Barbados . . .

Here are details and pictures from my trip to Barbados. You can view larger pictures by clicking on them. Hope it's not too long and boring!

Mom and I had a lot of fun on our trip. This was my first time to the Caribbean so I was very excited. We stayed at the Amaryllis Beach Resort.

This was our beach:


We also rented a tiny car - a Daihatsu Charade. It was so much fun driving on the left side of the road. There were traffic circles everywhere, but Mom said I did a very good job as the driver. She didn't do that great as a navigator because she likes to look at the scenery instead of the map.


In the mornings we laid out on the beach. The afternoons and evenings were spent exploring the island. Monday afternoon we went into Bridgetown which is where most of the shopping is on the island. Tuesday we drove around the entire island which took us about 6 hours. We saw lots of beautiful coastline.

This is a beach area just before the city of Oistins. Mom and I stopped here for pictures because the water was so beautiful here. This is also the area where the picture of the tree, in the previous post, was taken.

This is Codrington College. It's the oldest Anglican theological college in the Western Hemisphere. It has a beautiful view overlooking the Atlantic coastline, which is the eastern coast of the island.


This is a black-bellied sheep. They are all over the island, sometimes in herds and sometimes just one or two. They're definitely not afraid of people or cars.

This was a pretty small beach just before we reached the Atlantic side of the island. All the local fishing boats were painted very bright colors, as were most of the houses.


On Wednesday, we drove to Earthworks Pottery and then down into Holetown. There are lots of resorts in this area which is on the West Coast of the island. We had a late lunch at Cocomos Beach Bistro, literally right on the water. Here's a picture from our table of a palm tree on the beach. I took the picture at a weird angle, but the tree is at a weird one too.

Barbados has several different pottery makers. All the pottery we saw was beautiful and very affordable. I bought three pieces: a rectangular tray, a fish, and a square mug. Earthworks pottery is the most well known from the island. These are the steps leading up to the pottery workshop. I thought they were really, really neat. Click the photo so you can see the phrases written on the pieces.


On Thursday, we went on a Jeep Safari around the island. It was a lot of fun. Along with us was a married couple from Ireland, 3 women from Detroit, Michigan, one woman from Stone Mountain, Georgia, one woman from Grand Rapids, Michigan, and a young couple from Boston, Massachusetts. The first stop was the highest point on the island, 1100 feet, which was Mt. Hilloughby. The view was great, but it was a bit hazy the morning we were there.

After that, we went for a walk through the "jungle" according to our guide. It was actually Welchman Hall Gully which is a preserve area on the island. It was a pretty little walk. There were nutmeg trees, banana trees, mahogany trees, the plant from which St. John's wort is derived, and bay leaves.

From there, we went through some 4x4 trails (where we saw two african green monkey - don't worry you'll have plenty of monkey pics later!) and then down into Cattle Wash and Bathsheba. We stopped at a chattel house which was purchased by the safari company and is maintained as a traditional Barbadian home.

This is the trail we took down into Cattle Wash. By the way, from the picture you can't see the drop, it was so steep!

This is part of the Bathsheba coastline. It's absolutely stunning here. They hold the island surfing competitions in this village. The water is very rough though and there are signs everywhere warning swimmers of the current.


On Friday, we went to the Barbados Wildlife Reserve. Barbados has a lot of african green monkeys. The reserve uses the monkeys to make the polio vaccine. The entire area is fenced in, but the fences are purposefully low enough so the monkeys can "escape" and explore the island. Normally, the monkeys leave the reserve in the morning and return in the afternoon because the reserve feeds the animals. Along with the monkeys are deer, tortoises, hares, pelicans, flamingos, iguanas, parrots, guineas, and peacocks. The iguanas, pelicans and flamingos are in very large enclosures. The remainder of the birds are in an aviary. There are also a couple of snakes in enclosures (thankfully). Other than that, everything runs free. The crazy thing was it's mating season for the tortoises. Copulating tortoises aren't pretty; nor do they sound pretty! It was a lot of fun watching the monkeys run around and play. Once, Mom and I were sitting on some benches watching two of the monkeys play around and I felt a tug on my flip-flop. I looked down and there was a monkey at my legs. When I automatically moved my leg he looked up at me, reached up, patted me on the butt, and took off! Here a my favorites from the Reserve.







On Saturday, we shopped a little, went to St. Lawrence Gap, and then drove to the North end of the island to the Animal Flower Cave. We got there too late. They closed early because the water was really rough and the tide was coming in pretty fast inside the sea caves. We did however walk along the cliffs and check out the area.

This is at the beginning of the Gap, which is loaded with restaurants and bars.


Here are pictures from the area around the Animal Flower Cave.






Sunday was superlong since our flight left Barbados as 7:15 a.m. Unfortunately, it was made longer because our bags failed to make the plane from Miami to Atlanta. We had to wait a couple of hours for them to come in on the next flight from Miami. We were exhausted by the time we got back to my apartment.

I'm sure I've forgotten lots from the trip. I'll link my flickr site once more of the pics are up. If you have any questions, let me know.