Jamaica

Finally! I've found a moment to upload photos and can write about our holiday to Jamaica. We had an AWESOME time. Seven of us made it: Trev, me, Peter, Rachel, Mum, Dad and Tim.

The pictures:

Top: The beach, our villa, a sunset

Middle: Bob Marley's place, Trev and Phil in Bob's bedroom, a view from Trev and Phil's hotel room

Bottom: Rachel, JR (our barman and trip organizer), Trev, me, then a group pic doing a "Kevin" aaaaggghhhh from Home Alone and then the final pic is all of us at our favourite bar on our last night looking suitably relaxed and tanned.

Trev and I went a few days early and got to know the place. The drive from the airport was an experience - I can honestly say I've never been on a coach where the driver thinks he's on a go-kart track. These guys over took on bends, chucked the thing round corners etc etc - it was an experience. The resort was about 90 mins drive from the airport so it took a while. It was a small resort, friendly, clean and the food wasn't too bad. The cocktails were fabulous. The food was all buffet style, but in addition to the Jamaican food there was always ribs, steak or chicken available. I was diappointed there weren't better desserts, but let's face it - a banana daquiri fixed that!

We hired the villa on the resort plus one room. Well worth it. The cost of the villa was about the same as hotel rooms but we got our own pool so we didn't have to fight for sun beds or the floaty things to lay on. Incredible.

Our days went like this....get up, go to breakfast around 9, hang out on the beach or by the pool (I got to the gym once around 11), go to lunch around 12.30pm, get cocktail, back to beach/pool, Get a Siesta around 5. Around 6.30, head to Legends bar to watch the sunset, back to room to change for dinner, have dinner around 7.30ish, back to the bar for a few cocktails. At 11pm, go and get pizza ready for a couple of hours in the night club. Difficult, wasn't it?

We met some new friends - Tony and Sarah. They're from Blackpool, England - we had many nights in the club, at the bar - so much fun. They had arranged a trip to Bob Marley they kindly invited us on - it was a riot. After a night clubbing and getting to bed rather late (or early if you think about it), we headed out at 10am on the trip. JR picked us up, and first things first we headed to the gas station for supplies (Smirnoff Ice for me, Beer for everyone else) and we set off. It took 90 mins to reach the Mausoleum but it was well worth it. How can you go to Jamaica and not go and see Bob Marley? It was nicely done, trip to see where he was born, where he lived, where his grandparents graves are, saw his bed, chair and also the Mausoleum. It was a moving experience and I'm glad I went. When Tim arrived and wanted to go I repeated the experience a few days later.

We also went shopping in Ocho Rios. This is one of the big resorts in Jamaica and I can honestly say I would never stay there for a holiday - it's crowded and lots of places to be ripped off as a tourist. As it was the rum was double the price of the duty free (found that out on the last day) so won't be buying from the stores again. On the way back we had a fantastic meal in a Jamaican restaurant of Jerk pork and chicken - awesome.

The rest of the holiday was at the resort doing nothing. Fantastic. Would recommend to anyone and can't wait to go back. Mum, Dad, Peter and Rachel visited Dunns river which is a big attraction but we never seemed to make it - doing nothing was too flipping good.

The one thing that I found funny was the abundance of weed....it was everywhere - it's not something that I've experienced too much so it was quite funny to me how open it was. Staff, holidaymakers etc. What's also telling is that with all that free booze and cheap weed around I didn't see anyone make complete asses of themselves (well, apart from one woman in the nightclub but that was it). That was nice.

All in all, very restful and want to go back soon.