PARADISE BOUND, PART I

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD ( 05-27-21)- Please remember small business in your town during this coronavirus pandemic

     It's been a long 14 months of uncertainty, inactivity, canceled plans and isolation. The perfect antidote seemed like a long overdue vacation, some sunshine, a warm beach and a slight hangover with not enough symptoms to be mistaken for anything else. It finally felt like the right time.

     The Caribbean is the birthplace of a million beautiful memories, and I was more than ripe to go and look for a few more. Taking a trip to Europe, stalking around museums, booking day tours and hotel hopping will be back in style soon, but right now, an all-inclusive island paradise close to home was the ideal place to get our feet wet. If you have been dreaming of a vacation but aren't quite in the ready-zone yet, please feel free to live vicariously through mine.

     I had an eight-day stay in Jamaica planned in my head, but when it came time to make the booking I couldn't decide between two gorgeous properties, so I chose four days at each. A trip abroad in the Covid Era comes with its own challenges. The airline asks you to get there three hours before the flight during pandemics, so that they can spend  what seems like the whole extra hour looking over your negative test results while you sweat like a drug mule carrying 20 pounds of cocaine in your pants. Our plane to Montego Bay was three-fourths full, but since I'm an optimist I thought of it as three-fourths empty. There was no drunken stewardess-abuse, no anti-maskers or fist fights, and I wondered if I should start one myself to get it over with.

     Jamaica hasn't procured enough vaccine to reach the hospitality industry yet, and as a result, masks are plentiful but salt and pepper shakers are all but extinct. They pointed thermometers at me frequently, although I'm not sure how you can tell whether anyone has a fever since I felt roughly the same temperature as a grilled cheese sandwich the entire time I was there. They took safety very seriously, or as seriously as possible while chasing me around with a spray bottle of hand sanitizer.

     Our first night at Couples resort in Ocho Rios there was an outdoor buffet and a live show with a fire-eater. The band could take any song and make it sound like a great reggae song. They did a fine version of "Buffalo Soldier," although they must have forgot it already was a reggae song. I don't know what the fire-eater did after the show, but he might have been fun on a date. The kerosene breath is a romance killer, but at least he could warm up your coffee.

     If you happened to lose your luggage there is an "au naturel" beach around back. I decided to go topless on the regular beach, as I forgot my hat. Either way, sit in the sun only after 3:00 PM on your first couple days, or you'll feel like something the fire-eater just dragged in. Sunbathing is something to ease your way into.

     The next day we went out on the glass-bottom boat, and they took us to a great snorkeling spot, a vessel they had sunk on purpose to make an imitation reef for the fish. At least that's what they told us, and I couldn't swim down far enough to see if the wreck had a glass bottom or not. I told the captain to keep his eyes on the road- sinking a boat here and there is fine, but I wouldn't make a habitat of it.
     On our last day we joined a tour to Dunn's River Falls, a unique experience where you assemble at the beach and, forming a human chain, walk up natural rock steps to the top of the 600-foot falls with the water cascading around you. It was a lush setting, and I can't think of anything more awesome than a perfect natural staircase, other than a natural escalator. 

     On the way back we got behind a car that was going about 25 miles an hour, and the New York in me surfaced, and I started getting itchy and sweaty and looking around at the traffic to see if we could pass safely or, as we do in New York, unsafely. What if this unforeseen delay affected my nap? I settled back in my seat and realized that the feeling I just experienced is what vacations are designed to cure. There is no word for "late" in Jamaica. I'll continue my journey next week.