Beautiful Barbados

Tuesday, August 24:

Another early rise for me, anyway. I woke up at 8 with the sun streaming in. Made some coffee, wrote a little bit. The gardeners cut down some of the foliage that I liked the other day. Tom likes it better – we can see the sea better again. I liked the jungle feel, though.

By the time Tom had finished his morning work we decided to go to breakfast at the new Italian restaurant here. The paperwork said that they were open until 11. Turned out, they were only open until 10, then at noon for lunch. We could have gone to L'Azure but I knew that their buffet ended at 11 and I didn't want to get all the left-overs so we decided to go shopping instead.

We headed out to Six Roads, near Emerald City and the Chefette from the other night. The highway we usually take had a roadworks sign up so we circled the roundabout again and got off at highway 5 instead. That way to go is a little longer but prettier and goes by the Four Square Rum Distillery. That's a great place to go for tours and info on the rum process. A bit easier to get to from here than Mount Gay!

We got out to the ABC highway – named for 3 important past politicians from here: Tom Adams, Errol Barrow and Gordon Cummings. Each has his own named section of the road.

Then, along the Spring Garden to Holetown where we were going to another Cave Shepherd for that ellusive bathing suit. They had one – hooray! We also went into a tshirt store where they had a cute dress. They showed both the LP (Local price) and the DF (Duty Free price). Big difference – $24 US DF and $43.50 US LP. Luckily we were able to get the DF price.

From there we headed back home. We tried to take the road that had been closed out of Six Roads and we got close but there was a long detour. Of course, there was just the one detour sign with no further instruction. We did find our way and went just past our place to a newish restaurant called Cutters. Cutter is the Bajan word for sandwich. This restaurant is owned and operated by the husband of someone we've known for a long time here at The Crane and its nice to see them doing well.

While waiting for our food, Tom took the opportunity to check his email (as usual!)

I had a flying fish cutter. Yummy! I've never heard of any other place in the world that has flying fish. It's an interesting phenomenon to see, a school of fish flying/gliding through the air, all shimmery. They have a wonderful hot sauce to put on things here, made with Scotch bonnet peppers. I used some – sparingly. Yum! We actually bought a bottle to take home once but I never used it. Nothing at home seemed like it was suited to the hot sauce like flying fish is.

Back home for a little nap. When I woke up, I started taking pictures of the newly trimmed gallery when I came upon a little rainbow. I took these pictures but within 2 minutes, according to the timestamp, the rainbow was gone.



(Click on the image to view all today's pictures, please. But only if you're interested!)

Off to Reception to update webpages, blog and so on then we sat outside for a bit and just talked.

This year is nice. No plans (yet), no people to show around, no place we have to be. Just relaxing and being calm. I like this! Usually by now we'd have plans drawn up for the whole time. Where to be on what day, things to do, scheduled conference calls. How nice to leave all that behind for a few weeks and just chill.


I think it's about time for a bit of “Kristine's” rum punch now!

Only 50 weeks until we go back to Barbados. 

It already seems so far away, an eternity that we were sitting by the pool and it was less than 24 hours ago.

Friday we went down to the ocean again and Tom actually went in this time while I sat on a beach chair and "rested".

These are pictures of the new glass elevator that goes down the cliff from near the Zen restaurant to the beach.  It has air conditioning which is really nice.  I joked with Tom that I could just ride up and down looking out the glass front and watch him that way while he swam.

After swimming there, we went to the Jacuzzi and pool again.  Just like we were on vacation!

Saturday we packed up and put our stuff in the car and walked around a bit by the tennis courts and greenhouse.  Tom took lots more pictures and I'll add those after he's downloaded them from his cellphone.

We sat a little by the pool and decided - sadly - that it was time to go.  We still had an hour before airport check-in so we rode over through Oistens, down the coast road then back on the ABC highway.  The ABC highway is named for three politicians: Tom Adams (father of Grantley Adams, for whom the airport is named.); Errol Barrow and Gordon Cummins.

We actually got to the airport in plenty of time, time to drop off the rental car instead of leaving the keys with the plane check-in folks, time to get a sandwich, have a leisurely stroll around the shops.  It was much better than doing a four-wheel power slide into the airport, just as the doors were closing on the plane.

Customs and immigration at North Carolina went well, too, unlike some of the long waits, no luggage found, and other airport mishaps over the year.  We completed all that and had time for a sandwich before our final flight.  Very civilized!

About 11:30 we arrived home, exhausted and achy from too much airplane sitting.  But, we're here!

And now...