21 January 2007

On account of the visitors we made a bit of an effort organizing a full event calendar. Lady of Leisure has been a superb hostess while I have been at work. The highlights of Kingston are quickly ticked off; Bob Marley museum, lunch at Strawberry hill, lunch at Devon House, walking off all those lunches round Emancipation Park.

Having exhausted the delights of Kingston, we took the Mother and Father of Leisure out to experience a little more of Jamaica. First stop was Jakes and treasure beach.

Jakes advertises itself as boho chic, though I felt the villa (Mussels) was just a little tawdry. Jakes is not a good place for kids with an unprotected sheer drop off the jagged rocks into the sea. The idea of the pool is good with sea water being constantly pumped up, but it just looks like a dirty swimming pool. The pizza parlour on site is great though and very coolly decorated with posters and album covers form Jamaican artists going back to the sixties. The “grown up” food was the standard Jamaican fare, though it was presented for visitors (no bones and the jerk was mild!) We all adjourned to the bar after dinner which was lively and friendly. The lights around the grounds and the sounds of the sea are wonderful and I can understand why many people love Jakes as their get-away of choice.

When in Treasure Beach it is obligatory to do the Black River safari with housewives choice, Captain Denis. Will the ladies drooled over our guide, we got taken out across the bay to the mouth of the black river stopping briefly to view a pod of wild dolphins show off and cavort around our boat. The black river itself feels impossibly tropical and I could not help but think I caught in a wild life documentary scooting up the river, the noise of our engine scattering egrets and our bow waves breaking over the mangroves. Salt water crocodiles blinking lazily at us and buzzards circling gave a thrill of danger that probably did not actually exist. Further up the river we stopped under the tree canopy at a local swimming hole. The “lovely” Captain assured us that the crocodiles would never come up this far, though I could see a few worried expressions when myself and Little Madam dived in. The water was icy, having just flowed straight down from the mountains, under jungle canopy most of the way, and so clear and fresh. (The “Black” in the name comes from the mud on the river bed.)

After the exercise, we got back into the boat and a he return to the sea for lunch in the Pelican Bar. The pelican bar rests on a sand bank about a mile off the coast and despite it rickety looks feels quite solid. Lunch was either fish or Lobster though both were very tasty and washed down with lashings of Red Strip. There is no plumbing in the Pelican bar so use of the facilities means a quick walk around on the sand bar, the water is only a few feet deep. At least 3 other boats were tied up and the bar was buzzing with conversation of excited tourists. We got chatting (whether we liked it or not) to an American family, who insisted they were anything but. The grandson was Irish, because his other Grandfather was whereas the Grandmother in tow was Dutch though she could trace her lineage back 600 years to the same area of Pennsylvania where she currently lived. Now I know the US has tightened it immigration policies, but 600 years of a naturalization process is taking the piss! A pleasant few hours, though the wind can be a little chilly out on the Pelican Bar.

Collecting our chattels to return to Kingston we discovered that someone had stolen the indicators from the new car. I wonder how much of market there is for knock off Suzuki indicators but I can’t imagine that the value would be greater than the effort of getting the things off the car, especially as the thief had obviously gone to quite considerable effort into not damaging the car in any other way.