Day Two of our Negril trip ended with me semi-comatose due to the efforts of the bartender at the beach bar trying his best to give me alcohol poisoning. I have been drunk in my life, but that has to be in the top two times. The only other time that comes close was on a trip to New Orleans and came about as the result of close to a dozen martinis, Maker’s Mark on the rocks, and a half bottle of wine. I left the Bombay Club that night and avoided panic only when my friend assured me that “Yes, that was a horse on the sidewalk.” The mounted policeman had apparently entered a store and left his horse just outside.

Day Three started with a handful of Excedrin and a healthy breakfast at the hotel. As usual the food was good, particularly for a Jamaican resort. After eating enough we decided that it was back to be beach and away we went.

Again, I entered the water and just floated around for a few hours, watching the topless Italian women and enjoying the lack of cellular telephones. The drug dealers made their trips up and down the beach but didn’t bother us, apparently remembering our “No thanks” from the day before.

We ate lunch at the beach grill, Cheeseburgers, Jerked Chicken and fries. For those of you unaware of Jerked Chicken, it is a Jamaican dish in which the chicken is roasted/grilled over Pimento wood, then coated with jerk sauce, a concoction including various spices and scotch bonnet peppers. Real jerk sauce is very hot, although this had been toned down for the tourists.

Sometime around two we briefly discussed the idea of doing something rather than lying on the beach or floating in the water. This was quickly vetoed and so we went back to the pool for a swim, then to the room for a nice, peaceful nap, awakening in time to hit the beach for a famous Negril sunset, although this one was somewhat marred by clouds on the horizon.

We ate at the hotel buffet again that night, swam again for a while then walked back down the sidewalks, through the “jungle” to our cabin and crashed.

I know this sounds boring, but we went to Jamaica to relax. We intentionally chose a resort with limited night life, and had made a decision this was an “unwinding” trip, not a “doing” trip. The most strenuous thing I wanted to do was walk back and forth to the beach.