Labadee and Grand Cayman

Alright, I'm gonna go out of order for a second just because Jamaica needs it's own post. We were in Haiti on Day 3 and Cayman on Day 5. Haiti was gorgeous! It’s the first island in the Caribbean that I went to that wasn't completely flat. It's a pretty good sized mountain that comes straight up out of the ocean and the top of it was actually in the clouds. We were in awe the whole day!

In the morning, we walked over to Dragon's Breath Point which is the landmark of Labadee. The rocks were worn down from the ocean in a certain way that it sounded like a breathing dragon when the waves hit up against it. It was pretty neat. After that, we were off to zipline. Supposedly, it's the world’s longest zipline over water which was pretty cool. I was scared to death when I was standing on the platform waiting to go down.


After that, we went back to the boat to change and eat lunch before heading back out to the artisan market. Brent had only been out of the country once before, so he was pretty shocked to see all the pushy vendors. He handled it really well though; I can only deal with it for short time before I start feeling overwhelmed, hyperventilaty and unsafe. For me, the aggressive hustling kinda puts a foul in the party!

So, skipping to Day 5, we docked in Grand Cayman. I had been there once before as a teenager - it was actually the first place I ever drove a car (and on the opposite side of the road too!) and it was as nice as I had remembered. Although Grand Cayman is still a much poorer country than the United States, it was so refreshing to be there after the poverty we had experienced in Jamaica. Brent and I did a snorkel tour that included Stingray City. Stingray City is really cool if you haven't seen it before. It's on a sandbar where local fisherman used to stop to clean their fish. Because they would throw the fish guts or whatever back into the water, the stingrays became friendly towards the fisherman and tame over the years. Legend says, you get seven years of good luck for kissing a stingray.

I'm a total wimp when it comes to big ass wild stingrays. When I visited before, I got a pretty good sized hickey on my leg from a stingray looking for food. This time, I only got in the water long enough to kiss one and get the hell out of there so I could laugh at Brent from the safety of the boat! He did better than me though. He was in there for awhile trying to feed them squid out of his hands. They are a good 4-6 feet across and can totally get overwhelming and pushy when they think you have food. Brent dropped a piece of squid and one of the stingrays started circling his legs. He thought the thing was going to stab him in the balls with its barb. We had a really good time though and will probably try to visit the Cayman Islands again in the future.