Montego Bay, Jamaica – 2016 – Day 4-7

By rosannau / On

Day 4

Even going to bed at 230-3AM after starting file transfers I woke up naturally to 530AM. I woke up and immediately went to change memory cards to transfer. I apparently took 10600+ photos of the wedding day. HOLY. Anyways, this was the first day of relaxation. Bid adieu to those heading back to Toronto. After lunch, Mimi & myself went straight to the beach and started our tanning. We were later joined by the rest of the gang and we stayed there for majority of the day. Jamaican sun is strong so wear your sunscreen and RE-APPLY. I went a little too hard and burnt.

We had heard about a lobster shack off the resort on the beach we should try so we decided to go around 5PM to look for Leon’s Lobster Hut. We walked right of the main beach and past the fence of the Royalton property. to the right of the beach, there are little shacks that cover a stretch of the beach that are businesses of some of the locals. Each shack offers different things such as food, drink, art etc. The locals will all ask you to come into their shops to have a look. They seem a little pushy but just want to draw up business. We made our way to Leon’s to find that he actually closes early so we had a middle man/woman on the phone with him trying to negotiate a price but they wanted a money deposit and bargaining $20USD a lobster so we said we would come back tomorrow instead. We walked through the shack area to see these little shops. Met a few locals and made good conversation with a few.

We decided to go for the Italian restaurant that night and I must say that it is actually the best of the restaurants for food. I got the beef carpaccio, risotto primavera & panna cotta. It looked like everyone from our group wanted Italian that night as majority of the party left was there. We ended up at the sports bar to watch the basketball game.

Day 5

We all decided to wake up early to watch the sunrise on the beach. Got up at 5AM and headed down for 530AM. The sun actually starts to rise on around 530AM hitting its horizon. Bug spray is your friend at this hour of the day most definitely. I never really liked photographing sunrises as its nothing spectacular to me but the light that it gives off is another thing.

After the sun rose, we decided to go for breakfast at the main buffet. We went poolside and hung out with Angelina and her grandma for a bit by the kids pool before heading to the beach side. We situated ourselves there the rest of the morning slowly being joined by the rest of our gang. We played some beach volleyball but the court is built on concrete that isn’t even and the sand is a thin layer. We kept getting people joining that can’t play properly which made the game slow and boring. We contacted Leon again and we negotiated a price of $15USD/lobster. he did a beach delivery to us. It was fresh but slightly overcooked.

Around 3PM Mimi and myself walked down the beach line (right from the resort beach) to the end of the beach. At the very end, there is a beach bar called Touch Bar – It’s run by the same guy – Touch that Jess and myself met on the road riding his motorbike on our first day. Its sort of a tree bar. The waters are calmer along this side of the beach and further down was a public beach.

Day 6

Burnt. Slightly crispy. You know, the crispy feeling where you can only sleep one position and you awake in that position but emit so much heat and then you get up and try to bend your limbs an its sensitive. Yup.

We got up and had breakfast with a few of our group. Went straight to the beach afterwards where I put myself under a umbrella and kept in the shade. Naomi and Steven joined our group and 6 of us (Benham, Leanna, Cathy, Mimi & Naomi) took the kayaks out for a ride. The water was a little choppy but kayaking was fun. If only we knew how to sail, we could’ve taken the boat out. We also decided to walk down the other side of the beach and passed through 2 other resorts beach front to the very end.

It was the best weather this day. It was sunny and blue skies for the majority of the day and then the wind picked up and pushed some clouds overhead making it overcast. We played some beach volleyball but it started to suck when others joined our game so we capped it at 5 points before heading to lunch at the buffet. Buffet lunch was really good. The jerk chicken on the beach is also a treat especially with Jamaican patties.

It was just a nice relaxing afternoon in a pool and poolside playing Heads Up. The weather was perfect so we decided to play another round of volleyball. It was the best I’ve played here with the players just being people from our group only. We ended our game as we were captivated by the double rainbow that had formed overhead. It was a perfect rainbow where you can see all the colours so vividly and also both ends to be followed by another rainbow above it.

We cleaned up and went back to the buffet for dinner. It was a great meal with our group. Went over to the sports bar after to watch Game 6 for Raptors vs Heat – we lost. There was a Michael Jackson tribute show outside of the sports bar and it was really good with a guy actually singing and embodied Mr Jackson.

It was the last full day and this friday the 13th was no doubt a good one.

Day 7 – Final

Woke up to the the bright sunrise but stayed in bed a little bit longer. I ended off the final day with a workout with Mimi (we tried to do a HIIT session but it got really humid and we never finished the first circuit of it). Breakfast at the buffet and then to the beach we went for our last little session in the ocean.

Check out was for Noon so we stayed out until about 11-1130 before going to shower. For myself, I changed into my tank top with the built in sports bra (my travel tank top) and put on underwear and shorts. My shuttle wasn’t arriving until 330PM so I still had tons of time to hang at the beachside with the rest of the group who would be leaving for their 530PM shuttle.

We stayed beachside the rest of the day – NOTE: even if you check out, there are washrooms you can use to change after if you decide to stay in swim wear for the beach before leaving. The boys got pulled into an obstacle course on the beach courts followed by the staff challenging our group to a volleyball match. A few of us decided to go to the buffet for our final meal before heading out. I had a personal driver to the airport named Junior and he was funny and informative. Made it to the airport in good timing with liquid sunshine coming down rather hard. Last name problems like usual but otherwise, got through and had tons of time to spare. Ended up departing a little late as one guest checked in and had a check luggage but never showed up so they had to physically take that luggage off the plane. The ride felt long but it wasn’t. Came home to 3 degree celsius but it was refreshing. The best part now – the 20000 photos from the week are completely edited and finished with.

Irie.

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