Negril Notes
Thoughts - Words - Images - Music - Loosely based on my travels to Negril Jamaica

I don’t think I’ll be splitting my vacations between the beach and the cliffs anymore, but it begs the question, which is better? For me it’s the cliffs.

I love the how the ocean becomes a peaceful void as soon as the sunset lightshow is over. The total blackness spreads out infinitely before you. All sounds fade, save the breeze playing wind chimes in a distant tree.

As you drift off, the gentle lapping of wavelets on the cliffs rock you to sleep and keep your dreams irie. An hour before sunrise they mix with your dreams to launch astral adventures as you rise through the waves into morning consciousness.

The breakfast at White Sands was excellent, if a bit expensive, but there’s always a premium at a resort. I headed down to the Surf & Talk Café, about half an hour’s stroll down the beach road with my laptop over my shoulder. My plan was to blog daily from Negril and by Tuesday, five days in, I’d only posted twice.

After some communicating with the outside world I headed across the street to Selina’s for a cup of coffee and a visit. I got all caught up with what’s going on in Negril, what fellow boardies were in town, and how the school they’re building with the help of Venezuelan soldiers was going.

Later that afternoon I decided to walk north on the beach road to check out that scene. My destination was Margaritaville, I was hoping for some bikini clad co-eds, but after a half a dozen beers and another splendid sunset, I found myself on the fringes of a discussion about US trade policy vis-à-vis the Caribbean shipping industry. Ok maybe we did a few shots too.

Heading south on a darkened Norman Manley Boulevard, I dodged taxis till my grumbling belly made me cross the road to visit “Best of the West – Boston Beach Style Jerk Chicken Stand.” I ordered a beer and a large jerk chicken platter while striking up a slightly slurred conversation with a young Jamaican woman selling a side of loving to go with my dinner. I declined her offer and headed back to White Sands for dinner and a movie in my air conditioned room.

I took a quick shower, popped a movie into my laptop’s DVD player, cracked open a fresh Red Stripe and dug into the best Jerk Chicken in Negril. It’s all in the packaging. The way they use one piece of tin foil and manage to keep the rice and peas and chicken separate, all topped with that big hunk of bread infused with the essence of the whole meal in semi-gooey wonderment. Aww Yeah!

I was lost in my meal, I had a serious buzz on, I was sitting in my boxers, and I was eating with my fingers. Probably not a pretty sight, but I tell you, I was in culinary heaven! I finished the meal, belched loudly (an Irish compliment to the chef), lit a Cuban Montecristo, and enjoyed “Shrek 2” for the third time as my night faded to black.

Wednesday

The morning found me a bit fuzzy, but full of energy since I’d slept well. Today I was supposed to meet up with a lady friend of mine, but I’d received an email a day ago telling me she decided to nix her trip at the last minute. Part of me was disappointed, part of me was relieved, and yet another part of me had been prepared to woo her with my good looks and boyish Philly charm. What can I say? Women just melt when I say “Yo!” It’s a gift.

Actually when we first started corresponding I thought she was a he, she’d responded to a few of my early story posts with an androgynous handle. Somehow that got straightened out and in the next few months she encouraged me to write and we became email buddies.

It was cool, but at the same time it kinda freaked me out. She came to know me through my writing, through my unguarded openness on the page. As opposed to my general lack of smoothness around women I don’t know. It was as if she was getting to know me from the inside out.

When I write I throw off the baggage I carry in my off page life, I delve into the feelings and emotions behind everyday experience. My spirituality is bared for all to see, how would she reconcile both Vinnys from Philly? Hell, sometimes even I have a hard time with it, but now she wasn’t coming so all my angst was moot.

I headed to the internet place to post a few pics on the blog and tried to say nice things about White Sands. It rained like crazy while I was there, so I hung out for a while and made faces into the Webcam.

I continued my walk into town, past Selina’s, the Merrills’s, Kuyaba and Coral Seas, the heat was stirring up the humidity and suddenly town looked really far away.

I decided to stop in at the Yoga Center to say hello and see if the girls I’d met on the bus into town were around. I had a nice visit with the Yoga folks, but the girls weren’t there, so I left a message and headed on down the road.

It’s amazing how fast a torrential thunderstorm can dry up in the August Jamaican sun. It had been less than an hour and downtown Negril already looked as dry as Mogadishu. The people in town seem different in slow season, the sellers are a bit more earnest, the panhandlers more aggressive, the shop keepers seemed curt, and smiles didn’t come as easy. Maybe it was the heat, but I felt stress in the air, it seemed out of place here.

