Day 7 - Barbados

Drink of the Day – Ya Mann Caribbean

Today marks the seventh day and the end of the first week of our journey. As soon as we disembarked this morning around 10:00 we hired a cab driver to take us around the Island. Our driver, Marson, spent the entire day taking us to locations that most tours include as well as to areas that tourists generally never see. We had an opportunity to see the real Barbados. What a wonderful day!







Marson did rename us the Golden Girls. Linda was Maude but the jury is out as to who Deedee and Jane were. At least one of us was not all that flattered.

The island is divided into parishes with their own schools, churches, and services. Each parish also seemed to have its own personality and style. The two churches we visited, St. John’s built in 1645 and St. James Anglican Church built in 1628, were beautiful and very old. Both had cemeteries that looked like something from a Dickens novel.






We also saw the homes and resorts of the rich and famous. Among the hot spots were the resort and golf course that Tiger Woods, Donald Trump, Bill Gates, and Richard Branson frequent. As a matter of fact, Tiger was married here at a resort that costs $1200 a night with a minimum stay of two weeks.




The island itself is lush with beautiful vegetation including many flowers that none of us had ever seen. The views of the rolling hills and ocean were breathtaking.

Throughout the landscape there were quite a few sugar cane farms as well as all sorts of fruit trees including coconut, lemon, mango, banana, plantain, and papaya trees. There are also beef, pig, chicken, and horse “ranches” everywhere.

We also saw a green monkey, which looked brown to us, and a few wild goats. Thankfully, there are no snakes on any of the islands we visited.

After a long day of touring, Marson dropped us off in the downtown area for an hour. Shopping is really not a big attraction here so we basically looked at a few stores and spent the rest of the hour at an Internet café checking on email and your blog comments. Speaking of blog comments, it appears that many of our friends are anonymous. If you write comments (and we do live for your comments) it would help us if you leave initials or a name so we know who you are.

The next five days will all be sea days. We hope to keep you informed about what we are up to out at sea with not a whole lot to do but read novels and do nothing. Our next stop will be Salvadore de Bahia, Brazil, on Friday, January 16.