We got up the next morning and met at the entrance to the hotel to get the shuttle to the beach. The bus was packed, so Matt and I got to ride up front with the driver. It was cozy, to say the least. He dropped us off at Legends (Samsara’s sister property), and told us he’d be back to pick us up at 4pm.

We went out and got a couple beach chairs and hung out for a while. This was the view from our chairs: a bunch of Canadians laying around.

After a while, we went to get beers at the bar and then Matt, Kris and I went to wander. Here’s the lobster pizza place, in case anyone wanted a very questionable lunch. (It’s next door to Legends, so we talk about it all the time.)

Then there was Yellow Bird, one of our favorite places. It’s the perfect little thatch-roofed beach hut.

And they have dirty bananas, an important Jamaica tradition.

23/7 still hasn’t been rebuilt. There’s a new ‘no trespassing’ sign there, and no sign of anything new going in. I really wish someone would buy it.

Just as we’d hoped, there were signs up for Money Cologne’s birthday party. (His birthday is the same day as Matt’s, as we’d learned two visits prior.) Tarrus Riley was the biggest show happening while we were there, so we decided we’d need to go to that. Plus Roots Bamboo is awesome.

We’d hoped to find patties or something lunch-like to bring back to Orsi and the kids at Legends, but Kris didn’t find anything he wanted. We decided to walk back and go have lunch at Bourbon Beach instead. On the way back, I met a local named Duane who told me I should definitely come find him while I was out on my ‘lady walk’ later, and didn’t have my husband around. I went back and told Orsi all about it.

We grabbed a big table inside the building and ordered food. I had veggie tacos, and they all got giant piles of meat from the jerk hut. Our server overheard us talking about going to Floyd’s Pelican Bar later in the week, and mentioned that he was her cousin. She said she’d try to get a hold of him for us to find out if they had anything vegetarian there.

On the way back to Legends, we ran into Jomo, one of Kris and Orsi’s friends from the cliffs (he lives across the street from No Limit). He came with us to wander on the beach again.

We stopped into Roots Bamboo for a drink, and to sit around talking. Bally came out to say hi.

Matt and I mentioned that we wanted to go find the bar up the beach that looked like a boat, because we’d walked past it a few times late at night, and had always wanted to go there. When we’d gone by before, though, it was either packed or looked like it was closed. Jomo said he knew of the boat bar, so we headed further up the beach in that direction.

What he took us to was indeed called the Boat Bar, and it was definitely a boat. But the place we were picturing was wooden, whereas this was all tile/stone and not visible from the direction we would have been walking. But he insisted it was the only boat bar, and we couldn’t argue that it was great regardless. Their signature drink was something called a Steel Bottom, but we decided to wait til next time to have one. It was a long day of beer and rum already.

Matt and Kris went to go sit at the beach with the kids, so Orsi and I went to wander back to Yellow Bird on our lady walk. We did indeed run into Duane on the way, but he was less persistent this time, thankfully.

The kids were playing in the pool when we got back, and the sun was getting low. The beach shuttle had long since left, so we decided to have dinner on the beach before heading back to the cliffs. Matt and I had had an excellent meal at Kuyaba before, so we decided to go there again. They gave us a table on the patio with a good view for sunset.

Our meal was great, and so was sunset.

We went to watch the birds, Charlie and Buddy, doing their tricks before being put to bed, and then we went to get a cab at Legends. We rode back up to No Limit, where we spent the rest of the night playing Jenga and drinking white rum, which is always a terrible decision.

We slept really, really hard Wednesday night, and it was glorious. We got up at 9:15, met up with everyone, and headed to Jackie’s again to see if it was open. It was not, so we went to Pablo’s for breakfast instead. I had an egg sandwich and coffee. The kids split a meal, and Orsi had a Red Stripe, the breakfast of champions.

After our meal, we went back to the hotel to pack up. Since we were only moving hotels, I made very little effort to pack in an orderly fashion. Everything got tossed in my giant suitcase, and we rolled them down to Kris and Orsi’s room and went to check out. Since it was 10, the bus was there to take everyone to our hotel on the beach, but we didn’t want to head down there yet. Plus it’s only about $6 for a cab, so it’s easy.

