2008 December « say what?

December 19, 2008

Happy Holidays!

Filed under: Life, Photos — Tags: christmas tree, holiday season, rockefeller center — Erika @ 9:41 am

Hope everyone has a good one!

<3,

December 7, 2008

Jamaica Jamaica!

Filed under: Photos, Vacation — Tags: Jamaica — Erika @ 6:49 pm

Sorry for the delay of pictures from my trip to Jamaica. I brought my camera but it is old and janky and it pooped out on me before I could even take a photo. I was waiting for all my friends to upload their pictures

So first off, about the trip: there were 7 of us total. 6 girls and 1 guy. My friends took a red-eye flight from LAX to Montego Bay on Halloween and I flew from JFK the morning after. I hadn’t seen some of them since the last time I was in San Diego (March of 2007 maybe?) so I was really, really excited to be reunited with everybody!

The plan was to spend 2 days in Montego Bay and then the rest of the week in Negril. We booked 2 rooms at Doctor’s Cave Hotel in Montego Bay and stayed in a beautiful Rondel Village 3 bedroom villa in Negril.

Because of our ratio of women to, uh, man, we claimed that we were polygamists and that I was the new bride and we were on our honeymoon. Poor Demian was constantly asked why and how he had so many women. Actually, being “married” was a funny thing because I think it was easier to bargain for things. We even got a cigar, hahaha.

Another thing about Jamaica: all the taxi drivers are tour guides as well. Everyone wears multiple hats! We met such a man at Doctor’s Cave Beach on our first day who was an unfortunate victim in our “Oh, we’re married.. it’s our honeymoon.. actually we’re polygamists” scheme. But hey, we got a pretty good deal to get to Ochos Rios to climb Dunn’s River Waterfalls.

That’s what we did our second day. We drove ~2 hours to Ochos Rios to Dunn’s River Waterfalls. You basically hold hands and climb up a waterfall. It was beautiful!! I don’t know if the holding-of-the-hands thing is the best way to hike up a RUNNING waterfall, but it was fun nonetheless. We didn’t hold hands the entire time either. That whole excursion was pretty dangerous with all the slippery rocks and such; don’t expect to be able to do anything like that in the US.

When we got to Negril, we were situated in the middle of Seven Mile Beach. When we were in Montego Bay, we only went to one beach, Doctor’s Cave. It’s a private beach so we didn’t have to deal w/ any hustlers. But man!! Seven Mile Beach is a public beach and was FULL of hustlers!! Every frickin day was a new opportunity for the locals to sell you things. ANYTHING. Our first day there, a man approached me and asked if I needed a “date” for the week. Really though?!?? I said quickly, “UHHHH my husband wouldn’t like that.” Speaking of the husband, he was propositioned by 2 prostitutes as well.. hahahha.

Every day was spent on the beach. It was FANTASTIC. Oh! And we went parasailing!! That was a lot of fun. I was all about the beach, though. In fact, I spent an entire day on the beach.. most of which I spent alone. I was literally the first tourist on the beach in the morning and I was there until they took away the beach chairs. Some of my friends went to Rick’s Cafe and others went to the craft market while I read (“The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” by Junot Diaz), drank Red Stripes (bar opened at 9 am and only cost $1.35 USD!!!!), and napped. Our area was relatively safe because we had a hotel-provisioned security guard manning the area (and he handed out towels and propped up the beach chairs). We usually took a spot right in front of the security guard anyway.

Also, since I was usually the first person up and on the beach (out of our group @ least), the hustlers started to recognize me. And my friends are friendly (and we’re all talkative) so the locals eventually got to know us. In fact, they all knew our names, where we’re from, where we’re staying, and they were so obesrvant that they knew when one of us wasn’t present!! We made friends with other tourists as well.

All in all, it was an incredibly relaxing vacation, even though we were on the cusp of the oncoming hurricane. We didn’t get a lot of direct sunlight and it rained sometimes but it was fine. We still tanned. And we ate really well. Jamaican food is soo soooo SOOOO good. Their spices are no joke, man. MMMMM so spicy, I LOVED IT.

Enough words! Here are the pictures! Just a note: some of the photos have a black ring around them; that’s because of the EXCELLENT waterproof camera case that I bought. I highly recommend it if you’ll be vacationing anywhere there’s a body of water and you want to take underwater photos.

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Most of the girls @ Doctor’s Cave Beach, Montego Bay