Enjoying the Tropical Fruits, Cayman Islands Recap Part I

I am one lucky lady to have my friend, Angie, invite me to travel with her to her extended family’s house on a tropical island. The whole experience was amazing! Since I have so many pictures to share (including a few food photos), I’m going to try to keep my commentary to a minimum. Enjoy the photo journal of my trip.

As soon as we landed we grabbed our rental car, dumped our luggage, put on our suits and headed to a public beach access point along 7 mile beach.

Angie’s aunt had a homemade “island style” dinner ready for us when we returned. Dinner consisted of red beans and rice with coconut milk, corn on the cob, and fried fish. I can’t wait to recreate the red beans and rice at home. I’ll be sure to share the recipe, because this dish was delicious.

We tried going out to discover the nightlife on Friday evening, but after only two drinks we realized that we were exhausted. We went home, crashed, and woke up ready for more beach action.

Saturday morning, bright and early, we headed to the North side of the island to a beach location called RUM POINT. It was about 30 minutes away from where we were staying, but the drive along the coast was beautiful and Ang became a pro at driving on the left side of the road. I was a wuss and deemed myself co-pilot the whole trip.

We got hungry for lunch and decided to eat at the beach side cafe. I ordered a grilled vegetable panini with a side salad. For a beach side restaurant I was shocked at how good this was. The salad was super fresh and the panini was delicious. I enjoyed every last bite.

Back at the house I had to get photos of the fruit they had growing in their backyard. I was super jealous of one tree in particular- the AVOCADO tree that grew avocados the size of my arm.

Who says money doesn’t grow on trees? If I had this tree in my backyard I would save a lot of $ at the grocery store.

This salad gives more insight into how huge the avocados really are. The slices were as big as slices of a cantaloupe. I was in heaven as these avocados were the smoothest, sweetest avocados I have ever tasted in my life. I might have to move to Cayman just for these (and the beach of course).

Random fact: The Caymanians call avocados pears!

Of course, there were other tropical fruits:

Ackee- it’s official fruit of Jamaica, but is also prevalent in other tropical locations.

Bananas. Check out that little extension with the budding flower.

Papaya

We were teasing Angie’s Aunt & Uncle that they would never go hungry with all that fruit in their backyard. They even had an almond tree but I didn’t get a chance to snap a picture of it.

Saturday night, Angie’s Aunt and Uncle took us to The Wharf, which was seaside with outdoor seating. Our table was right next to dock where they feed the Tarpon fish at 9:00PM. We had a great spot for the show and the fish were HUGE and very hungry.

For dinner, I ordered the Jerk spiced salmon served with grilled pineapple, sweet potatoes, and pumpkin. This dish was fabulous – the spiciness of the jerk seasonings and the sweetness of the pumpkin and sweet potatoes complemented one another well.

The harp player serenaded us with “You look wonderful tonight” by Clapton.

Overall, the first two days were fabulous! I’m getting ready to board my flight to Charlotte right now! I’ll be back with part II of the recap soon!!

Tagged as: ackee, bananas, cayman isalands, harp player, papaya, salmon, tropical fruits, Vacation