Holiday in Barbados

12^th - 26^th May 2011

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Barbados was enjoyable, after a few hotel glitches, but boy is it an expensive island. They also seem to have a stupid dress code rule for men in most restaurants. 'elegantly casual' which is surely a meaningless phrase. In our hotel it meant scruffy jeans, tatty t-shirt and dirty trainers were OK, but smart shirt, neat shoes and cargo shorts were not! The weather was very warm and mostly sunny, though it did rain in short bursts occasionally. Barbados is quite a pretty little island and only 21 miles by 14 miles. We hired a car for a week and drove round most of the island. The roads are really narrow and poor and the signposting almost non-existant. We drove according the map and ended up in all sorts of different places! It hurts my male ego to say this, but Angie was the better navigator. Probably because the odd maps made sense to her female brain!

We visited Oistins Fish Market on our first Friday, which was really hectic, loud and busy. We drove to Bridgetown and then up the west (posh) coast to the north of the island. We got lost and found ourselves on an isolated but stunning cliff top. After that we went to the Animal Flower Cave which was really quite boring. The next day we visited Sunbury House Plantation, which is an old sugar plantation. The following day we drove to Orchid World to see the flowers and whilst we were in one of the cage like structures, we saw a brown snake. I was not impressed, especially as one of the staff said they had no snakes on Barbados and another said it was a grass snake. Not sure I believed either of them! From Orchid World we drove to Gun Hill Signal Station, where we saw most of the island from the top. There was a huge cruise liner berthed in Bridgetown. There is a white lion carved into the rock of Gun Hill. From there we drove to St. Nicholas Abbey, which is another plantation house. They still make their own rum there. It is also where I saw, and used, my first genuine Crapper!

At some point we also visited the Mount Gay Rum distillery and Banks Brewery. Our next trip was organised by the holiday company on the Atlantis submarine, which dived to 143 feet. We saw a baby Hawksbill turtle and a shipwreck. It was a very interesting and different trip. Our final self drive trip was to the Barbados Wildlife Reserve, which apparently has the worlds largest collection of tortoises. I can well believe it, they seemed to be every where you looked. There were also some Barbados Green Monkeys among other animals there. Our final trip was to the Bajan Roots and Rhythmns Show. We ate a Bajan meal and saw a show, including some dancing stilt walkers. An expensive holiday, but fun all the same.