Today we spent the morning walking the boardwalk (we walked the whole thing twice which with the walk to and from the beach put us at just over 4 miles) and playing in the waves. I’d like to take you on one last stroll along our favorite walking area.

Then it was home for a quick shower, lunch and a bit of last minute packing before we left for the airport.

It’s been an awsome adventure, but there’s no place like home.

Charli

      Well, as our last hurrah in Barbados Tom and I decided to participate in the infamous Oistens’ Friday Night Fish Fry. Oistens is small fishing port town on the Southeastern side of Barbados that has become famous on the island for their Friday night fish fries. It is a weekly event and locals and tourists alike make their way to the five block long strip of small food kiosks to party!!!  They serve everything from snapper to lobster and from chicken to ribs.

Tom and I had walked to Oistens several days before. We really hadn’t planned to go that far (9K roundtrip) but kind of got in the groove. Anyway, once we got there we were pretty hot and tired and needed to use the restroom. We stopped at a gas station call Tigerville and used the facilities then sat at a small table to cool down. The owner, Carlton, came to ask us if we wanted anything and we told him that we hadn’t brought any money with us but just wanted to cool down a bit if it was okay. He was very gracious and told us it was fine to sit and then brought us cold water. The three of us sat and talked for 45 min. – 1 hour and had a lovely conversation. During the discussion he let us know where the fish fry festivities take place, the best time to get there, and the best place to eat – Debbie’s. We thanked him profusely and bid him ado to start on our journey home.

On Friday evening at the assigned time, we caught a Zed R and made our way to Oistens listening to Christmas Carols on the radio (with temperatures in the 80s – 90s it’s hard to believe that it’s almost Christmas).

We arrived just before the crowd and found Debbie’s grill.

The red snapper was recommended and Banks (the local beer) was on sale 3 for $10 so that’s what we did. The meal was huge and came with breadfruit chips and macaroni salad – delicious!

A DJ was playing Christmas music that was played on speakers up and down the strip. We sat at long tables with others who had come to experience the tradition and ended up chatting about this and that. Then after a while we left to wander the area and absorb the atmosphere of Fish Fry Friday.

We finally made our way home by Yellow bus this time and fell exhausted into bed – the end to another fun day.

Charli

Anyone who knows me well knows that I love flowers and always try to see the local botanical gardens wherever I go. Being in the tropics, this was a must for me. So today we headed for the eastern side of the island to the Andromeda Gardens in the town of Bathsheba.
I’ve explained that we are using public transportation to get around, and we did for this trip also. Tom carefully planned our course, and we set out at 8:00AM for our next expedition. Let me explain how it works, to get to where we wanted to go, we took a city bus. You have to go to the main terminal first which is on the west side of the island. This we did, getting there in plenty of time to catch our bus to Bathsheba. We quickly found the correct line and noticed about 150+ kids in school uniforms already in line with various other passengers as well. As we stood there more and more arrived. We thought that they must be on a school outing. Anyway, the bus arrived and we all got on. We were far enough back in the line that we didn’t get seats and had to stand in the isles with about two thirds of the other passengers. There was barely room to breathe, but we began our journey. As we went we stopped at the designated stops along the way – no one got off the bus but several more got on don’t ask me how. I think I mentioned before that the buses, and everyone else for that matter, drives very fast. There don’t seem to be speed limits posted anywhere. After picking-up at least 30 more people and about 10 hours later – okay, it was only 45 minutes but felt like 10 hours – we arrived at the school where all of the kids disembarked. What we realized later is that there are no school buses. All of the children from 5 to 18 take city buses to school. We were both pretty astounded. Anyway, the remaining passengers all took seats and ten minutes later Tom and I got to our destination. Okay, I’m already exhausted!

The Andromeda Garden was built by Mrs. Iris Bannochie between 1914 – 1988 on her own property. A self-taught horticulturist, Iris traveled Asia, Europe, South America, Australia and New Zealand collecting plants. The results are a wonderful garden encompassing about six acres of hilly, beautiful land. Tom and I spent the next two hours following the carefully marked paths and learning about the plants and flowers we encountered.

 

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By the end of the self-guided tour, we were both starved so we headed to Bathsheba to find lunch. It was a short 600 meter very hilly walk to the town and the scenery was spectacular.

Bathsheba, although beautiful, is hardly big enough to call a town. We found 1 restaurant and 1 large park. However, the 1 restaurant served a great lunch – fish and rice or chicken and rice – and cold beer so all was good.
Tom and I had brought swimsuits and planned to swim after lunch. The beaches here were very rocky with pretty formidable waves and not at all conducive to swimming, so we contented ourselves to hiking along the tops of the nearby cliffs and along the beach.

Since there really wasn’t very much to explore, we decided to cut our trip short and head back to our own sandy beach. As we waited for the bus, we enjoyed fresh coconut milk out of a coconut – very refreshing.

The bus finally arrived and we boarded for our journey home. But wait there’s more! You guessed it! The bus stopped at the same school and all 100,000 kids got back on the bus to go home. The only difference was that they were all sweaty from the heat of the day. I can’t describe how it smelled on that bus. At least we had seats this time. We returned to the city terminal and caught a Zed-R home getting off at our beach – ahhhh fresh air and soothing, clear water… we made it!

Another successful adventure.

       Another Treasurer of Barbados is the Jolly Roger Cruises. On Monday, Tom and I again set sail on The Jolly Roger’s Black Pearl for a snorkeling and turtle watching expedition. This too was a new adventure.

It began at 10:30 AM with check-in and rum punch – how great is that?! We set sail at 11:00 to our first stop – a ship wreck and snorkeling. The water temperature was perfect and the water incredibly clear. We saw a lot of fish, urchins, and anemones. It was pretty cool.

On the way to our next stop we had lunch and more rum punch! The next stop was swimming with the sea turtles. To get in the water this time we had to walk the plank.

The pirates onboard were very pushy.

There was one turtle that was very friendly. He came right up to the swimmers and appeared completely comfortable with the whole ordeal.

At that stop also, the pirates lowered the boom and the passengers took turns swinging into the sea on the rope swing.  This was awesome!

As people got comfortable with the procedure, they got braver. Some were doing back flips and others were swinging back and picking up their spouse on the next swing and swinging in tandem. It was great!

We then set sail for home but on the way we had a pirate wedding for a couple living in sin. The ceremony was performed by the captain. The vows were taken with the passengers as witnesses. They were valid until the end of the cruise. We then all celebrated with more rum, a conga line and dancing.

Our captain skillfully brought us home to the dock as we said good

bye to our new shipmates.

After all of the swimming, sun and rum, Tom and I were exhausted. Dinner, a movie, and early to bed… this getting old is tough… heavy sigh.

Good night,

Charli