Beaches and the Black River; our time in Jamaica - Day 5

I woke up this morning in the jungle surrounded by mosquito netting. We got to sleep in the Queen's Room at Linda's house. Monique had gotten us coco bread made with coconut milk for breakfast. Yum! Miss Sadie, a Jamaican lady who works closely with Linda and Jesus for Jamaica, was here at 5:30 am to meet us but we weren’t up yet (imagine that...) She came back at about 8:30 and had

devotions with us on the deck, then took us in to town. We met a neighbor and friend of Linda's, Miss Johnson, in the driveway this morning, too, before we left. Miss Sadie took us back to the grocery store that we were at the day before with Monique to change some money. While we were there, we met her friend, Wiegand. She said that was her first friend and prayer partner. Those two ladies were so cute that I asked them if I could take their picture together.

We went to the Digicel store to get a Jamaican phone but since they didn’t have an inexpensive one in stock, we decided that maybe we didn’t need one after all. We walked around town with Miss Sadie while she did some shopping. She knows everyone in town. It was fun and we felt safe with her there with us. We dropped Miss Sadie off at her house and talked to her husband, Markee, for a little while. We left the relief kits, shoes, and toys that we had brought along with them knowing that Miss Sadie will find a good home for them.


We got back at about 10:30 am, ate a quick bowl of cereal and got ready for the real estate agent to come over to show us some different properties. When 11:30 rolled around and she didn’t show up, we asked Monique for help trying to contact her - since we didn’t buy a phone this morning and don’t have any way to get ahold of her. The agent told us that she was in Montego Bay so wouldn’t be coming. After sitting around waiting for her for an hour and a half, we grabbed our stuff and headed off for Black River to take a safari cruise.

We had a great guide who called himself Captain C. We saw lots of crocodiles, birds, purple hibiscus, and huge mangrove trees. We held a baby croc at the end of the trip and bought some wood carvings from a man at the gate. Then we took off toward Treasure Beach. By some great miracle, without a GPS or even a street sign, we pulled right in to the beach. We walked on the beach, took pictures, and finally decided that we were actually at Calabash Bay Beach. We practically had the whole beach to ourselves. It was beautiful.

Then we got back in the car and found a little place called Jake’s.  It is a resort with cottages on the beach and the cutest little restaurant and bar. I had a jerk burger and Bruce had a shrimp and black bean quesadilla. It was wonderful. We were the only ones there and sat in a little thatched hut right on the ocean. At one point as Bruce walked through a doorway, a penny dropped on to the ground right in front of him. Kind of like it just fell from out of a tree or right from the sky.  Really?  So crazy.

After lunch we headed toward Frenchman’s Bay Beach. This beach, too, was almost empty, and was beautiful. We took a long walk on the beach and soaked in all the scenery. Cute little colorful fishing boats bouncing around on the waves, houses dotting the beach, and empty little huts perched on the sand. So picturesque! This was the eighth beach that we've visited so far on this trip.

We decided to take another way home simply because of where we were in relation to where we came from. This road, like many we've traveled, isn’t on any map. I'm pretty sure it’s just a goat trail. We dodged pothole after pothole, goats, cows and donkeys, dogs and cats. We've had this little rental car up and down mountains, on beaches, way back in the jungle, through the mud and in and out of more potholes and puddles than I can count. I wouldn't be surprised if they make us buy it at the end of the week!

We found our way back to Whitehouse and then found a road side stand to get some fresh watermelon. We came back to the house and checked our computers to find a message from our sister-in-law, Michelle.

It turns out that Bruce's son Andrew’s blood sugar had gotten high and he had to be hospitalized today while at camp.  He hadn’t rechecked his blood sugar after dinner and desert the night before. His blood sugar was way too high, then just got higher during the night until he was sick and weak. They said that they tried to call us this morning, but we didn’t have any cell phone signal on our US Verizon phone here in this part of the island and hadn’t bought a phone this morning. Oh boy. Poor Andrew. He was fine when we talked to him later, but Bruce spent the rest of the night feeling guilty about going away and not being able to be reached. This is the first episode that Andrew has had in the four years since he was diagnosed with diabetes and we travel all the time. It's too bad that this had to happen while he was at camp and we were away.

After talking with Andrew, we took a walk to try to see the sunset, but there were too many clouds.  We took a swim to cool off, had our watermelon and went to bed.