Good Friday Ride

Jamaica used to have some very sacred traditions. none more sacred than how Good Friday was observed. For this used to be the day when no fire could be lit until after 3 pm and if you were not going to church, you stayed quietly at home.

The white cliffs of St. Thomas, (just before descending to "Wash Off")

Not any more thank God, for if we still held firmly to these traditions, we would have starved today. For normally when going on a ride we pre order breakfast locally but this was not done today. No problem though, for all the way to Morant bay we saw side-walk shops open and people up and about their normal business and when we got there at around 9 am, Robbies Restaurant in the town had already sold off some of its breakfast items. For example, we could only get one mackerel. But not to worry for they had lots of stewed pork, stewed chicken, calaloo and fish.

You see it has become somewhat of a tradition for the super fit ones in Fun and thrills to start the their ride around the island on Good Friday. We the fun loving ones on the other hand, usually leave earlier and ride ahead of them to Portland and then cheer them on, when they are passing. Then  we go off to the beach or river to have a wonderful time before heading back to Kingston.

Either we were too slow this morning or we did not leave leave early enough, for by the time we stopped at the coconut man just before "Wash off," Barry came barrelling off the hill and flew past us, closely followed by Thomas. Gradually the others appeared one by one, all appearing to feel triumphant that they had reached so far!

As usual Orrel came up in the rear motivating a new rider. We on the other hand, got our refreshments from the coconut man before heading off to Morant bay for breakfast.

We sent Michael Chuck to get the breakfast as at first we had planned to eat and swim in the sea behind Paul Bogle park in Morant Bay but the sea was too rough, so we decided to eat at the restaurant then go to Lyssons Beach. While we were at the restaurant, Grace, David and his cute little dog Davy, came along.

Then we heard that Barry who should have driven back to Kingston with us, ( our original plan had been to go to Long Bay where he would have joined up with us to drive back) had flown past everyone and arrived in Golden Grove.

We had to order breakfast for him and told him to ride back but he luckily got a lift back. He later joined us at Lyssons. While we would have been happy to swim at the public beach, Charles, the mouth, gave the watchman at the University Beach a story and he let us in.

We had a wonderful day there, clean, calm waters and almost white sand on the beach. It was there too that we saw this unusual tree with leaves looking like a head of lettuce. No one knew what it was called.

On the way back we stopped at Wong Ken's place just outside of Bull Bay where the Chucks are having a party on Sunday night. Karen was there with relatives preparing the place and they treated us to home made bun and cheese before we headed back to Kingston to catch up on some sleep, for after all we had set out at 4.30am, a time when most Jamaicans are enjoying a lovely sleep, Good Friday or not.


For more photos see photos; http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150787858491823.464447.763366822&type=3&l=af6319fcd1