Vacation

I’m still recapping my trip to Cayman, so just in case you missed part one, you can catch up here.

Sunday we woke up early and headed straight to HELL.

There’s a little place on the island called Hell with black gnarly looking rock formations and a crazy man in a devil costume running around inside the gift shop. It’s really just a spot to stop at, perhaps buy a few souvenirs, and then you can say you’ve been to hell. Needless to say, we didn’t hang out in hell very long. It was hot.

Plus, the devil guy was a little crazy, he kept telling Angie that she and I were neighbors to his ex-wife and he kept pointing it a West Virginia on a map. It was odd.

These were the rock formations deemed hell. Definitely not one of my favorite parts of the islands, but it was good to see. After seeing what there was to see at hell, we moved on to more beautiful places- the sea turtle farm.

The first stop = the breeding pond.

Two turtles were taking full use of said pond by uh, breeding… (that’s what they’re calling it these days.)

Next up, everyone’s favorite = babies!

The design of the babies shells were so intricate, it almost looked painted on.

Turtle out of water.

We also got to see a barracuda, behind glass, of course. I don’t know if you can tell from this picture, but his chompers looked like razor blades.

Huge iguanas were roaming around everywhere on the island. I’m not frightened by lizards. We, and by we I mean Isaac, have three lizards at home, but the size of these guys was a tad scary.

We stopped turtle watching to grab a bite to eat at the little restaurant and bar onsite. I ordered the grilled shrimp salad with mango lemon caper dressing. The salad was good, although I don’t love Olives, so I was a little disappointed with how abundant they were, but the dressing was fantastic. I’m positive fresh mangos were used to create it considering mangos are the most plentiful fruit in the Cayman Islands. Random fact: The islands harvest about 65,000 pounds of mangos every season (June-September) and there are 15 different varieties of the fruit.

It was so freaking hot that day, we were dying by the time we left the turtle farm. We arrived home and I decided to jump right into the pool. I’m totally a kid when it comes to swimming. I love the thrill of jumping in.

I was doing a cannon ball, duh!

And water slides are pretty much the best invention ever. Although, it doesn’t look like it, this slide was particularly fast. It made me scream.

Sunday night we were exhausted, plus we had a big day planned for Monday. It’s the best part, I promise you won’t want to miss it, so stay tuned for EBF does Cayman Islands Part III.

P.S. I promise to go back to regular blogging soon, but I hope you all are enjoying this recap (even though most of it is non food related).

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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.