On Vacation
on George Hamilton (Jamaica), 15/Feb/2011 21:39, 34 days ago
What is better than vacationing at home when you happen to live in a tropical paradise? This week George has booked time off from volunteeering at the Dispute Resolution Foundation so we can show off Jamaica to our friends Kathy and Gary from Vancouver. Our first stop was a swim at the Pegasus pool where we met some of the other volunteers enjoying Friday after work drinks.Our first day was spent in Kingston visiting Port Royal after a feast of lobster and fresh fish at Glorias before heading up into the hills.When we arrived at Mount Edge we were met by Robert, a young man who introduced himself as the man in charge. He arrived in Jamaica three weeks before from the UK travelling by sailing boat to Barbados and flying into Jamaica. He arrived as a guest at Mount Edge a week later and stayed on as the manager and chef. His cooking and food presentation was amazing, so too were his ideas for sustainable farming and fine dining in a relaxed atmosphere.This is Robert with his freshly harvested salad from Mount Edge's farm, topped with edible nasturtiums which he picked in the Mount Edge gardens.I have always wanted to stop at this craft area in Fern Gully so Kathy and Gary's visit was a great excuse to actually stop and take a close up look at the specialty towel racks. They also carve smaller toilet roll holders. As it turns out they expect tourists to stop to take photographs and have a cup for donations. I should have known.No trip to Jamaica is complete without a walk on 7 Mile Beach in Negril to check out the sunset.From Negril we meandered over to Treasure Beach for a few days where we found cashews, pomegranates and cotton growing outside our thatched roof cottage with no electricity, just candle light but boasting a private beach at Ital Rest.Above are our hosts at Ital Rest, Frankie and Jeanne.That's it for now. This is about half way through our week's adventures, so come back in a few days when I'll post the second half of our holiday.