Kris and Orsi got married in Jamaica. Since we weren’t there for their wedding, we obviously had to go for their 10th anniversary. They were there for a couple weeks in February, and we joined them toward the end of their stay, only overlapping by a couple days.

We had a 3.5 hour drive to Miami and a 1 hour flight to Montego Bay, since we can’t fly direct from Key West. It’s worth it.

Peela, one of their friends from Negril, met us at the airport with his cab. On the way out of town, he mentioned that weed was now legal in small quantities in Jamaica. It was hilarious to see him smoking and waving at cops along the way.

Speaking of which, the usual spirit license signs had a new counterpart: the ganja license sign!

He dropped us off at Samsara and we checked in. Our room was across the road on the garden side, which we’d never actually visited before. It was really pretty, and quieter than the cliffs side. We had a big cottage with a nice patio to ourselves. (I would highly recommend the garden side, plus it’s cheaper.)

We found Kris, Orsi, Thomas, Melissa, and the kids (four of them) cliff-jumping before sunset. We had good timing!

We watched sunset, then walked over to No Limit. There was a new cook there with a grill in the parking lot, and Kris had asked him to make ital (vegan) pumpkin soup in addition to the usual chicken soup, which meant I could eat there too. The soup was amazing, and had huge dumplings in it.

We sat outside the bar for a few hours talking, and then it was time to head back to our rooms.

Here’s the view from our patio the next morning. I made coffee and sat out there reading. It was funny how familiar all the foliage seemed to me this time; we have many of the same plants in the yard now. Not as exotic-seeming, but every bit as attractive as always.

The temperatures in Jamaica and Key West were the same in February, in the high 70s, but it felt warmer there. The sun is more direct, and it’s more humid.

We met everyone and climbed on the shuttle down to Legends on the beach. Here’s Kris and Orsi, who seem to still like each other even after ten years!

We spent the usual amount of time at Yellow Bird (a lot), having dirty bananas. The kids were happy to spend time at the cake lady’s stand.

We had lunch at Kuyaba, and then a few of us went for a beach walk all the way down to Tony’s, which is down toward the other end where the big resorts start. Our names were still on the wall from last time, but we needed a new entry with updated information:

Then it was time to head back and get ready for dinner, so we walked back to Legends, where everyone else was waiting to get on a glass-bottom boat to ride back up to the cliffs. It looked like a storm was rolling in as we left the beach.

We did some sightseeing along the way, and then they dropped us off at the hotel. I am still not at all a fan of jumping off a rocking boat, especially onto a narrow rock platform on these cliffs.

The rainbow was pretty awesome, though, plus the rain missed us.

We changed and got a cab to Just Natural for dinner. I love that place.

After dinner, we did the usual hanging-out at No Limit, then went back to the hotel to fly paper lanterns over the ocean.

The next morning, it was already time for the rest of the group to head back to Minnesota. Matt and I had a good laugh over the idea of going back to Minnesota in February (how soon we forget). We said bye to everyone and then walked down the road to Canoe Bar for breakfast. Their coffee was amazing.

After breakfast we decided to head down to town to do some grocery shopping at Hi Lo. Along the way we met Chicken King, who was awesome. So was his decor:

We ended up going to the new green supermarket instead of Hi Lo, since that was new since our last visit. It was pretty much the same thing. We got Blue Mountain coffee to bring home, some spices and hot sauces that we needed, and snacks for the hotel. Then we headed back up toward Samsara, making a beer stop with Chicken King along the way.

We spend the afternoon in the pool and reading books along the cliffs. One of the very appealing things about Negril is there’s not that much to do there; you’re forced to actually relax.

In the evening, we walked over to Pushcart for dinner. We’ve been to the Rockhouse on every trip to Negril so far, and we weren’t going to mess up that tradition. Their food is amazing, and so is their decor. (Also, we’ve been to a couple of the restaurants owned by the same people in New York, like Miss Lily’s. They’re great.)

This is the most true statement:

After dinner, we walked over to the bar at Rockhouse for a drink, then headed back to the hotel to hang out on our patio and play cards before bedtime.

The next morning, it was already time to leave Samsara. We rolled our bags to the lobby and took the shuttle to Legends, where we were spending the rest of our stay. Our room wasn’t ready yet, so we left our bags in the lobby and went to sit on the beach.

I bought a bottle of ginger-pineapple juice from a guy passing by. It was amazing.

We sat there reading for a while, then went to get our room. It was also on the garden side, but this time in a pretty large hotel complex. We had a nice room with a balcony, and we could see the pool from there. We decided to go have a swim.

Turns out the pool in the shade is NOT as warm as the ocean. It took a long time to get used to it, but I managed to spend some time in there before I lost feeling in my limbs. There was a family of feral cats running around too, and the babies climbing on everything were adorable.

