Meeting An Absolute Travel Addict

This post is WAY overdue but I was just reminded that I wanted to post about it when I was flipping through photos of my last 2-month stay in Jamaica.

A while back I did a post about a girl kind of like me…picked up and moved her solo self to Kingston, Jamaica.  You can read that post HERE.  Her name is April and she’s also known as the Absolute Travel Addict, which is a fitting name for someone who rolls just as locally, if not MORE than I do.  Her travel spirit is awesome and I admire her for it.

Ironically, I met April in April of this year.  I was living in Ironshore, Montego Bay for a couple of months and she was due to land within my first week in Jamaica so it was a perfect opportunity to meet.  We’d been corresponding online for a good while before this meeting and I couldn’t wait to link up.  She has such a cool spirit behind all her adventurism and she knew much more about Mobay than I did at the time (probably still does!) so we made plans for her to be my chaperone one night and find us something to do.

As it turned out she was staying in a villa just up the street and around the corner from the one I was staying at my first week so she drove on over to meet me, and to take us out to a free music event in the center of Montego Bay that night.  See this is why I needed her – I have no idea what goes on in this town LOL.  That night I had my crew of friends over to the villa for dinner and we were all just sitting around having drinks after dinner waiting on her to come get us.  Her and her friend stayed for a drink and then we all piled into two cars and headed into town.

The event was a  Heineken sponsored show right across the street from the KFC in the middle of town.  These are the things I love most about Jamaica – there’s always something to do and somewhere to go for an evening.  When we pulled into the parking area it was probably close to 10pm and the place was LIVE, a good crowd was already there and the music was on.

There was a stage set up with a couple of DJ’s and I remember there was a fair amount of dancing going on onstage.  Some dance groups and then a few females who went up there to do their thing.  I was entertained.  There was a Heineken bar off to the side where they were selling bottles by the bucket and I remember we went through a few buckets in our group.  Within our group was April and friend, me, my coworker and some of his friends and we dragged the villa caretaker along with us too.

Less than an hour into the show Demarco…yes Demarco….one of my all time favorite Jamaican artists walks up onto the stage.  I was so excited.  Only in Jamaica can you go to a FREE show where amazing artists play on random nights of the week.  FREE!  This was my first time seeing him live and I loved it.

The evening was awesome but was ruined by police who came in to shut it down just after 11pm.  RIGHT in the middle of my favorite Demarco song – “I Love My Life”.  That really sucked and the crowd dispersed and went home fairly quickly.  I was disappointed but still happy I got to come out in my first week in Jamaica to such a fun event.  We piled back into our two cars and headed out.  April dropped me back to my villa, I drank too much and didn’t feel like doing anything else that night LOL.  I think a bunch of them headed out to another venue to keep up the partying.

So this was my first, but not my last meeting with April, the Absolute Travel Addict.  She’s super cool and I had a blast.  Although it’s 5 months later – thanks for my first night out back on the island April!  See you again down the road!