Jamaica – Yeh mon. No Problem.

I’m back home after 6 days out of the country, a little tanner, my belly a little jigglier, my mind a LOT more relaxed.  Day by day below…but some overall impressions of my vacay…

If I didn’t detail a time it was probably due to reading, either on the day bed letting the light come in between the leaves of the tree outside my window or on the beach, in a cabana, right by the ocean (pretty much right there where Zliten is).  I got through about 800 pages of the second George R R Martin’s book A Clash of Kings, reread one of my fave childhood books A Wrinkle in Time in one sitting, and started (and finished when I got back) a really cool campy sci fi book, A Galaxy Unknown.

I had gotten a scratchy and sore throat the day before we left, and I’m still coughing.  So yes, Mrs. Never-gets-sick has gotten sick on TWO vacations this year.  If I would have had the time to really take it easy like I normally do this would probably be gone by now but fun in Jamaica is worth a little extra recovery time.

I WAY overpacked – I brought a big suitcase and a carry on (which could be suited for a normal human 5 day vacation).  On vacation I usually bring a lot of stuff and end up with some of it unworn (but sometimes, not, and sometimes what I wear is what I don’t think I’ll touch).  The carry on came back with everything unworn.  I even made the effort to change a lot once I realized my effort, but still.  I packed for a cruise, which sees you changing multiple times a day and there is a lot of hot-to-cold due to blasting AC and changing climates.  This vacation, I spent most of it in my swimsuit and found that I needed no pants nor sweaters/wraps as the only AC was in the room at our control and the rest of the resort was open air, and that lovely air was between 75-85 degrees, so, yeah.  Perfect.  I brought dresses for dinner each night, which wasn’t needed, but they were comfortable, so I didn’t regret that.

Next resort vacay, I’ll take two swim suits, workout clothes, dresses for every night, two pairs of shorts, a handful of tank tops, one pair of pants, and ONE sweater (just in case).  I did alright on shoes, especially because one pair broke, and a new pair ended up giving me blisters.

My goal was to do as many watersports as possible since it was all included.  However, day 1 we got settled in just before sunset, and day 2 was a “danger” day (although I’m pretty sure below was the most dangerous thing in the water) so they recommended everyone stay out.  I swam the rest of the days, but only for an hour or two.  I expected to be in the water every second, and try every piece of equipment they had – but I was just not operating on 100% Quix power.

To be honest, there was nothing spectacular about the food.  They had great soups, fresh bread baked there with butter, and always had salad fixins, but to be honest, everything else was hit or miss.  Zliten noted that since the majority of the guests appeared to be from England, the food was probably styled to their tastes.  Which, to be honest, was a bit bland for my spice and heat-lovin’ self.  I became a pseudo vegetarian a lot of the time because the cuts of meat at times were just no bueno for me, or it was something like squid, or pigs feet, or weird looking fish.

I’d like to say that it kept me from being a little piggy, but sadly, I just indulged a lot on the things I liked (let’s just say that I probably had more bread last week than I have since I started low grain, if not double).  The pants, they are tight this week, but today resumes normal, healthy, sane person eating and calorie counting.  I am going to wager that I shouldn’t be incurring damage for too long.  Let’s just say since I’ve been back… uh… the remenants of Jamaica are moving through me at a much more right and proper manner.

All you can drink rum is a wonderful thing.  However, I think I’ll avoid the super molassess-y rum for a while, there is definitely too much of a good thing.  I didn’t go overboard on the sugar-y drinks, but I did indulge in a few pina coladas, and random fruity conoctgions, and had many, many, rum and diet cokes.  I’m pretty sure I ran the whole vacation just on caffiene alone, and I’m working on THAT hangover this week.

The resort itself?  Just about exactly what I expected for what I booked.  It was not luxury, the room definitely had “character” with half the bed being just about unsleepable (sadly, took me two days to realize it wasn’t just me being a princess about it and I aggravated my hip again), weird little white bugs in the open air bathroom, and a tv remote that you had to jiggle to work, the walls were impossibly thin, and there was always SOME sort of noise outside making it impossible to sleep past 8 most days.

However, I expected it all and more, so it was no big deal.  The resort was BIG, and we lucked out with a room right by the stairs to the lobby, so we were close to everything.  We had both a bedroom and a living room (with a REALLY comfortable day bed, I spent some of my nights there).  The staff was super friendly, especially the bartenders.  There was ALWAYS some sort of music going on – often Jamaican rap, sometimes the house band that played at mealtimes, sometimes a singer on the stage, but it definitely added to the atmosphere.  I also dug that Jamaica is an English speaking country.