We showered and headed out for a walk on the beach. With a stop at Yellow Bird, of course. They have a good view.

Here’s an awesome mural on the side of the building that used to be 23/7’s kitchen. I can’t believe that spot is still empty!

We had a late lunch at Roots Bamboo, then decided to try Woodstock, a new place that had sprung up since our last visit. It was a really large property with a big stage, and they advertised two-for-one rum punches for happy hour. What’s not to like?

Their sunset view was pretty good, too!

We ended up spending a very long time there (as happens in Negril), but unfortunately there was nothing on the menu I could eat. However, there was a little rasta shack nearby. This meal was incredible.

The next day, the ocean was rough. Probably the roughest we’ve seen it on a non-stormy day. It was kind of hilarious watching people fight the waves.

We stuck to our beach chairs, reading and lounging.

Round about lunchtime, we went for a walk down toward the other end of the beach, and found a little patty shop along the way. We got patties and Red Stripe and brought them back to Legends’ beach for further chillin’.

After a good long time in our beach chairs, we changed and went for another walk down the beach. We ended up at Tony’s again (waaay down the beach), where we ran into a couple from Wisconsin. We ended up talking to them for a long time. (They had fond memories of 23/7, which made me like them a lot.) They recommended Chance’s for dinner because they had the best pizza in Negril; we liked the sound of that, so ended up heading down there after a while. We were sitting there waiting for dinner when the couple showed up, clearly influenced by their own recommendation. They were right – it was really great pizza.

We then walked all the way back down to Bourbon Beach for their show. It was mostly concert footage shown on a giant screen, followed by a band. I liked having the option of both, really.

The next morning, we got a cab to take us up to Just Natural for brunch. It wasn’t so much that we love the place (we do, but we’d already been there), more that Kris is dumb and had left something he’d worked years to acquire there when we’d had dinner. We told him we’d go back and get it for him.

There was no threat of rain this time, so we sat out in the jungle. Bally bellied up to the bar.

And here’s a reminder of the outdoor restrooms there. I LOVE THIS PLACE.

Our cab driver showed up right on time after breakfast, and we asked him to drop us off at Rockhouse, which was about half of the way back to the roundabout. We wanted to hit up their shop, because we figured they would have awesome stuff.

And they did, including this new Ting tshirt I bought for myself.

By then it was afternoon, so it was OK to have a cocktail. The bartenders working were the absolute best, and they were really entertaining. Especially when singing and dancing to Drake.

Also, there’s this view:

The bartenders found out that it was Matt’s birthday the next day, so insisted that he have a flaming shot. Well, we both did. You can’t really tell that this is on fire, but it is. You drink it with a straw, which hearkened back to that one time Wendy did so and lit the cruise ship bar on fire.

We headed back down the road after a couple drinks, walking back past Samsara. We decided to get lunch at the German bar, which also had pizza. Shut up, it’s really good pizza!

From there, we hailed another cab. When it pulled up there were already two women and the drive inside, and we realized it was a route taxi. Which was fine, because that’s way cheaper than a regular cab. We asked the driver to take us to Time Square, right next to our hotel. She dropped us off there and we went to use the ATM before going to our room to drop off our Rockhouse purchases.

After a while, we headed back up the beach to Tony’s. It’s such an entertaining little place.

The bartender, Princess, had everyone playing games. We played this one, which involved stacking disks on top of tippy pieces.

After a while we switched to Shut the Box, which I’ve decided is my new favorite bar game. It drives me crazy.

We hung out for sunset, then decided to go get dinner.

I really wanted to go back to the rasta place on our last night, but it turns out they were closed. We decided on Alfred’s Ocean Palace instead, which had an excellent vegetarian crepe. Matt swears we’ve never been there before, but we definitely had lunch there on our first trip to Negril.

We made one last top at Woodstock, and then it was time to go pack up for the trip home.

The next morning, we had breakfast a few doors down from the hotel, then went to check out and get the shuttle to the airport. We only made one stop along the way, and our driver made quick work of the drive (which is kind of nervewracking in a huge van). We had a good flight home, and spent the evening in Miami celebrating Matt’s birthday before heading home to Key West on Sunday!

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.

The next morning, Orsi said she was going to stay at the hotel with the kids, who wanted to swim in the pool. Kris decided he wanted to come with Matt and I down to the beach, so it was decided it would be their Man Walk. I was just along for… well, everything awesome about the beach.

We found Popsie, who drove us down to the far end before the megaresorts begin, and dropped us off at the Treehouse. Matt and I had never been down past Margaritaville, so it was awesome to see a new spot.

