Sisters in Jamaica? Ya mon

It wasn’t until our plane was descending and we heard the garbled sound of the captain speaking, that we breathed a sigh of relief. We did it! Negative covid tests in both directions, no hospital visits and a fantastic week of sunshine and sister time. Then Karen said, “Did he just say we were landing in Hamilton?” The pain in my ears told me we were descending very quickly. Karen nudged me again. “Why are there firetrucks on the runway?”

Apparently there was an electrical smell in the cabin and we were diverted to the Hamilton airport for a quick landing. A little adventure to end our trip, but all ended well and Tom drove to Hamilton to pick us up.

Our resort in Montego Bay was very nice and we had access to the two adjoining resorts as well. It wasn’t as nice as the one we’d stayed at in the Dominican Republic, where we had a swim-out balcony, but whenever my sister mentioned that, I told her she should have thought of that before she faked a heart attack there. One of my destination criteria was that it be an English-speaking country this time.

We were very in sync about how we wanted to spend our time – sitting by the beach or the pool, reading our books, and trying various Jamaican cocktails. Not Ray’s kind of vacation, but we never got bored and the week went by way too quickly.

The resort had three pools and we spent most of our time at the quietest one, but would sometimes move to the party pool late afternoon to watch the entertainment.

On our last couple of days, we shook up our routine a bit and spent a few hours at the splash park within the resort. Again, we were often the only ones there. We’d get our slides in while it was empty then sit back and enjoy the entertainment of watching other people try them for the first time, like the group of younger muscle-bound guys in speedos who strutted their way to the top then screamed like little girls on the way down. I expect those speedos gave them some pretty good wedgies at the bottom too.

Then there was the woman with 2-inch long fingernails – the kind that transfix you because you can’t help watching to see how she could possibly type on her phone with them. Her extra-long fake eyelashes were covered in gold glitter. She wore a lot of jewelry, and she was wearing a string bikini on an ample body. She watched her boyfriend/husband go down the slides for a while and then, just as we were about to leave for lunch, she climbed the stairs with him. There was no way we were leaving then. I mean, there’s no delicate way to go down those slides. They’re very fast. One woman’s hair came off at the bottom which was a bit freaky until we realized she was wearing hair extensions.

How could this woman possibly land all in one piece? The bikini alone was a big risk. We waited. And waited. Finally her boyfriend came down without her and stood at the bottom, saying, “Come, come!” and then he’d laugh one of those rich Jamaican laughs. Twenty minutes later she was still at the top and we were torn between wanting her to overcome her fear, and fascination that she’d even consider going down the slides with all her accoutrements. Eventually, to our disappointment and relief, she climbed back down the stairs (she wasn’t the only one we saw climbing up and then back down again).

Karen joked that since the resort was primarily couples, people might think we were ‘together’ (I told her that was unlikely since I’m obviously out of her league). Nobody mistook us for a couple. We were asked twice if we were twins (Excuse me?!? I’m 20 months younger!). One of the resort employees did a double-take as he walked past us, then said, “WOAH! You two are sisters, aren’t you?” We don’t see the resemblance, but apparently there is one.

We talked about how strange it felt to be in our late fifties but still feel young inside, but then every night we were in bed in our jammies by 8 pm, so maybe not so young after all. Mostly, I think we just liked hanging out in our room together like we did when we shared a room as kids.

I’ll finish off with a special mention of our wonderful husbands who held down the fort while we were away, and went far out of their way to drop us off and pick us up, all so we could come back to them tanned, relaxed and a little plumper than we were when we left.