And, uh… all you can drink rum.  QT with Zliten.  Beautiful ocean right there.  Watching the planes land during the day.  Watching the sun set over the water from the bar.  Reading from a shaded cabana hearing the harmony of random music and the waves lapping on the shore with a view of the sun, sand, boardwalk, and palm tree?  Everything I wanted in a vacation and more.

Here’s some quick day-by-day notes I took:

Tuesday:

Had to get up at 4am to get to airport (ugh), was definitely sick that day, uneventful flight, got into Jamaica, hotel was 5 mins from the airport, put stuff in room, changed into shorts, and then went to the bar.  Bartender took it upon himself to get us supremely drunk, and considering we had only a light soup and salad lunch with pretzels to snack on, it wasn’t too hard.  Dinner was hazy.  Had a fun night.  Nommed a burger and fries at the late night kitchen, it was SOOOO good. 🙂

Wednesday:

Read read read in the cabana most of the day.  Boozy banana drink was excellent (Zliten asked for something blended from the bar, bartender put some alcohol and a banana in the blender and served, and it was delicious, tasted like a milkshake).  Prime day of sickness, lots of cold medicine, cough drops, and such.  Made use of my first ever hankerchief and had to wash it out twice during the day (ewww).  Nap in the cabana was excellent.  Didn’t even get in the pool or ocean (red flag day) and it rained on and off all day – I didn’t mind, it was gorgeous and never got cold.  Walked around the whole complex exploring, we saw lots of weird stuff at the edges of the property, like a cool graveyard, a greenhouse, and a weird shed with random stuff in it.  Super mellow mellow day.

Thursday:

Spent the morning reading in the sun on a nice padded red couch/futon thing right on the ocean, got burned in the spots my running stuff doesn’t cover (apparently I need to get some more revealing running clothes…).  Spent the noon times in the ocean swimming (tried to play catch the fishies but it was way too murky in the water).  Zliten’s back lost a battle with a jellyfish (owie!).  Spent the afternoon time in the pool swimming and at the swim up bar.  We attempted to stay up to hit the disco, but my body shut down at around 10 and even a cup of coffee didn’t help, so we fell asleep before midnight.

Friday:

Read most of the day, this time we sat by the pool.  Swam, and the ocean was much clearer so we saw some fishies.  Encountered the diver man, who strapped bracelets on our wrist and then made us pay for them (we were kind of amused so we paid, but seriously, we got accosted in the WATER?)  Went kayaking, was super fun – tried to get as close to the landing strip at the airport as possible, but sadly, never caught a plane on camera while we were out there.  Decided we wanted to actually leave the resort and walked to Margaritaville and split some fish tacos as a snack and watched the sun set on their deck.  Noted it was kinda nice to hear familiar music since all we’d been hearing was Jamaican for the last 3 days.  Had a pretty mellow night.

Saturday:

Goals of the day: go for a run (no check, still felt crappy), chase the fishies (check), water trampoline bouncing (check), souvenir shopping (not check, enjoying the beach too much).  Made liberal use of the bar that day, and stayed on the beach way past sunset not wanting to give up our last day.  We said we were going to go back, but after a shower and dinner, it was definitely relax-in-the-room time.  We got one last late-night meal at the grill and I wanted to at least SEE the disco, so we walked over there – it was not really worth even staying (although there were almost exclusively single ladies there, so a dude’s dream!), so we went back upstairs and watched Christmas movies.

Sunday:

Got up, packed, had breakfast, and then went crazyfast souveneir shopping.  We were accosted on the way to go into some dude’s shop which was in the back in an alley (yikes) and he totally wouldn’t let us go.  It was creepy.  We ended up at the big souvenir shop which was advertised by the resort and got most of our stuff there for peeps.  I’m all for supporting the little people and all, but I really didn’t want to deal with haggling when we had like, 30 mins to shop.  We made it to the airport on time, and in general, it was an uneventful flight home besides WAY bad pressure in my ears because of the cold.  Still recovering from that today.  Was neat seeing Christmas lights from the plane on the way into Austin.

So all in all, just the vacation I needed.  Rest, relaxation, no email, no internet, no training, no worrying, just quality time with my Zliten, the ocean, the bar, and some books.  Part 1 of vacation complete, now moving onto part 2 (quality time at home by myself this week).

Did I like Jamaica?  To quote the locals… Yeh mon.  No problem. 🙂