Learning about Jamaica -- and from each other

The Yoga Centre is within walking distance to town and offers clean rooms and reasonably priced custom-cooked meals, a communal kitchen for guests to cook their own food, and an outdoor sink and clotheslines for guests' laundry. There is no TV, a downer for Josh (''This is like a writer's retreat or something," was his comment.) but a huge upper for me. It does have a shady tropical garden. A morning yoga class is included in the price of a room.

Across the road, literally 90 seconds away, Negril's 7-mile sandy beach unfolds. Sunset happens over the water. You can take long walks and, if you choose, go parasailing or scuba diving, sip multicolored drinks, or go out for an elegant meal. For cheap eats, try Niah's patties. They're cooked over a grill in one of the few sandy vacant lots along the beach.

Four days quenched our appetite for utter relaxation. Back in the big city, we spent a couple of days searching out bookstores where we could browse local authors, attending a group poetry reading at the university, and catching some more tourist destinations like Devon House, the hub of a 19th-century plantation.

The Sandhurst felt almost like home by now. The desk clerk greeted us by name. During our second week, Josh would have been in school. On the beach, he read the book he had promised his teacher he would read.

''I'd rather go to Jamaica than go to school," was his comment, allowing that ''seeing how people live in other parts of the world" could be considered educational. He did spend a day as a guest in a Jamaican school where he noticed the discipline is strict and children ''respect the teacher more than American kids."

Of course, I learned as much from him about being young and impressionable in the world as I hope he learned from me about the difference between tourism and traveling.

Eric Goldscheider is a freelance writer in Amherst.