Went to Dunn’s river falls yesterday.  It was an incredible experience.  Hiked up from the beach to the top of the waterfalls.  With the camera in my hand and it didn’t get wet, yes!!! I got a lot of awesome pictures that I will upload when I get back home.

Today is also the last full day of Jamaican experience.  Headed to Kingston around 2pm local time and will probably just do some chilling at UWI’s Mona campus.  I think the plan is to go to some restaurant so we don’t have to eat KFC again .

Should be landing in Seattle around 8pm on Sunday.  There will be a big Jamaica slideshow and music party at my house afterwards.  You will be notified on Facebook and here.

On Friday I went and took the photos of performances.  It was pretty good.  I ended up taking photos of the girls as well as Koleidoscope and the Estonian dance company.  Koleidoscope is somewhat of a sister company to Enertia, since Danielle was a part of it when she was little.  The Estonians just had a great dance that I had to take photos of.  Can’t wait to work on them and post them up.  It is hard to be a bunch of hot blond girls doing a bizarre modern piece .  Rest of the day we spent relaxing in the pool.

Saturday was another big photo day since the final dance was happening so we stuck around the UWI campus and rehearsed in the morning and then did the parade in the evening.  The dances were decent, but the scenery and the general feel to everything was amazing.  There was a lot of diversity and everyone was in a great mood.  After the parade there was a big dance hall style party with food and more dancing.   That night I spent sleeping on the floor in Sammie and Stacy’s room.  I never managed to get a 3rd night at the hotel since it was all booked up.

Sunday was the big travel day.  We headed out to Montego Bay from Kingston.  The ride was about 3.5 hours along the windy mountain roads.  We arived at Sandals Inn around 3pm.  This place is great.  Very quiet, clean and close to all the action.  One downside is that it’s a total couples place.  It made it ackward at times, but we had a big group so it sort of worked out.  I ended up sharing a room with Sammie.  We spent most of the day chilling at the pool and enjoying the all inclusivness of the place.  It was a big change from eating KFC and Jamaican patties in Kingston .  We met some new people and most importantly the bartender Jonathan and entertainment guy Loco Ray.  These guys completely made our vacation. 

On Monday we went to Sandals Montego Bay.  It’s another resort that we had all the privileges at and it was much larger and a lot more fun.  There we spent the day sailing, snorkeling and lounging at the beach.  I managed to get a sunburn which took me out of commission.  We ended up playing Bingo at one point as well, were I met Nardya, a real Jamaican queen.  She’s one of the entertainment folks at the resort.  That night there was a beach party followed by the outing at the Margaritaville club. I ended up leaving kind of early since my sunburn was killing me.

On Tuesday we did some shopping at the local craft market and some of the shops on the strip in Montego Bay.   After that we went back to Sandals at Montego Bay.  I spent most of the day hanging out with Nardya.  They had some parties at night and she was working through most of the night, but she did managed to show me a lot of photos of her.  She’s apparently a lingerie model in her spare time.  I was sad that I never managed to get a photo of me and her together, but we exchanged contact info and we will definitely keep in touch. 

Wednesday we headed to Ocho Rios.  It was an 1.5 hour ride from Montego Bay right along the coast.  The place we stayed in is Jamaican Grande and it’s a lot more touristy and a lot more crowded place than either of the Sandals spots.   We reserved some dinners at the restaurants and spend the time chilling.  This place is much nicer at night since the night sky looks a lot better.  Montego Bay didn’t have that great of a night sky since the airport was close by and the lights from it were making the sky too bright.  Wednesday turned out to be one of those “do nothing all day” days. 

Thursday we ended up shopping for some stuff and I finally got me some music and a bag to carry all my souvenirs back in.  I’m now on a hunt for a perfect native mask.  I think I found one at this gift store, but will have to double check.  Rest of the day the girls spent at the pool, while I was afraid to expose my still slightly burned body to the elements.  We also ate at a Chinese restaurant here at the resort, and surprisingly it was not bad at all .

I woke up early today, Friday, even though I spent the night at some clubs and singalong spots at the resort and was the last person to hit the bed.  I think that nap I took yesterday did some good.  Today we’ll try and go to the falls, but I’m not sure now since there is a big downpour.  Lets hope it doesn’t last.

Well I finally found the girls. We ended up missing each other since they went to a Jamaican Independence Day celebration at the stadium. I found them in their room shortly after I wrote my post yesterday.

Today is the first full day of Jamaican experience. After eating the breakfast we headed to the dance conference. It’s really awesome. They are learning some local dances that they’ll perform at the street tomorrow. All of the dances are Caribeean influenced and are supposed to represent one of the islands like Cuba, Jamaica, Granada, Haiti, etc. I took a lot of shots of the dancers and the live band during today’s practice, and I can only hope for more later.

Now I’m chilling in the shade while the girls are watching a performance. Later I will take photos of them doing Ashley’s piece and they’re supposed to have strobe lights during it, yes!!

I got good at finding wi-fi spots so I should be able to use the iphone as I intended to. I leave you with a photo of a local drink called WATA, which is as you might’ve guessed just bottled water.

Finally made it into Jamaica. Started my travel at Sea-Tac, of course and headed for Dallas/Ft. Worth. A girl sitting next to me was some Latina sorrority girl from UW who was on two out of my three flights. She was headed to Dominican Republic to visit some family. We had some good conversations and that helped shorten the flight. Once we got off we both had to rush to our next flight to Miami. The flight was fairly calm so I managed to get some shut eye. The things got a lot more exciting on the Miami-Kingston flight. I was sorounded by a bunch of Jamaican women who thought I looked inocent and wanted push my buttons, needles to say that didn’t work and they got their’s pushed .

Finally I was in Kingston after 8-9 hours on the plane. Since I had at most 30 minutes between the flights I never managed to eat properly. After paying $32 for a cab from airport to Mona Lodge I was pleased to find that there was still something open on U of West Indies campus, a KFC joint. That was the best chicken I’ve ever had, probably because I was starved. After that I went onto a search for D-dog and the ladies.

In the process I managed to break a law apparently and get in trouble with campus security. While looking for girls I got a bit lost on the campus and the only thing between me and familiar territory was a small 3 foot tall fence, so naturally I jumped it. Security guards somehow found out about this and they stoped me 5-10 minutes later. They were concerned that I looked suspicious for jumping a fence, since apparently in Jamaica if you jump a fence you got something to hide. After I explained myself they were cool about it and even offered me a ride back to the lodge. I declined and went to see the party that chemistry department was throwing.

As of this writting I still didn’t locate the girls. Their rooms are right next to mine, but the girls are elsewhere. If they don’t show up soon I’ll go to bed and catch them at brekfast tomorrow.