Le Sequoit

Oh, mon!

I have to admit, it's a little hard for me to pick up here. In fact, it's a little hard for me to have a lot of motivation to do anything right now. Such is the state of mind after having spent a week at an all-inclusive Jamaican resort, where all activity consists of four things; eating, sleeping, drinking and picking a chaise.

Well, maybe five things.

Pictured is the Italian restaurant at Couples, Ocho Rios. Couples isn't the most modern of the popular resorts in Jamaica. It was previously called the Tower Isle Beach Club, host to such diverse luminaries as Walt Disney, Debbie Reynolds and Fidel Castro before turning all-inclusive in 1979. It's not the most elegant either, just down the road Couples has bought San Souci, a smaller, more intimate, cliff hugging beauty.

It's a classic beach resort, a little long in the tooth but stretched out along the waterside, with the great majority of its rooms ocean view and not more than fifty yards from the water. We're not talking marble baths and sunken Jacuzzis here, just comfortable rooms with private balconies where the French doors need not be closed and the curtains need not be drawn shut.

Food? Very good. Not over the top cuisine but very, very good from the ground up. What do I mean by that? Jamaica is a very mountainous island, and large enough to wring a lot of rain from the trade winds, hence an abundance of water. Ocho Rios means eight rivers. The greatest portion of the food served at the resorts is grown on the island. Vegetables are plentiful and varied, and they are extremely fresh. Lots of water means lots of ice, and the beer and punch are as refreshingly cold as the salads. The dishes and glassware are clean. An extensive Continental breakfast menu was available for the included room service, as was a breakfast buffet with to-order omelets, steamed fish, grilled vegetables, Danish, bagels, lox, English muffins, bacon, sausage, waffles, warm potato salad, they had it covered.

Though I seemed to overdo it at times, I only gained about four pounds, and this with no visits to the gym.

Ah, but all good things must end, else why would they be better than the rest? The beautiful sunset descent through three strata of wispy clouds over Lake Michigan brought us down to a heavy cover at three thousand feet, through which we made our turns to the vector and final, dropping out of the low ceiling to reveal the steely gray gloom of a snowless, sunless February day.

At customs there was shouting and a near fight between two of Wisconsin's finest over cutting in line, this from an all "adult" charter. Everyone had to stop while agents calmed them down. Wonderful. Home.

posted by sequoit @ 7:24 AM