We headed to the hotel bar to hang out. Our favorite bartender, Sharona, was working. When she called Matt ‘Ginger’, we almost fell over laughing. She looked pretty proud of herself. We sat around there for a long time, and Kris told us to go tell them that we wanted a cab ride from Chunky at 2pm. We did that, and went back down to sit around.

Round about 2, we went back up to the front and grabbed a cab. (I don’t think the driver was named Chunky, but that’s fine.) He dropped us off at our new hotel, Legends, and we checked in. We couldn’t get into the room til 3, so we left the bags with the front desk and headed to the beach. Since we didn’t have our bathing suits yet, we obviously had to go hang out at the bar for a while.

We were very near Yellow Bird, a place we’d liked the last time we were there, despite the Cornhusker flags hanging all over the place. We decided to partake in their signature drink (one of the four or five that are 2-for-1 ALL DAY): the Dirty Banana. (It’s not ice cream, it’s blended banana and juice and such.)

Round about 3pm, we walked back to the hotel and got our room key. We were right near the front desk, on a long walkway that led to the restaurant, bar, and beach. We had a nice patio with two adirondack chairs and a table, and our room had air conditioning and a gigantic bed with two tables built into the sides for our luggage. We also discovered we could get free wifi on our patio from Kuyaba, the resort across the way.

We unpacked a little, changed, and headed to the beach. We swam for a long time, then hung out looking at the ocean and drinking beer in beach chairs. We decided to stay for sunset, since it was a tradition.

We got up to leave right afterward, and K&O and the kids were just arriving for dinner. We showered quickly, changed, and walked down the beach to find dinner. Nothing looked super-promising except for Kuyaba, but that was right next door so we kept walking. We finally decided on Bar-B-Barn, a big place with a firepit set up on the beach. We got a table right away, then some waters, and then proceeded to wait FOREVER, even though the place wasn’t busy at all.

We finally got a drinks, then ordered dinner. I asked for the Ital stew, which I was really excited about, and of course they were out. She said they could do rasta pasta with ackee instead. We got pumpkin soup, which was great, and then suddenly nothing happened again for a very long time. There’s Jamaica time, but this was something far worse. It was confusing.

Finally the food arrived, and everything was cold or not great. Except for my pasta, which was fantastic. Atti ate a whole pile of ribs and chicken, so he and I seemed to be the only ones satisfied with our meal. I started to worry that all the food was going to be like that on the beach.

On the way back, the men headed to the convenience store while headed back up the beach. The kids did cartwheels in front of the hotel, and Orsi introduced me to Michael, the awesome security guard at Legends. We sat around on the patio while the kids watched movies in our room. Kris and Matt returned with beer and this special drink for Matt:

They headed back to Samsara around midnight, and Matt and I went to bed, immediately after watching a slow, halting version of the screaming goats on YouTube.

We got up shortly after 9 and got ready for the beach. The kids knocked on our door to let us know they’d arrived on the shuttle, so we headed down there to meet them. Michael pointed out their chairs to us, so we hung out there for a while as they swam. After a while, we decided to join them.

There was a partially-eaten dead starfish in the water, so of course Kris had to throw it around. Blech.

Once we were done swimming, Orsi decided she wanted to walk up the beach. (This was code for “go to bars”, apparently.) Kris didn’t feel like going, so she and I headed off in the direction of Yellow Bird. We stopped and experienced the joy of a Dirty Banana. After those were done, we walked up further and found Drifters, where their friends tended bar. It’s set off behind some properties on the beach, so it’s not easy to find.

Orsi introduced me to them. They’re a slightly older couple, and they’re awesome. The husband is Scottish, and the wife British. We had a beer there, and saw one of the original Drifters making phone calls at the bar, arranging for a karaoke night on Sunday. I was sad Matt wasn’t with me, because I know he’d want to see him.

On the way back, we stopped at Yellow Bird again and got two 2-for-1 Dirty Bananas, so we could bring them back for Matt and Kris. They of course started melting the second we started down the beach, so I arrived very sticky. Kris refused to drink it, because he thought it wasn’t manly enough. HIS LOSS.

