Cricket in the West Indies

The morning dawned clear and sunny, and we headed off after breakfast to see if the seven mile beach was really that. Unfortunately the touts here are nowhere as nice as in Mexico. There we were told that if you say 'no' nicely, once, they'll accept it and move off. By and large, that's exactly what happened. Unfortunately it seems that in Jamaica even three polite refusals is not enough to stop them from continuing to walk alongside badgering you. When the fourth 'no' is less than polite they wander off muttering about how you don't like Jamaicans. Whatever man!

Found a smallish supermarket in the village of Negril at the end of the beach, and stocked up on a few things to make our life a bit easier. The included breakfast in both motels we've been in so far seems to be boiled plantains, deep fried floury dumplings, and a vegetable dish of spinach and onions. Genuine I guess, but not very appetising. There is a big sign at the entrance to the resort saying that this was the home of the world famous pancake kitchen, so one of our group asked for the pancake menu at breakfast. "It's not included, man". Anyway, the menu finally arrived with a decent array of pancakes listed. She ordered the chocolate chip pancakes. "Sorry, we don't have any chocolate chips". OK, let's have the blueberry pancakes. "Sorry, we don't have any blueberries". How about the pancakes with mango sauce? "No, we only have regular sauce". How about you tell me then what you do actually have. "Um, we have regular pancakes with maple syrup". Guess I'll have those. Why bother with a menu, we all thought? Maybe it's world famous for another reason.

So we trooped off down the beach after breakfast, and found some juice, cereal and long life milk in the supermarket to have for breakfast over the next few days. Not surprisingly, word quickly spread, and people were trooping off to the supermarket all afternoon.

Arrived back in time for a late morning swim. The water is very warm and very turquoise, and no waves to speak of, so it makes for a great swim, but doesn't feel very refreshing when you're hot and dripping. Each resort on our strip is quite small - only 20 or 30 metres wide - so, whilst the beach is open to the public, each hotel has roped off their area of the water, probably to stop boat touts from getting close in shore and hassling the guests while they try to swim in peace. Hasn't stopped the touts offering us "a real authentic Jamaica experience" though, which is code for ganja (marijuana) and magic mushrooms, and probably one or two other things we really don't want to know about.

Just got out the water before the heavens opened up early for today's tropical downpour, so we had lunch on our verandah watching the water sheet off our roof. The West Indies are hosting Australia and South Africa in a one-day cricket tournament. Unfortunately there aren't going to be any games in Jamaica while we are here, but Australia are playing West Indies in the final in Barbados today, so it was fun to watch a bit of it on the TV with the ubiquitous Bob Marley playing in the background. Luckily we won, though it didn't seem to be being watched by all that many locals. I think that cricket is definitely on the wane here. Every bar seems to have the football (soccer) on.

Went for a very pleasant walk down the street after the sun had set, and had dinner in a lovely Italian restaurant for half the price of the beach bar here at the hotel.