We got drinks at the bar and hung out looking at the beach for a while, then went up to their patio for another view. It was gorgeous outside, if really windy.

The Treehouse seemed to be a pretty laid-back property like Legends. I’d definitely consider staying there.

We decided to walk down the beach, so Kris led the way (walking waaaaay too fast for the beach). I followed behind at the appropriate strolling speed. We passed Margaritaville (they couldn’t be convinced to have a rasta shot), and stopped in at Tony’s instead.

As we walked up, Matt and I realized that Tony’s was probably actually the boat bar we were thinking of. It was nautical and wooden, and the view was right from the direction we were walking. We were very excited to find it.

The guy running the place was really funny, and most of the people sitting at the tiny bar looked like they’d been there all day, every day. The men got seats at the bar, and I preferred to sit on the low wall overlooking the beach. People had left their names all over the place, so Kris got us markers to leave messages ourselves. I took this picture to show Orsi how the Man Walk was proceeding:

Matt found a Twins’ Homer Hanky on the ceiling, so we left a pro-Gophers message right by it. It seemed appropriate.

The telephone ring man passed by, and I grabbed cash to get one. We’d run into him at least a few times before, and his rings are really awesome. He’s well-known on the beach, walking up and down yelling, “Ring! Ring! Telephone Rings!” He told me that kids collect the old telephone wires and bring them to him, and he teaches them to make jewelry. I only wanted one ring, but in typical Jamaican beach-consumer fashion, I ended up with five rings for $10 and a Red Stripe from the bar. Considering he initially wanted $15 for one ring, I feel like I did well. I brought the extra rings back to Orsi and the kids later on.

Then it was time to move again. Kris marched us down to the Boat Bar, because they were intent on having the house drink, known as the STEEL BOTTOM. They went to the bar and ordered, and the bartender laughed and said, “These guys want to make babies!” I realized then that the Steel Bottom was not going to be a drink for ladies (according to Jamaicans, and also my desire to not drink overproof in the morning), so I ordered a Red Stripe instead.

The Steel Bottom was a decent-sized shot of Red Cap with a beer, meant to be poured together and consumed. It looked terrible, and I was really glad I didn’t have to drink it. Here’s an appropriate picture of how they were probably feeling about drinking it at the time. BLACKOUT.

While we sat there, a guy came up and asked Kris if we wanted a boat ride. When he said no, he asked if we wanted cocaine. Oh, Jamaica.

Then it was time to move on again, because we were hungry. Conveniently, we encountered the patty man and his bike on the beach. We got patties, and Kris got a coco bread too. We headed to Yellow Bird, ordered Dirty Bananas (the exact opposite of a Steel Bottom, I think), and Kris made a sandwich out of his bread and patty.

There were a few women sitting next to us who really wanted to talk to Kris, and their voices were so ungodly scratchy and horrible that they actually chased us from the bar. Eesh. Also, there was a super-drunk local harassing people, so we figured we should probably move on.

The wind was picking up more and more, and it was started to get a bit overcast. We headed all the way down past Legends and Bourbon Beach to the last big hotel, called Travelers. It seemed pretty laid-back as well, and they had a concrete pingpong table sitting in the middle of the courtyard, for reasons we were unsure of.

Kris said the mudslides there were great (he’d done this same beach bar crawl before). I really didn’t want anything sweet after a Dirty Banana, so I got a rum and diet instead. Matt said they were delicious, but definitely really sweet.

At that point I was sick to death of sitting at bars instead of somewhere in the sand, because we were on one of the best beaches in the world. We decided to walk down to Bourbon Beach, where we could actually get a table on the beach itself. The second we left Travelers, though, we realized our mistake: the wind was coming from the direction we were walking now, and it was HORRIBLE. We got sandblasted the whole way, and I was the only one wearing sunglasses and therefore able to see. We stopped at Bourbon Beach to get a beer, and Kris got a text from Nav saying that Orsi and the kids had gone to the German Bar to get pizza. That sounded like an excellent idea, so we went over to Legends to get a cab back up to the cliffs.

They weren’t at the German Bar when we arrived, so we figured we’d wait for them. Then it occurred to us that maybe they’d been there and left, so we decided to order. We got a bunch of pizza, and left carrying a to-go box. It was so windy at that point that it was hard to hold the pizza box as we walked down the road.

We stopped back at the hotel to clean up, and found this sign waiting in the room. It was no joke… the waves would come up so high on the cliffs that you could be washed off the edge.

It was actually getting cold outside in the wind, too, which was a surprising and new experience in Jamaica. We decided to stay close by, and went across the street to Ciao Jamaica for dinner. We got an indoor table (I couldn’t believe people were sitting out on the patio) and ordered cocktails.