I hit the ATM for ten thousand Jamaican dollars and felt a pang of guilt. Getting a glimpse of just how close these people are to real hardship and just how far I am from it. So much of the money made here leaves here. It’s a shame really, though at the same time the relative cheapness of the place is a factor in my choosing to come here time and time again.

As I crossed the bridge over the South Negril River a car with the security guy from the Yoga Center hanging out the window approached me. “Philly Mon! Philly Mon!!” he shouted as the car came closer, and there in the back of the car was Vivian, her friend and the little girl. Vivian seemed quite animated.

Vinny

I just finished up another notebook. I use composition books instead of in my fancy leather bound journal, those pages are reserved for when I’m writing in sunny Jamaica.

A nice journal gives me the sense that I should be writing important things, but since most of the things I write are not, I use a composition book with Sponge Bob on it. It keeps me from taking myself too seriously, and I love the looks I get on the train or in a coffee shop from people watching the crazy guy in the corner scribbling furiously.

I realized as I was writing in the last pages of the now retired Sponge Bob “Kelp” notebook, that I’d been growing my hair the whole time I was writing in it. I wrote “Long Hair Diary ‘05″ across the cover. From June ‘05 till just this Monday I’d only had my hair trimmed once. I haven’t had hair that long since high school.

I buzzed my hair for several reasons, one being I didn’t have a proper hair growth strategy. I didn’t know where I was going with it. I never planned to grow it, I just stopped cutting it one day when a lady friend said I should let it grow. I had no exit strategy!

Everyone seemed to hate it except for Kristine. I guess she thought it was cool to have a long haired hippy freak dad, and on some level I thought so too. It kind of separated me from normal society, it helped me to stand apart, to get a different point of view.

People would ask me, “Why are you growing your hair?” and I’d answer flippantly, “Every time I plan to get it cut, I have a great hair day.” though on several occasions it was actually true.

I kind of like being looked on as a bit eccentric, but if you refer to yourself as eccentric that means your crazy or maybe a poser, so I’m not sure where that leaves me.

But I must admit the main reason for cutting my hair was plain ‘ol vanity. In this year’s Christmas pictures I looked like an outlaw biker minus the leather chaps. Not that I have anything against bikers, but I picture myself with the dark, thick, flowing mane of my youth (see above), but I realized I was headed for grey, thin, scraggly old guy hair; more Willy Nelson than Fabio.

I was going to take a picture of the back of my newly shorn head wearing my Eagles jacket in contrast to the picture above, but the bald spot was too much for me to bear.

- Vinny

Heading down to de beech

I was packed by mid-morning and already I knew leaving the Castle was a mistake. My only salvation was the new place had air conditioning to guard me from the oppressive August heat.

I sat on my balcony and tried to write but nothing was there. The suchness of Negril’s cliffs and culture make writing seem un-natural. Good writing would wrap its arms around my view and views in a timeless snapshot of complete reality, but today my words try too hard, wrenching this slice of reality from itself, forcing it into a shiny box to take home and share with friends.

I put down my journal, closed my eyes and focused on my breathing. Soon I’d slid deeply into the magical rhythms of this place. The waves against the cliff, children playing in an adjacent field, the ocean breeze on the Castle’s cool stone walls seemed to erase the boundaries between this and that, and of now and then.

I guess I’d fallen asleep, because the sun was overhead when Petrona came over to visit, the late morning sun was hot and my Red Stripe was lukewarm. We sat and didn’t speak for some time till the sound of my taxi pulling into the lot made her say, “Write nice tings now, Vinny from Philly.”

With a smile and a hug I headed down the hill for the beach part of my week in paradise.

I hit White Sands just about 1PM. I checked in and my driver helped me with my bags. He was a friend of a friend and had given me a good deal on the ride though the expected “friend” gratuity still brought the total up above average. At least he was on time and I didn’t have to haggle.

White Sands did not inspire. I tried, I really tried. As my dear old Irish mother would say, “If you don’t have anything nice to say …”

I partially blame myself. First of all I wanted to be near the beach, bad move. The rooms on the Garden Side were bright, airy and comfortable. I thought they were more expensive, but they were just nicer.

In previous stories I called the Yoga Center, “My Hut in the Jungle.” Banana Shout was, “My Mansion by the Sea,” and if Blue Cave Castle was to be, “My Fortress on the Cliffs,” then White Sands was to be “My Motel 6 by the Road.”

