My Great Weekend of Adventure (Small Side Lyme)

This is a story of a bunch of idle pan players that decided to go to the Jazz and Blues Festival. The characters involved are: 3 Tenors - D, R, and N
1 D. Second - S
1 Drummer - M

The plan was flawless. D, R, M and S would stay with N down in Negril, and go to the Thursday night show. They would even get the tickets at a special price. However, due to circumstances beyond his control D was not able to make the trip down to Negril. :( Now this left the three lymers in a bind. They had no way of getting down to Negril, and no way to the Festival. NO!!!!!!!
To make matters worse they find out that captain B is gonna be dancing. WHAT?! That cannot be missed!
By Wednesday January 25, a ride accomodating ALL three lymers was secured. Coincidentally, a friend, J, was travelling down on Thursday to Montego Bay all by herself. (Please note that if left up to the male in the group J would have carried M alone to Montego Bay as he told her only of himself needing a ride . Never mind tho' as his ticket was securely in R's possession.)
The Plan: Leave as close to 12 o' clock as possible and drive the route that would take J past their destination (Point Village, Negril) to her final destination (MoBay).

Thursday January 26, 2005.
At 11 o'clock R has still not been contacted by M with the proper details of scheduled departure and meeting place. (S is being picked up at her house, the others were to meet at school). S calls a taxi service that is usually On Time and gives them the appropriate instructions. Pick up at Lady Musgrave Road and going to Upper Waterloo Road. All real drama starts here. Being a very reliable company a cab is promptly sent to Upper Waterloo.....without S. 10 minutes after her call was made, she calls back to hear they mixed up the adresses but the situation will be rectified shortly. Needless to say S reaches her home at 12:30. arrgh!
J arrives shortly after and they are all on their way. J then informs the others she has decided to take the sligoville route instead of the one she discussed with M. (This means she will be going straight to MoBay.) The group meets up on traffic in Red Hills and decides to just take in the scenic view of what is known as Lookout point. From here on there is traffic as it seems that everyone in Jamaica has decided to go to the Festival.
At 2:00 the great aroma of Faith's Pen is in the air and everyone knows M is hungry (what's new?). Now there is no time for stopping, so M's stomach just had to wait. Some cars ahead there were two trucks that were holding up traffic. For the entire journey no matter how many trucks were passed it always seemed that two trucks were still ahead of the group. Arrgh!
After many road dodgings and taxi dodgings the group drove though Ocho Rios at approximately 3:30. At this point things started looking a bit sticky as the show was scheduled to start at 6 o'clock. Somehow I never imagined it would take quite that long but the group arrived at the MoBay Bus Park at 5 o'clock with no sure ride to Negril and a STRONG need for a bath!
Bus Drivers and Conductors don't change because they r from a different parish.
After a small fight over whether R, M and S should choose an hour long journey to Savanna-la-mar or an hour long journey to Lucea the latter is chosen with the reasoning that once R reaches Sav she is home hence not leaving such to go to Negril. Also the Sav Route would require 3 stops hence 3 fares so in true panoridim style a decision was finally made based on cost efficiency. Of Course, now being after 5 o'clock, school and work is out and a bus that can usually hold three people in each row comfortably now is required to have five or more. And the rush hour traffic is met upon so they are now sure they will not reach Lucea much less Negril before nightfall. But the style of driving of a minibus is much different from a normal car so the hour long journey took 30 minutes. Hey, no worries here! Next was to find a taxi that would take us to Point Village. This journey promised to be an hour (Does everything take an hour here??) but was done in 15 minutes. (Now either these people don't understand the concept of time or we were in such a hurry we didn't realise the speed at which we were going.) Well anyway they arrive at Point eat, bathe and get dressed to leave at 8 o'clock. One slight miscalculation however. The friend of N that was supposed to carry the group stated that she couldn't carry 4 in the back but since some of the 4 were not OVERLY huge the fit was a tight but comfortable one. Now the group was on their way to the festival. There was still some time!! YAY!
But, of course, some Physical Law has to be broken, and a journey in one direction will not be the same distance as it was in the opposite direction. For the journey that took 45 minutes earlier now took 2 HOURS !!! WITH NO TRAFFIC!!! ARRgh (S was considerably calm accepting the fact that Captain B made her debut and she missed it, AND that all cameras were left at Point, but M was about to explode. The driver continually spoke about missing her "baby" Shaggy and cussing the car in front of her for not driving faster when in truth she could have simply overtaken the guy! They were alone on the road!) ARRgh!
At 1o o'clock (yes 10) they arrive (finally) to hear the great Morgan Heritage go on stage. This group was good and they kept the massive crowd swaying and singing along to the melodious tunes. There is hardly any space to maneuver past towels, bodies and chairs but a spot is soon found where the stage is in plain sight. After Morgan Heritage was this guy named Nestor Torrez. A very audible "WHO?" could be heard around the venue as many people took this band change as a chance to get some food before John Legend came on. However this guy came on and blew music loving fans away with his skilful playing of the flute. He gave everyone a taste of different genres from rhumba to reggae which prompted S to go looking for his latest CD from which most of the songs he played came from. The evening is turning out to be GREAT!
During this time S decided to explore all the tents and then probably just pick up some food on her way back. With the amount of people she saw at the main area she never thought the food area would be that packed. (Just think, everyone that night paid at least $3000 dollars to be there, that is a whole lot of money all together, these guys must be smiling at the end of this weekend). Suffice it to say, finally reaching to the top of one of these food lines, S was greeted with the knowledge thatChicken was finished, Fish also and all that was left was Pork. R is SDA, M does not eat pork, S would not eat pork on a night like tonight, so Festival it is.
John Legend went on stage and delivered his pieces beautifully. A flock of young (and older) ladies bombarded the stage area just to get a closer look. As he finished off his wonderful performance the heavens opened up and applauded him, showering him (and the rest of us) with rain. Another 30 minute band change and it was time for Shaggy. Only to be told that our ride would be ready half way through Shaggy's performance. WHAT?! I THOUGHT SHE SAID SHE WAS OBSESSED WITH HIM? DOES SHE KNOW THE MEANING OF OBSESSED? THE WAY SHE WAS GOING ON IN THE CAR I NEVER THOUGHT SHE WOULD CUT HIS PEFORMANCE LIKE THAT. I don't go on like that over Shaggy, just his songs!! Shaggy came out and put some vibe back into the very tired patrons who now at 3 o clock were lacking some serious sleep. We left to the strains of "strength of a woman", R and S in shock that they were actually leaving such a great performance. ARRGH!!
The journey for today was almost at an end and N, R and S slept all the way back to Point. All in all it wasn't bad, it was actually Pretty good considering what was encountered. Wonder what's in store for tomorrow.
Tune in for Volume II :D