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All Around Jamaica March/April
2003...Day 5
by Liz Maher
Day Five, Sunday (Portland
to Castle Garden)
We woke early...again. I am NOT a morning person
at all but here I can't help it...there's just too much fun to be
had, people to see, sights to take in. We decide to eat breakfast
at FH and go ahead to Castle Garden because we don't want to be
on the road to Negril ALL day tomorrow. We swam in the one pool
at FH we hadn't checked out yet...this one is on top of the hill
and has an incredible - you know what I'm going to say - view. Looking
down at San San Beach, which we have free passes for from the hotel,
we decide to take a quick ocean dip and get ready.
We drove down - could have walked but it's hot
already - and gave the woman at the gate our passes. The beach is
lovely. Calm clear water, sand goes out quite a ways. There's a
little beach/snack bar, showers, trees to lounge under, but at this
hour we're pretty much alone. The beach is used by 3 hotels and
a few private villas, otherwise it's $10US per person or something
like that. We enjoy it for an hour or so and head back up the hill
to pack up and check out. We'll be back, Fern Hill!
One thing we wanted to do was really get into
the Blue Mountains for a day. P wanted to check out a coffee plantation
he'd visited as a child but it being Sunday, we weren't sure it
would be open and it was a good 2 hours over the Blue Mountains
towards Kingston. So regretfully we put that on the "next time"
list and headed west.
This time we went straight to Chef and Lib's,
missed them already. Bill is still there and we hang out for awhile
on their porch.
After, it was again time for a nap and a pool
swim at the Sinclairs. The kids were in school, it was quiet. The
first day we were there the kids hung out with us a lot but after
that their mom made a point of taking them to the beach or just
out, sensitive as they were to us being on vacation without our
own kids. Truly though, they were great kids and we enjoyed talking
with them.
For dinner we decided to head back to Ochi and
Chef suggested a place he'd passed many times that has grown tremendously
over the years - Spring Café. It's a really nice place with great
food and we enjoyed it. It was very crowded so I guess a lot of
people do too. We paid about $50US for two dinners and drinks. Castle
Garden really has the best of all worlds…quiet country life but
with Ochi's restaurants, movies and nightlife just 30-40 minutes
away.
We stopped back by Lib and Chef's and finally
met George...busy guy, very polite and well on his way to being
as good-looking as his dad.
Bill was planning to go to Negril the next day
too, using route taxis and buses, so we decided to offer him a ride.
He accepted and we made plans to meet the next morning. We'd thought
of going tubing the next day on the White River - that sounded like
fun and Mrs. S had suggested it, but we put that on the ever-growing
next-time list and went to bed.
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