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of Motel 6, I’ve stayed in them all over the country, hell, you put a Waffle House in the parking lot like the one in south Houston near the Johnson Space Center, woo hoo! But I digress.

It’s just that I’ve come to expect some personality from my Jamaican hotel choices, not just basic accommodations. I usually get some heart, some of that Jamaican something. The Yoga Center had a natural energy that enlivened my spirit. Banana Shout had history and a rock star owner, not to mention the whole goat thing, and Blue Cave Castle, well, it’s a damn Pirates Castle, how cool is that! White Sands was a clean comfortable room at the lowest price of any nationally advertised chain. And they did keep the light on.

Ok, Sandals and Hedo were fun on certain levels too, but that’s for another day.

My room was like a cave. It was cold (I liked the AC), damp and dark. I had to keep the curtain on my patio window because it faced the main walkway to the beach for all the garden side people. My so called patio was a four by six fenced in pen, damn that sounds negative, but I’m being honest. Again I admit to booking on the internet so I guess I asked for the worst room in the entire resort.

There were some nice things; the beach bar was nice and very empty in mid-August. There were quite a few bikini clad (some un-clad) Italian women flitting around. They didn’t seem very friendly, but that may have been caused by my incessant Godfather references (take the Spliff, leave the Cannoli).

I love the beach sellers! Are there more than usual at slow season, or are there just less marks per square foot of sand? I think they’re fun, I don’t sunbathe, I rarely swim, but I love to walk along the water lost in my thoughts, and reacting to their pitches like a verbal Aikido match.

I tend to be pretty dismissive of drug peddlers, and the ones who persist after a “no, thank you” get a little South Philly thrown their way. I understand most are just trying to eek out a living, and almost all of them have Red Stripes on ice, so they’re not all bad.

I enjoyed this section of Negril. It was great for long walks on the beach or on Beach Road checking out resorts, shops and restaurants along the way. Other than Selina’s I didn’t eat at anywhere more than once, not even 3Dives!

That first afternoon I explored White Sands, like the rest of Negril it was damn near empty. The pool was nice, clean and well kept with a smattering of sexy topless Italian women in thongs. Unfortunately the smattering of Italian men in thongs was a bit more than I could take.

Something I learned about Italian women, maybe European women in general. Unlike your average American woman they’re sexy! Bold statement I know, let me explain. They allow themselves to be sexy, sexy is ok, they know men are looking and they enjoy it even though most of them don’t have the figures to “let it all hang out,” but that was ok too.

American women at least to a certain age, have an attitude about being ogled. “What you lookin’ at?” Which makes you feel like a pervert for looking at a prominently displayed pair of gazongas (boobs, bazookas, sweater meats, pick your poison.) What else am I supposed to do? I’m male, so sue me! As I’ve gotten older my looking may have decreased some, though I’m looking forward to being a dirty old man.

Next it was off to the beach, more sexy Europeans and more male butt floss. There should be standards of weight and body hair that must be met before being sent a Speedo catalog.

White Sands has this strange but cool free standing balcony platform right off the bar at the edge of the beach. An older woman from Toledo explained it for sunbathing “au natural” so one could be discreet while still on the beach. Thankfully she was clothed while we had this conversation.

I liked it because it gave a great vantage point. Its twelve foot elevation allowed you could see the entire seven miles of beach. A few days later I spent sunrise there. I could see the entire beach come to life, joggers, fishermen, and people sneaking back from sleeping in places they shouldn’t have.

I like the action on the beach, but the peacefulness and the ocean access from the cliffs is winning out these days. It’s something about the ocean being so close, not the island gently sloping to the sea, but twenty feet of ocean right at your doorstep. You gotta try it!

That night I watched the sunset from the beach bar with Aaron and Kathy, an older couple from Maine, they talked like the Gordon’s Fisherman and finished each others sentences like those couples in “When Harry Met Sally.”

They were seasoned travelers on their first trip to Negril, I sat back and fed off the excitement in their stories, but they were leaving in the morning so we exchanged emails and made it an early night. I headed back to my cave, um… room.

Stay Tuned

Vinny

2006 is looking like a great year so far! Best wishes to all my friends and family for a great year.

Next year Me, Kris, my parents, and my neice Tina will be celebrating New Year’s Eve at 3Dives in Negril! I’m also planning an Easter Week trip.

Starting 2006 with a new look and an upgraded blog. Thanks to a new hosting company and the magic of Wordpress and Gallery 2.0, expect many enhancements over the next few months.

Stay Tuned!

Peace

Vinny