(Fun fact: if you drink Dirty Bananas, you get “Dirty Diana” by Michael Jackson stuck in your head forever. It’s not pleasant.)

We hung out at the chairs for a while, then went down the beach in the other direction to get some patties for lunch. Matt and Kris declared themselves dancehall stars, and started making up music constantly. It was something to hear, believe me.

We went to the room to shower and change, then out to the road to get a cab to take us into town. Matt took the front seat, and the other five of us piled in the back. The driver dropped us at the Corner Bar, a place that we’d noted on our last trip was always the loudest building in town.

They didn’t really have much vegetarian food, but Matt got me an order of fries and a beer. They all had various varieties of fried chicken and brown-down.

When we finished, a guy came by and asked if he could take the bones for his dog. He poured all the boxes into one, and cleaned off the table for us. We then hailed another cab and rode up to the Canoe Bar just in time for happy hour.

After a while, Kris decided to take the kids back to the hotel while we hung out. A glass-bottom boat pulled up to the beach and a bunch of old people lined up to get out. I had had enough rum that I really, REALLY wanted to see one of them fall in the water, and I was not disappointed. At least she had the presence of mind to save her camera bag.

We had another round of drinks and made plans to meet up the next evening. Then we all used the bathroom for the 20th time there, and headed off in different directions on foot: Orsi up the cliffs, and Matt and I back toward town.

Once we made it down the hill, we cut through the little mall and headed toward the parking lot by Hi-Lo. There was a whole crowd of cab drivers there yelling to us, and we told them no thanks. One of them then pointed out the ATM across the way from Hi-Lo, which was good since it was almost disguised in there. We both got cash, then went grocery shopping.

We got rum, beer, snacks, and sunscreen, since we’d run out. The sunscreen didn’t have a price on it, so the cashier asked if I wanted to check it first. I said no, since we needed it anyway. (It was under $9… that’s a good deal regardless.) Also, I was once again aware of how incredibly much easier it is to always carry local currency in Jamaica. Everything is so much cheaper, since everyone estimates their own exchange rate for USD.

We walked back through town near the roundabout, which was really crowded that time of day. A guy stopped us and told us that he had been asked by the government of Jamaica to rewrite the Lord’s Prayer in patois. And he did, but they stole it from them and never gave him credit. He asked if he could recite it to us, so I said yes. (I knew he was angling for money, but hearing it was amazing.) He tried to sell us one of his other psalms in patois, but we told him to keep it and gave him cash for the privilege of listening. It was pretty excellent.

We dashed across the roundabout (there’s always some life-risking involved), crossed the Negril river with the trees full of egrets, and headed toward our hotel. On the way, I had to stop and take a picture of a Jamaican basketball court, since of course we were traveling with our basketball friend.

We sat on the patio drinking some (not) delicious Rum Fire, then decided to go get dinner. We went next door to Kuyaba, which was pretty full despite it being fairly late in the evening for Negril dinner. Our table was up front on the patio, overlooking the beach. Matt had browndown and conch, and I had extremely delicious ital stew peas. It was a far better meal than the previous night’s.

After dinner, we decided to make our obligatory visit to Margaritaville, since it’s a tradition. We headed up the beach, noting a few interesting-looking (and still fairly busy, which is unusual) bars along the way. We reached the point where we could see the neon at our destination, but in between us and the bar was a building sticking out into the water. We saw it from a ways off, but had to actually walk up to it to even grasp the concept of a building BLOCKING THE BEACH in Negril. It made no sense at all.

We stood there considering our options for a minute. It looked like we could probably climb past it (on the pile of questionable-looking sandbags surrounding it) without getting our clothes too wet, but what if we tried to come back later and the surf had come in farther? We weren’t wearing shoes, so going out to the road and cutting around it wasn’t possible. We gave up and headed back the other direction.

We decided to go to Bourbon Beach, which was advertising a free reggae show that night. It was basically being put on to advertise the Capleton show the next night, but that was fine with us. I love Bourbon Beach.

We got drinks at the crowded bar, then grabbed a picnic table to watch the show. There was a solid mix of locals and super-hippie ladies hanging out. The band would play a couple songs, then make an announcement about the Capleton show, then go back to the music. Guys were wandering around selling tickets and weed.

