Parrots and dolphins and sharks, oh my!

Finally had a little time sort through some more photos and get them resized. I am anxious to share the rest of my last trip with you, before we leave on the next one! So today I've got pictures from our second port of call, Jamaica.We could not have asked for better weather. The morning was perfectly glorious and the ocean views spectacular.

Little Port Royal was a fun touristy place with the added bonus of different exotic creatures to be photographed with. I don't know if you can tell from this photo, but I was absolutely petrified to be holding these macaws. Their claws were gigantic! I was so afraid the one on my shoulder was going to take a nip out of my ear! See how my shoulders are all scrunched up?

Then the guide laid the big one in my hands and it suddenly occurred to me HELLOOO, LYSSA? you are allergic to birds!! I can't believe I didn't even THINK of that. I doused my arms in hand sanitizer and washed them as soon as I was able to. Thankfully, I did not have a reaction.

I already shared about the iguana Tancy held in this post. They also had the dearest little bunnies. Isn't this one just the most adorable thing EVAH?
After seeing the animals, trekking through the gorgeous flowered rainforest and passing through the inevitable marketplace, we came out of the trees and right up onto the beach.

Ate a nice Jamaican buffet of jerk chicken, did a little shopping, and watched a shark program that included for men getting in the shark tank with nothing but their trunks on, catching sharks and flipping them onto their backs and blowing raspberries on their bellies. I kid you not. It was hilarious.

I had always wanted to do the dolphin experience thing. So when Tancy said she didn't care too much where we went on our excursions as long as it was fun, I headed straight for the website to book me some dolphin!

It was so fun! I loved every second of it and I was so sad when our time was up. We got to watch Shakira, our dolphin, and her amazing trainer perform all kinds of neat tricks and jumps. This picture above makes me giggle because it pretty much sums up the experience for both Tancy and I (she's next to me in the brown t-shirt.) She was NOT excited about being in the ocean, with little fishies swimming around our legs, but she was a good sport about it (especially since she had to do it twice, because her set of photos turned out all blurry.) I, on the other hand, was excited out of my skull. We did a total role reversal a couple hours later at Dunn's River Falls, which I'll blog about another time.

The staff there took a lot of photos, and there were closer and better ones of me and Shakira interacting, but I chose this one to purchase because I think it gives you a sense of how delighted I was to have met this amazing and friendly creature. Our God is so cool. Dolphins are totally proof.

Comments

[Meg M.]

wow Lyssa, looks like you had an amazing adventure. Thanks for taking time to share bits of it with us. Your dolphin experience looks amazing. Congrats on all of your hard work.