Home soon

Hey everyone,
Well we are in Chile at the moment and will be home very shortly.
We have added in Greece (below Jamaica & New York) finally & have Equador, Peru & Chile to still write.
Look foward to seeing you all soon.
Manda & Darren

Jamaica

Arrived in Jamaica for a trip around the island. Spent six nights in Portland (in the east). Not a very busy or touristy place with a couple of grocery stores, a library, and a gas station. From here we went to Blue Lagoon where we went snorkelling around Monkey Island, visited Dragon Bay (where Cocktail was filmed), went up to Reach Falls, and as an added bonus got to go to the Boston Jerk Festival (we even got into the newspaper). Jerking of meat is basically barbequing with hot sauce. The festival included live music, loads of jerk meat (we even tried goat), bar tents & other stalls. We met Debbie in Portland, a really nice Jamaican lady who looked after us and cooked us good food in her little restaurant/bar. We even went to the local Friday night party with her.
We spent one night in Montego Bay, it was over developed and very tourist orientated, not so nice. We enjoyed Margaritaville (bouncing on the sea trampolines) and the markets.
Four nights in Negril was next, we stayed in the best place (Alfred’s Ocean Palace). It was right on the beach and had live reggae music on Tuesdays, Fridays, and Sundays. The Tuesday night show was the best with stage shows and fire dancing. We also went up to Rick’s café where Duff jumped off the cliffs and we swam around. We met some cool people, and spent most of the rest of the time floating around in the sea.
We then went to Treasure beach, which is in the south. It is very remote, everyone waves to you when they drive past. We rented a two-bedroom cottage on the beach. Went on a trip up the river at Alligator hole to see the sea cows (manatees) and checked out Lovers leap. We managed to catch the world cup final at a local supermarket as well. The last couple of nights we spent in Kingston where we went to Port Royal and to the Bob Marley museum.

New York

Flew to New York and stayed in Morningside Inn, Manhattan for 6 nights. We were right next to Central Park, which was great for getting lost in. We checked out what New York had to offer including; the Empire State Building; Times Square; Madison Square Garden; The Flatiron Building; Brooklyn Bridge; and Ground Zero.
The fire station next to Ground Zero was open and we got to see the memorial to the fire fighters and the Liberty fire engine as it was backing in.
We walked all around Little Italy and China Town, and Wall Street. Took the ferry over to Staten Island and got great views of the Statue of Liberty. We even tried to get on the David Letterman show as part of the audience.
On Saturday we went to the Mermaid Parade on Coney Island. We made a day of it, enjoyed the parade and walked along the boardwalk checking out all the rides.
We also caught up with Amanda’s Uncle Steve, ate loads of American food and did a bit of clothes shopping.