My favorite moment was when the band played “Welcome to Jamrock” by Damian Marley. That made me so happy.

As the show wrapped up, we headed back toward our hotel. The beach was pretty empty apart from the people at Bourbon Beach. We arrived at Legends to find the beach gate locked, so we tried to go through the restaurant. Those gates were locked, too, but there was a security guard inside who told us to go next door to the restaurant. I said, “Kuyaba?” and he said yes. We went over there and the gates were closed, too, but they weren’t locked. We went inside and closed them behind us, and felt REALLY awkward about walking through a closed restaurant, barefoot, in the dark, especially since we knew there was a gigantic birdcage with a loud, crabby cockatoo in the back.

As we neared the exit that led to the resort, we ran into another security guard who told us to be careful walking through. I asked him if we could get to Legends this way, and he said yes. There’s no gate between them except the one by the road, though, so by the time we’d walked across the parking lot and out onto the road, we were regretting being barefoot.

So my advice to you is to bring flipflops with you if you go out at night on the beach, just in case. Those gates close early.

We got up Friday morning and got a cab up to Samsara. Orsi had taken Szof to school with Nav, so it was me and the boys for the day. Pila hailed a cab for us, and we rode into the hills above town to a place called both Ragabones and the Red Dragon. Matt and Kris were in search of the best jerk pork in Negril.

The pork wasn’t quite ready yet (it was around 11), so we got beers and hung out at a table. Kris had mentioned that they had the coldest Red Stripes around, and it was no joke: the bottles iced over instantly.

Atti and I hung out while Matt and Kris went to check on the meat’s progress. I loved the place instantly, because it was covered in stickers from all over the world. Many of them were from Wisconsin, confusingly.

Thankfully, they had a little shop on site for those of us who didn’t eat jerk pork. Matt got me a cheese bun. (That might seem disappointing, but it’s not. The wheat cheese bun is the BEST.)

We took a bunch of pictures there, because of our love for the Red Dragon in Minneapolis. This place wasn’t quite the same, but it was still awesome.

Our cab driver waited for us the whole time, and after lunch took us down to the farm store in town. Kris wanted seeds and a machete. They didn’t have either at that store, so we went further down the road to another one. THEY didn’t have seeds, either, but they definitely had a giant machete.

We took everything back to the hotel, and took this picture to send Orsi, so she was aware of what was going on while she was at school:

Orsi showed up, and the kids went to nap. We changed into bathing suits and went to go snorkel off the cliffs. The visibility was pretty good, and there were blue crabs climbing all over the rocks. Kris saw some eels, too, but I couldn’t find them.

We swam from that spot down to the area where we’d jumped off the cliffs before. Kris managed to find a crowd of tiny jellyfish along the way, and got stung a lot by them. I got a couple stings on my arm, but they weren’t bad. We climbed out of the water, and Kris got vinegar from the bar to put on his stings. Those invisible jellyfish are a bunch of jerks.

We dried off and changed again to head to No Limit. What we learned there is that you can just buy yourself a bottle of Appleton. Byron didn’t have Diet Pepsi, so I ran next door to buy some. I left it at the bar, which made it convenient when we stopped back later.

While we were sitting there, a huge storm erupted. I couldn’t believe how much it rained in half an hour’s time. We waited out the storm with our rum, and Kris’ roots drink.

Once the rain let up a little, we left the kids at the bar (under Nav’s care, not the drinkers) and got a cab to Pushcart for dinner. We got there and found it closed for a private party, so we went to 3 Dives instead. It was still raining a little, and everyone was damp.

The place was mobbed, so I figured it would take forever. We found a spot to sit and drink beer while the men went to order. The food didn’t actually take that long at all, surprisingly. I had a giant vegetarian plate, and ate it with all of the hot sauce in the world.

After dinner, we rode back to No Limit. Kris and Orsi grabbed the kids and went back to the hotel, and Matt and I stayed and ordered another drink from Nav, who was tending bar. (They said they’d never see her do that before, which was funny.) We grabbed a cab back to our hotel, and hung out on the patio for a bit. We went to bed just as Capleton was coming on at Bourbon Beach, so I had trouble getting to sleep from the show echoing down the beach.