June 1 through June 9, 2023
"The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams." - Oprah Winfrey
Living the life over here ... after the busyness of New York, Barbados was a nice shift to slow "island vibes." We had a day to relax after we arrived and enjoyed a fancy seaside dinner out with the guy who is hosting us (Bernd Sing, a German guy who works at University of the West Indies and has lived in Barbados for over a decade).
The first thing we learned here is how *very* expensive it is to eat out (maybe worse than Israel or Scandinavia). The dollar is valued 2-to-1 (2 US dollars = 1 Barbadian dollar) so everything looks twice as expensive, and really is two to three times more expensive than back home even after the conversion rate. A typical dinner out for two people can run you $100+.
Art did several shows for the university and for some local schools, and was a big hit! The audience reaction was one of pure amazement. I attended the first show and then I went exploring while he did his remaining shows. It was pretty tiring for Art but luckily he had a chance to nap in the late afternoons before we headed to dinner (we occasionally ate at our hotel-apartment, which happily had a full kitchen). On my excursions/tours, I learned about the island's history (run by the British until 1966), the geography (including a very cool cave and an old functional windmill), the people, the language (an interesting mix of broken English and Creole with a light British accent), and the culture. I also walked myself over to see the house where George Washington stayed with his brother (long before George was President, and the only country he visited outside the US), the garrison and military tunnels, and the house where the singer Rihanna grew up (as well as her current mansion). Although Barbados is relatively safe to wander around, it is equal parts sketchy markets and harbors with yachts. There is decent infrastructure but it has its challenges. The government buses can be slow and unreliable and have no A/C (which is much needed in June!), and the local "minivan buses" have a bit of a free-wheeling fly-by-night feel to them plus a distinctive musical horn (I braved it anyway; turned out to be quite a party bus with reggae music).
The food is pretty good despite the steep prices (lots of chicken and rice, with some Jamaican and Indian influences); the weather is pretty darn hot and humid; and the beaches are just pretty! We wandered along the coastline (everywhere is near coastline on this relatively small island in the eastern Caribbean), the tide pools, and the boardwalk, and enjoyed some amazing sunset views. One day I took a snorkeling tour to see fish/turtles and shipwrecks and it was fantastic! I see now why people flock to the Caribbean for snorkeling and diving. The water was even close to my temperature!
On one of our final days, I made my way to the Jewish quarter and saw one of the oldest / restored synagogues of Barbados. It's pretty cool that there even is a Jewish community here, albeit a small one. Some local families made it their mission to restore the synagogue from 1833 and it is still in use today. There was even an excavated mikveh and a cemetery that is still used by the community!
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We had always planned to see at least one other Caribbean country and we had thought it would be St Lucia, but when we finally got here and looked into flights, the most convenient was St Vincent and the Grenadines (which I knew nothing about). It's only a 45 minute flight from Barbados (due west) and there were flights daily so off we went.
St Vincent is the main island and the Grenadines are a series of little islands that are probably beautiful and less populated, but we were limited on time so we only visited St Vincent for 2 days. We would up staying at a lovely historic hotel that had everything we wanted (except for maybe good water pressure!). We spent the first afternoon wandering the area near our hotel and along the waterfront, which turned out to be fairly empty (and a bit dodgy-looking) because it was Sunday (who knew?). Much of the Caribbean islands are very religious and church-dominated so not much happens on the Lord's day.
The second day I set up a tour of the island and that allowed us to get a good (and safer) overview. We saw the lighthouse, the fort, the beach (had it almost all to ourselves!), a botanic garden and waterfall, have lunch at an authentic local place, and visit the site of the Pirates of the Caribbean (POC) movie filming (we are not huge fans of the movie but it was cool to see anyway, plus we got to walk the actual plank!). We headed back to our hotel and, for a small fee, got a room to relax in before our evening flight (best $35 we've spent all year).
We waited for our taxi to come -- the guy who had driven us from the airport the day before offered to return -- and he stood us up! Fortunately our hotel ordered us another taxi which came and speedily got us to the airport in time. Unfortunately after waiting for a couple of hours (and our flight kept saying delayed), they canceled our flight! At this point it was almost 10pm and there were no other flights out. We were ticked but not as much as another couple who were going to miss all their connections back to the US. All 10 passengers were (finally) shuttled off to a hotel (complete with not-great breakfast!), where we all got much-needed rest.
In the morning they came back for us and got us out on the early afternoon flight. This did cause us to miss one of our tours on Barbados but luckily I was able to reschedule it (Art was not, due to his shows) so it wasn't a total loss. In any case, we were verrry ready to be back in Barbados. Next time we're out this way, I would like to see the Grenadines and maybe some other islands - I hear they are quite gorgeous and deserve a few more days than we had.
Hard to believe we are heading to country #35 (Panama) tomorrow! I expect it will be a jam-packed agenda of shows and sightseeing, and more hot weather :)
Deena and Art
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