photo of Falmouth – but suffice to say that the local architecture and residents are somewhat more colourful than what we’re used to!

We were fairly amazed when we got to Jenni’s house – or should we say, Jenni’s resort? It’s a lovely open-air styled cottage, is built on a harbour (which we promptly had a swim in), has a pool (very warm, much to wife’s delight), and it’s fully staffed by some lovely locals. Sound too good to be true? Check out the back yard:

Yes folks, those are thatched gazebos that you see in the distance. So, we’re in the process of trying to work out how we get a piece of this action for ourselves. They have ADSL here, so working from home would definitely be an option. We’d just have to get all our family and friends to move over as well… who’s interested?