19 October 2007
The Sun is Hotter in Barbados
Saturday the 6th we stepped off the plane back into the states after spending a week in Barbados. It was a strange sensation, like stepping into the middle of a really busy street after being inside some place very quiet and still. When I drove to the store the next day, the steering wheel in my hand and the road beneath my tires were suddenly unfamiliar sensations. It wasn’t that I had been isolated for a week or that I hadn’t been in any vehicles, I had, it’s just that suddenly jarred back into the faster pace of life in the states.
Barbados is the southern most island in the Caribbean and is actually a part of the British West Indies rather than the American side. You can tell because they like cricket there, a lot, and they drive on the wrong side of the road. The accent, however, is not British, but something else entirely. It took me days to finally successfully understand what people were saying.
Comparatively, Barbados a large island, but you can still make the circuit of it in a relatively short amount of time, barring traffic in the capital city, Bridgetown, or along any of the smaller roads. The Bajans don’t seem to to have much stock in highways or even particularly well-paved two ways.
Our hotel was just a few minutes ride from the Airport and we had arranged transportation through one of the local tour companies, Johnson Tours. We had gotten rooms at the Crane Resort, one of the oldest hotels on the island. Normally an obscenely expensive resort, our stay was made reasonably because of extensive construction on the property. Fortunately, little of it detracted from the beauty of the grounds, the pools, or the private beach.
After checking in, we were taken up to our room in one of the buildings, on the fourth floor. When the porter opened the door, and we walked in, we stood in awe for a few minutes before finally tipping him and sending him on his way. The suite was incredible. Ceramic tiled floors, white washed coral brick walls that lead up to vaulted white wood ceilings where a single ceiling fan blew in the breeze if you had the balcony doors open. There was a full kitchen, jacuzzi tub, and a four post bed. The mahogany trim, furniture, and doors stood out against the clean white of everything else. And it was ours for a week.
Except for two days when we had tours planned, we split our time between the private beach and the pools that were on the cliffs above the ocean.
Walking through the Azure restaurant and down a narrow, long flight of stairs that lead you down the vertical cliff to the beach. The ocean was as impossibly greenish blue as the pictures you see in magazines. As waves crashed onto the beach, they picked up white sand and tossed it back into itself, giving them a dusty, translucent look. We lounged on chairs spread out across the beach by the men who manned two little booths, with large blue umbrellas to protect us against the equatorial sun.
Behind us, a coconut grove hung over the beach. We watched one of the guys from the booth scale a palm tree close to the beach with just his bare hands and feet. It seemed so improbable, and yet he made it look easy. A few twists of the coconut, and they were dropping down to the sand below with a soft bounce and roll. He shimmied off the tree with effortless grace and cut up the coconut to offer to the guests, spending a few minutes eating and talking with each person he offered some to.
At the end of the day, guests retired for afternoon tea, or for an early dinner and there was more than one time when we were left almost alone on the beach, making footprints that washed away as soon as we had passed.
One of the harder decisions of the week there became whether or not to stay on the beach or to lounge by one of the half dozen or so sparkling blue pools that were on the cliffs above the beach.
Most of the time, we found ourselves on one of the lounge chairs around the infinity pool, the top most pool in the small complex. Swim over to the edge, and you could look out at all the other pools and down across to the ocean in the distance.
Right next to the pools, the Carriage House served up an assortment of drinks and a select menu of lunch/dinner. We spent many happy hours each day reading in the sun, sipping Pina Coladas and sampling almost every menu item. Ironically, they wound up having the fastest service of all the restaurants in the Resort and so rapidly became our favorite.
And when the sun started to go down, we switched to the heated Jacuzzi that was in an ancient Greece-like open stone room just a few steps away. We would stay there until the evening chill or afternoon rains sent us back to our room.
I remember most the ebb and flow of the days; the slow easy pace of everything. I remember riding in vans converted to people movers on the days we took tours; crammed in with Australians and Brits and Americans… pasty white and distinctly out of place riding down streets where everyone was dark skinned. I remember the small wood buildings scattered around on almost every street - brightly painted with ads of various alcohol brands. These were the Bajan versions of pubs or bars, and they were so prolific you’d think that drinking was a national pastime. Maybe it was, Rum had flowed through the veins of Barbados for centuries.
I remember the Bajan hot mustard, a staple condiment at our hotel and around the country, I suppose. And seeing the two American food chains that seemed to have made it over the ocean: KFC and TGI Fridays. It was a strange site to see a small KFC on the beach as we drove by on the way to Bridgetown.
But neither were any competition for Barbados’ largest fast food chain, Chefette. We ate there during our last day in the country, while we waited for our flight and had their Rotis. It’s something I will make here at home.
After our lunch, we wandered around the airport waiting for the announcement of our flight. It looked like they were planning to add displays for inbound and outbound flights, but they hadn’t gotten around to it. Instead, someone would call over the intercom when flights were starting their boarding calls.
In theory, it would have been a perfectly acceptable substitute, but you could barely hear or understand anything the announcer was saying. The volume was too low, and the woman sounded like she was talking around a huge ball of cotton. Our only indication that our flight was in was a garbled string of words of which we could only make out: “… flight… Charlotte… “.
Barbados was hard to leave on that last day. The country and it’s people were amazing, the ocean and the rhythm of life there, intoxicating. The only consolation was the little bottle of hot mustard in our luggage, and the fact that we could always come back.
Liz and Jason are two people who share a love for each other, for food, and for travel. Foodyssey serves to chronicle some of their adventures.
Awesome, glad you had fun and can’t wait to see the pics.