Wednesday February 24 - photo journey and lightening crashes

In this particular room, we are lulled to sleep at night by the cricket-like insect sounds, and stirred awake in the morning to the sounds of the kitchen at the next door resort setting up for breakfast. Some people have complained about the noise in this room (although the windows have actual glass in this room, not just screens, the walls are still a bit thin, and we are right on top of the kitchen next door) but I haven't been bothered by it yet. I think if it weren't for them starting up at 7:30 I'd be sleeping in pretty damned late every morning.

As it is, this morning I woke at 7:30, made myself some coffee in the room, and sat in the hammock to update the blog. I picked up one of the more expensive types of coffee here - normally it goes for $50 a pound, I bought a half pound for roughly $20. I have to say, there is a distinct difference in the flavor, almost an almondy nutty flavor to it without having to add anything. This surprises me, because as much as I drink coffee, it's rare that I notice flavors like that (beyond "this is too bitter" or "this is just right") unless I taste them side by side. This does stand out, and I'll likely be getting some more to take home.

After a few cups of coffee, D and G woke up and got themselves ready for the beach. I met them down on the deck of Chill Awhile for breakfast (oat porridge, toast, and plantains all around) and then we got in our morning fish-feeding frenzy. The water was still a bit wavy, and because of that not quite as clear as I've seen it - I had to swim right up to the fish to see them, and then there would suddenly be a ton of them right in front of my face (and I may have kicked one. I didn't mean to! They zip around so fast they can normally avoid wild feet)

We sat in our chairs contemplating what to do with the day when D suggested we try going to this Rhode's Hall Plantation just outside of town. We've read about it before - you can go horseback riding, or on a tour of the crocodile and bird reserve, or just stroll the grounds, or snorkel just off shore. Today they were having a webcast for one of the travel forums online that D is a part of, so we thought it would also be fun to go wave at the camera.

We grabbed a camera and headed down the 15 or so minute drive out of town to the plantation. The driver took us in a little ways to a parking area, where we were greeted by an American who either manages the property or owns it (I couldn't quite tell which, but she described the plants as being "I've got almonds growing there" and "I've got soursap over here") Being there for the webcast meant being involved in the pizza party - so we ended up having a variety of pizza for lunch, along with rum punch and sodas.

I'm not terribly inclined towards horseback riding myself - due mostly to my allergies - but the price seemed a bit high in my opinion anyway, so we decided to skip the tours and wander the grounds photographing and enjoying lunch instead.
There were many a scene to find, and lush vegetation everywhere, along with some resident peacocks and peahens, and an abundance of lizards. Here is a sampling of some of (and by some I mean a fraction of) the shots.


G and I on the main lawn area of the grounds - there were many picnic tables under thatched roofs to pick from.



Rhode's Hall Plantation is directly on the water - apparently there is some good snorkeling to be had just off the shore.


We believe this is a plantain tree? The fruit grew just above my reach, so this was not very tall (though it looks like the fruit pulls the top of the tree down)


D among some bamboo. I love that he's wearing a bamboo printed shirt for this :)


No matter how much sunblock I put on my face, I still tend to get a Rudolf nose, hence the hat.


One of the resident peacocks. They were fairly tame, but didn't much care for me following them around to get pictures of their full tails.


They didn't mind sitting still for closeups though.


Another example of lush vegetation on the property.


This little guy has a bright yellow throat, that he was only inclined to show off when my camera was not ready.


There were lizards everywhere. I call this one "Lizard Yin & Yang"


We found a soursap tree on the property.


G and I amongst the lush greenery.


WICKED cool spider - he was a good 3 inches in length (body only, not counting legs) and his web was fishing-line strong.


D and G under some gigantic leaves.


Cool cool palm tree stretching up to meet the sky.

Once we'd had our fill of the afternoon's photographic journey, we arranged a ride back to town with Tyrone. Once back at the hotel in the heat of the late afternoon, we all quickly changed into our swimming gear and hit the water for some swimming and cooling down. D and G bounced around in the waves, playing and practicing jumping, while I swam lengths up and down the beach. Waterlogged and decently cooled down, we returned to the hotel to clean up for dinner.

Tonight we wandered down the beach to just see what we ended up walking into. A little ways up the beach - further than we've walked before - we came across a place called Tree House Hotel, with a bar/restaurant right on the water. We ordered, began sipping our drinks, and played with the camera a bit while waiting for our dinners.


Long exposure (the blur int he background is G)


This is a setting called "color swap" - that's my rum and pineapple juice.





My dinner was garlic shrimp, served with the usual rice and peas and some combination of vegetables that looked more like a little side salad to me. D's dinner came with a green beans/carrots combination and I ate probably half of his veggies along with my dinner. On our way back to the room we remarked how cool it had gotten. It's usually decently cooler when the sun goes down, but even so... when we'd walked down the street the night before after sundown we were still sweating by the time we'd reached our destination... but tonight we were quite refreshed by the steady breeze. I thought perhaps it was because we were literally on the water. I hadn't made the connection to my growing sinus headache that perhaps the weather was turning.

As we arrived at our room we cleaned up for bed (this involves G and I washing our legs. We are prone to being bitten by sand fleas at night, so any time we walk on the sand at night we put bug spray on our legs first, and wash it off as soon as we return to the room) I took a couple motrin for my headache, and tucked in for the night.

The headache, it turns out, was from the drastic change in barometric pressure outside.

Sometime in the middle of the night I was woken by the distant sound of a freight train - it was a low rumble at first... and just as I gained some sense of where I was I heard a massive CRASH! I sat straight up in bed and listened... the sky outside the room lit up with sputtery flashes, then another massive rumble-rumble-rumble-CRASH! Next came the plink-plink-plink... plinkplinkplinkplinkplink-WHOOOOOOOSH... absolute tropical downpour, with lightening crashes and thunderclaps and massive wind swooping in out of nowhere.

Well, not out of nowhere... I learned later this came down from Florida.

I scrambled out to the porch to pull in our semi-dry bathing suits - though the porch is entirely covered, everything had gotten soaked in the 2 minutes of rain that had already fallen. I also tried to get some video of the storm on the waterproof camera, but it didn't come out as much other than a black screen and a lot of wind sound - with one good thunder rumble in the middle. I'll try to isolate a frame of lightening when I get back to my computer at home. I did stand in the doorway enjoying the tropical storm for a while, until I began to feel chilled, then I hurried myself back to dry off and crawl under the covers. I listened as the thunder meandered it's way away from us, and the rain slowed from downpour to heavy rain, and then the cricket sounds began. One lonely insect singing, then a distant one responding, and as the rain let up more critters began to sing I drifted back off to sleep.