Cayman Islands

Being tired from the hot and humid summer in Chicago, we decided to go to the Cayman Islands. Crocodiles' lovers will be disappointed - we did not see any and we were told that they do not live there anymore. Jana's schoolmate Geoff works in the Cayman Islands for 'nameless' accounting company. We accepted his invitation to come and visit. By all means we loved it there - beautiful beaches, excellent snorkeling and diving - temperatures 75 to 90 F all year around - what else would you like to have? As a short introduction to the Grand Cayman please take a look at this picture.
As usual we went through customs as the very last ones from our plane. The reason was new immigration software that does not know the Czech Republic. And without it, the lady did not want to let us in. In the end, I believe we went as Azores Island citizens. Anyway. After a 14 hour trip - thanks to non-functioning-according-to-the-schedule US Airways - we were excited to explore the island. Houses on the shore are really beautiful. But the whole island is virtually for sale - every second house has a big sign - FOR SALE or FOR RENT. Cayman Island dollar is fixed to US dollar (1 CI = 1,25 US) and everything is very (bloody) expensive.
Finally on the beach - almost any part of the seashore is a nice beach. This one is at Spotts.
Pedro St. James Castle On shore you can find the Pedro St. James Castle - a newly opened museum. According to legend, there is a lot of money hidden somewhere below or around these buildings that come from the drug business. But do not try to find it - you could be under ground very quickly yourself. Well, believe it or not, there is a very nice view and old fossils.
Blow Holes There is a lot of holes in weathering cliffs that are very active during the tide - nice 5-15 feet high geysers (similar to Pancake's Rocks in New Zealand). And do not forget to visit the Coconut man - who sells fresh surprise surprise - Coconuts.
First time in the water - but because of an earlier rain, water was full of sand so we saw nothing. Cemetery Reef - named after the cemetery that is behind the beach. All graves looked very strange to us - because of the ground water people are burried in special metal enclosures. Practical but strange. This propeller commemorates one big mistake many years ago. During bad visibility one ship crashed into the reef. It blew its horn to warn the rest of the fleet. But the fleet misunderstood the signal and thought that the ship was in danger of a black jack attack and instead of slowing down they went full speed forward. No surprise that all of them went down.
Royal Poinciana You can see them everywhere - very nice red blooms. People call them Flames of Forest or Flamboyant (latin Delonix regia). Around February to April the tree loses all of its leaves and huge seed pods - 15-20 inches long - dominate the branches. Children love to play with them and in neighboring Jamaica bands use them as maracas.
You do not see a lot of needle-leave trees (mostly palm trees only) but this one was really nice.
We had really good time there - Jamaican beer was really good but never forget to use enough sunscreen :-). Something about the weather - 90F during the day was fine, but nights could be very hot too. And an electricity is really expensive (hundreds of dollars per month) it is wise not to use air conditioning all the time.
Blow Holes and the Coconut man. We were surprised how tasty the fresh coconut milk and coconut with brown sugar was (better expression would be skim milk - what Canadians living in Cayman Islands drink... Sorry, Geoff but less then 2% is NOT milk anymore...).
Would you like to have such a view? We were told, that life in the Cayman Islands is wonderful and we believe it. The cons of the island are not to be listed here - we do not want to cause Geoff any problems... :-)
Fidel's country - Cuba On our way back captain of the plane pointed that we were flying over the island of freedom - Cuba. Although you can not see much now if you click on these pictures you will see fields of corn or tobacco or comrades?

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