Banana Pancakes

My room has no clock and no phone. Sadly, this did not prevent me from waking up way too early. It must have been around six-ish when the pink sun started to stream through my bamboo covered windows so I hung out under the mosquito netting and read my book for a long while, and then decided to head to the pool area for some breakfast.

I selected the banana pancakes from the daily menu on the chalkboard - a very wise decision since they were possibly the best pancakes I have ever had (next to my grandmothers, of course). I also had some much needed Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee and and a glass of fresh watermelon juice, all for under $10.

It was looking a bit gloomy but the sun started to peek through the clouds so I parked myself on the beach to catch some rays. I ended up sitting beside Mei-i, another solo traveler from NYC and we traded both travel tales and turns picking up rounds of cocktails from the poolside bar. Dougie - of Dougie's Bar - whipped us up some Passion fruit Margaritas and some of his famous Rum Punch before we moved onto the Red Stripes. It started to pour rain and thunder, so after a rainy swim in the pool we took shelter and ordered a bite of lunch. I ordered the traditional Pepperpot soup - a blended green soup made from callaloo, a vegetable popular to Jamaican cooking followed up with a warm apple and walnut cake that had a small and delicious scoop of grapenut ice-cream on top. Mei-i spent the afternoon taking a cooking class with the hotel's cook ($20) where she learned how to make (and got to eat) jerk shrimp. I spent it reading and writing on my terrace while listening to the thunder rumbling. As it was Mei-i's last evening (and her birthday), we decided to meet for drinks at Dougie's followed by dinner inside the hotel.

Over drinks we met some lovely new friends including a cool South African expat journalist from the Cayman Islands, who was traveling with her family. When we finally dragged ourselves away from Dougie's Rum Punch, we had yet another amazing meal. I had the Vegetable Rundown - a traditional coconut vegetable curry. Mei-i chose the lobster, which she knew was fresh because we saw the fisherman pull up in a boat to drop off a burlap sack of them that very morning. Everything was delicious. Sadly, we had no room for dessert.

It was thankfully much cooler than the night before, so I settled in with my almost completely devoured book (The African Safari Papers by Robert Sedlack) and fell asleep to the sound of the rain.