Thursday morning we ate breakfast with Randy and Maria and then said our goodbyes. They were headed back to the good ol’USA, while Brad and I had a few days left in Jamaica.

Thursday was the first day we left the resort. While it’s awesome having a wonderful place to relax, all the food and drinks you could possibly want, and the ocean to look at all day long, it was great to actually leave the resort! I loved getting to see the countryside (a little more then expected at one point) and to see what life outside the resort was like.

Our plan for the day was going to on a zip line excursion…probably my favorite day of the vacation! We had never done anything like it before and it was sooooo much fun! There were 8.5 zip lines…the half was one that went straight down! The longest one was over 280 feet high and over 1080 feet across – AMAZING!

We had a bus ride that was a little over an hour…

On the way there we went through a town called Lucea. The bus driver pointed out this clock:

England had sent the clock – it was supposed to go to St. Lucia and got sent to St. Lucea, which it was called at the time. Oops!

Driving through the town of Lucea:

We also saw some orange trees and mountains on our drive:

Finally to our destination! Some of the people our bus chose to do a tubing trip along the Great River:

Getting our gear on…safety first kids!

Ready to go:

On our way…some of the jungle:

Brad’s first zip line…I think this is the only picture we took of us zip lining…we have some great video though!

This is the zip line that was straight down:

Waiting for the rest of our group:

This is the longest zip line, over the canopy of the trees. Definitely awesome!

Some of the other things we saw along the way…a termite nest:

…a cool tree:

…Brad in front of bamboo:

We took several videos throughout the day, this is them, digitally stitched together…

We have video of a Mimosa plant. It was pretty neat. They said it was the first tracking device – when it was touched, it would close. Back in the day of slaves, slave owners would look for this plant on the ground when their slave would run away.

The Mimosa plant in action:

This was one of our guides, Ryan. We had him and ‘Grandpa’ for our guides. They were awesome and very funny! And I was serious about safety first – they were right on top of things (thankfully) and did all the hooking and unhooking that needed to be done. They were excellent!

We had a great time doing the zip lines! When we were finished and waiting for our bus driver to pick us up, we snacked on a meat pattie. We had watched a show on the Food Network that Mom had DVR’d about Jamaican food. The meat pattie is apparently comparable to our cheeseburger…it’s a staple! It was darn good, too! (not comparable in taste though, but it was tasty)

Remember how I said I saw more countryside than I wanted to? Well, on the way back we ran into some construction where they were working on the road. Oh, btw, the roads there are HORRIBLE! And the drivers are insane…plus they drive on the wrong side of the road. However, they said ‘The left is right and the right is suicide!’ Anyway, our bus driver, Shippy, drove past the detour sign. Brad noticed this, but obviously kept his mouth shut. (Trust in Shippy, I thought to myself…) Shippy told us on the way there that he lived in the countryside, so maybe he knew of a shortcut? (Turns out, no.) He claims he did, but we’re not sure if it was a cover up or not. (cover up) Needless to say, it added on another hour to our trip back. We finally stopped, in the middle of the road, where these 3 teenage boys were trying to get fruit knocked out of the tree with a bamboo stick. Shippy speaks to them in their language, Patois, and next thing we know, these boys are getting on the bus with us! He said that they told him the road was too bad ahead and we’d never make it with our bus. So they guided Shippy to the correct road, and once we got back into a town (probably about 20 minutes later), we stopped at the corner and off they got! We were all curious as to how they were going to get back.

We finally made it back though, safe and alive! Thursday was the only day it rained. About a half hour after we got back it started pouring down rain. No worries though – we were exhausted and ended up taking a nap. We woke up, took showers, and then headed to dinner.

Our towel design for the day: