Negril

Saturday was the most amazing day we've had yet. We met downtown early Saturday morning and hopped on a bus to Negril, which is located on the Westernmost part of the island. We stopped at a place called Bamboo alley. It's a 3 mile stretch of road that has bamboo growing on both sides, and in many places it has grown into a canopy over the road. Our next stop was at this tiny shack on the side of the road. Josh said that this place was known for the best shrimp around, and he'd even read about it in some of his travel books. We started off by having Gary, Josh's driver, show us the "Jamaican way" to eat the shrimp. He literally ate the entire shrimp: shell, legs, antennae, eyes, etc. A few of the braver students ate the shell, and eventually Kayla, Sarah, and Naomi decided to try it as well, and proceded to eat the heads of their shrimp. I refused to eat it until Gary finally peeled back the shell for me to try the meat. I must say, it was delicious.

We got to Negril and went to a place called Rick's Cafe, and immediately knew we wanted to stay all day. We looked over the edge of the cliffs and saw the most beautiful, clear blue water. We sat down to eat but were all excited to get in the water. Josh and some of the brave students went all out and had their first jump off the highest cliff. The rest of us tried off the short cliff, which was about 15 feet. At first, I wouldn't even do that. Finally, I jumped in and realized how much fun it was, and ended up jumping until I was too tired to jump anymore.

We were all tired so we decided to sit and watch the local divers. They stand on the far side of the cliffs and yell at the crowds and try to get tips from the tourist, and when they have enough, they do really cool jumps and dives into the water. At one point, one of the locals was hyping the crowd up but he was taking forever to jump, so I yelled at him in my newly developed Jamaican accent "G'waan do yo' ting! Go inna di wata!" He looked over and was shocked to see a "whitie" yelling in Patois. A few minutes later, I yelled at the Rastafarian looking man next to him, "Eh Rasta man! G'waan in di wata!" The whole group laughed and the Rasta man yelled "Gyel you crazy!" And the diver yelled that he would buy me anything I wanted later. (Of course, I didn't take him up on that). We all got some good laughs out of the interaction though, and eventually they did a "suicide jump." They had a young boy do a hand stand on the edge of the cliff and 5 or 6 guys jumped and flipped over him into the water, and eventually the boy dove in after them. It was very entertaining.

At sunset, we all garthered around and watched the sun go down. It was the most beautiful sunset most of us had ever seen, and we literally took hundreds of photos.

After that, Kayla and I went back over to watch the divers. The diver I was yelling at earlier saw me and told me to jump in from the 40 foot cliff (it's not the highest, the next highest is about 50 feet). I jokingly said that I would do it if he did it with me. In an instant, he climbed around the edge of the cliff and was standing next to me. Josh and the rest of the group saw what was going on and started cheering for me and had their cameras out, ready to make a video. I almost chickened out, but Josh started yelling "Lindsay! Lindsay!" and the others joined in. I knew I had to put my money where my mouth was. The diver told me what to do, grabbed my hand, counted to three, and we jumped! As soon as I hit the water I realized how incredible it was, and wanted to do it again! I surfaced and looked up at the cliff towering above me. I saw Josh, still recording and cheering for me. I heard Kayla yell, "Lindsay, you're my hero!" She couldn't believe I went from being scared to jump off the low cliff to hurling myself into the water from a 40 foot cliff. I'll never forget that.

I got out of the water and immediately pursuaded Brittany to jump with me (she hadn't jumped yet). She was scared, but we jumped together and when we surfaced I told her to look at where we were. We were swimming in the Caribbean at sunset. I've never seen anything more beautiful. We didn't want to get out of the water but we had to head back to Mandeville.

Negril was one adventure we'll never forget.
We love and miss you all,
Lindsay and Kayla