Barbados

Today we docked in Bridgetown, Barbados and shared our pier with the Sea Princess and a ship simply called The World. According to the little stand that was set up with their “living room” on shore, it is a floating resort that has been to all seven continents. It appears to be a ship unto itself – not associated with any cruise line.

Today’s tour was probably one of our more anticipated tours. This was a photographic tour with top Bajan photographer Ronnie Carrington as our guide. The tour is designed to maximize your photographic opportunities and traveled through parts of Barbados that offered us some stark contrasts. Our first stop was at the entrance to an estate. We were unable to see the house, however, the entrance was spectacular – a gate and then a driveway that was lined with stately date palms along both sides.

Following the estate, we had a lesson about chattel houses. When the slaves on Barbados were freed, they frequently had to move in order to follow the work. They built houses of wood on stone foundations. These houses could be dismantled and moved easily and then re-established at the new location. The houses had a peak (front to back) and every time a new family group was added, an addition was put on the house and the new addition came with it’s own peak – you are able to tell the size of the original family by the number of peaks on the house.

When we did our tour in Curacao (a country originally settled by the Spanish), all of the old churches were Roman Catholic and every church was part of a trinity – church, school, cemetery. In Barbados, the island was originally settled by the British – the original churches are Anglican and are all part of a duo – church, rum shop. We saw this throughout a part of the island called the Scotland District. This well-populated area of the island is not built on rock as the rest of the island and is gradually slipping away into the ocean. Every year Barbados spends ten million dollars trying to stop the slide with some success.

Our next stop was a place called Bathsheba Rocks. This is the Atlantic coast of Barbados. Barbados is the most easterly of the Caribbean islands and does have an Atlantic coast. The Bathsheba Rocks area offered some spectacular photographic opportunities.

Once we left the Rocks, we stopped at a rum shop for a glass of the local rum punch for which we were given the recipe:

·         1 sour

·         2 sweet

·         3 strong

·         4 weak

Now, we were required to figure this recipe out – can you?

The punch was excellent, however, too early in the day for me – I spent the remainder of the trip with a bit of a buzz.

The final tidbit of interesting information that Ronnie shared with us was the island’s experience with McDonald’s. Apparently McDonald’s arrived on the island several years ago with the usual fanfare. As I believe is usual when McDonald’s first opens in a new country, the line-ups were long as everyone wanted to try this new experience. Over a few months, the line-ups dwindled in size until they no longer existed. In fact, the islanders simply stopped going. Bajans like their food with “a bite” which McDonald’s is unable to provide. McDonald’s actually closed up shop and left the island!!

This was an amazing tour that we enjoyed immensely. We also received a lot of tips from Ronnie about composition. Hopefully you can tell from our photographs.