While we were waiting for our food, a table of ladies arrived. They were well into the day’s celebrations, and didn’t seem to understand that they were in a nice restaurant, not, say, Senor Frogs. They were yelling and doing shots and generally annoying everyone in the place. We spent a lot of time glaring at them.

After dinner, Orsi wanted to take a Lady Walk over to No Limit for a drink, so we did that and the men and kids went back to the hotel. We had a beer there, and then went back to to join them. We sat out on the patio for a while, and the waves were so rough we were getting sea spray all the way over there (past the cliffs, two swimming pools, trees, and a wall). It was cold, too, which still blew my mind.

Matt and I went back to our room around 10. We left the windows open because we thought the breeze would be nice, but I kept waking up panicking about the noise of the waves crashing, and eventually had to close the windows. Plus I was freezing to death!

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.

Kris, Orsi, and kids came down to the beach on the shuttle again, and we joined them in the ocean. After floating around for a while and drinking beer in our beach chairs, we decided to go over to Yellow Bird for our daily visit.

We had dirty bananas, then did a lot of time sitting around staring at the beach and passers-by and joking. We got hungry after a while, so Matt and I walked down the beach to the patty shop (Jamrock!) to get some lunch. We brought them back to Yellow Bird, because we wouldn’t want to miss out on the 2-for-1s.

Of course the patty man showed up right after that. (Not that anyone was sad about more patties.) He showed Orsi how he’d modified his bike for beach-rolling purposes: the pedal on his side was removed, as well as the seat. He was in no real hurry to get the patties down the beach, either, and hung out at Yellow Bird for a while.

The kids made a new friend, and spend the time running around and playing in the sand with him. As they did every day, a couple Jamaicans rode slowly past on horses, trying to get people to ride. They also hung out in front of Yellow Bird for a while, and sat on their horses texting. I made a mental note to add that to my to-do list.

Later in the afternoon, we decided we could maybe switch bars for a while. We all piled in a cab, and Orsi fell in love with the driver’s hat, so she traded him. (His was way more awesome.)

He dropped Matt and Kris in town near the cricket shop, and the rest of us rode up to the Canoe Bar. Orsi and I got a table on the balcony overlooking the beach, and the kids headed down to play. The men arrived shortly after that, just in time for happy hour. Matt had an awesome West Indies cricket cap, and Kris had yet another gigantic knife.

We had an informal travel mascot meetup while we were there. These dudes have been a lot of places.

We ended up staying there long enough that we decided to just stay for dinner. The kids were tired, so K&O took them back to the hotel while we stayed. Matt placed a 2-for-1 drink order right as happy hour was ending, and somehow managed to end up with FOUR “Rock the Boats”. He ordered lionfish for dinner, and I had amazingly delicious curry tofu. It’s not so hard to be vegetarian AND get something other than rasta pasta if you go to the right places.

We were on our own for the evening, so we decided to get our Margaritaville visit out of the way. We grabbed a cab for the cliffs, and arrived to find the place pretty empty (it was probably 8:30 or 9ish, so that’s late for the beach), and the last of the resort shuttles was leaving. We sat at the bar near a couple who were having a night of it. We could tell because the lady kept slurring very loudly about how it was her 37th birthday.

We ordered the obligatory rasta shot (which is surprisingly delicious) and margaritas. After a while, I had to ask the couple near us where they were from, because I had a suspicion. They were from Watertown, Wisconsin, outside of Milwaukee. They were there without the kids, celebrating her birthday by drinking four billion margaritas, as far as we could tell. We didn’t hold out much hope for the lady being able to stay on her chair much longer, but suddenly their dinners arrived and she rallied.

We hung around there for another drink (and to watch sports on TV, which was rare), then decided to head back down the beach. We had shoes with us this time in case we couldn’t get around that building in the ocean.

We reached it and peered around to see if it looked safe. While we were doing so, another group came up behind us, and one of the guys was PISSED about that development. We all decided to do it, and made our way across on the sandbags. It wasn’t the safest thing in the world, but it worked.

On the way down the beach, we passed what was left of 23/7, our favorite bar on our previous trip. According to the internet a while back, the owner (who was from New York) got in some kind of beef with a local guy and tried to kill him with a machete. Then he fled to Canada, and people came and knocked down the bar. All that’s left of it is the tiki hut, so probably it should belong to us.

We went and stood under it and toasted.

We saw that Roots Bamboo was still hopping, and since it was another favorite from the last trip, we stopped there instead. We got drinks, and god knows if I even remember what we were talking about. I was obsessed with the wires hanging out of the back of the cash register, and made Matt take a picture of them.

We went back to our hotel after that, and were glad to find the beach gate open again.