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| Speightstown beach |
The proposition of a trip to Barbados was dangling there at the end of a long, cold English winter and eventually in the middle of April it arrived. Mr Smith used to live in Barbados as a boy, when his father was working there. He hadn't been back for years, so I was curious to see what he thought and this was my present to him to celebrate his fiftieth birthday. I used Avios (BA Air Miles) to buy the flights and booked us into the newly refurbished
Treasure Beach Hotel on Paynes Beach, St James. The hotel was an extremely comfortable base from which to explore, although we lowered the average age by at least fifteen years. With a bus stop very close to the hotel, we decided to travel everywhere we could by bus, quizzing our waiter Kevin every morning about routes around the island. There are three different sorts of bus, the large blue government buses, smaller bright yellow mini-buses blasting out reggae music and the even smaller white vans, run by cool, deadpan conductors who ushered us on and off to the accompaniment of the local radio station. You can travel anywhere on the island for two Barbados dollars (equivalent to four US dollars).
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| Barbados by bus |
We headed north to the parish of St Lucy, along the coast through Speightstown (pronounced Spitestown) and past the new marina that's been chiseled out of limestone. This is supposedly where the super yachts will come in and moor. Further north we headed and inland through the sugar cane fields, where at the end destination we told our driver that we didn't want to get out, we were having a look around and bought two more two dollar tickets back, after he stopped the bus so that Mr Smith could leap off and into a bar full of locals watching an English premier league football game to buy a drink to get the exact change.
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| Sunday lunch, Oistins |
We took the bus to Oistins in the south a couple of times, once for Sunday lunch from a food stall on the beach and once on a Friday night when they have a weekly fish festival, live music and a market for tourists. Some serious grilling and frying of fish takes place here - Mr Smith had red snapper and I had king fish, both served with vegetables and macaroni pie; extremely tasty and good value.
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| The Crane |
The Crane was on our visit list, a favourite beach of his youth. We took a bus towards Sam Lord's Castle, jumping off at The Cutter for lunch, where we got talking to a young couple from Colorado. They gave us a lift to the beach where once we'd descended the steps and worked our way along the stepping stones lapped by waves, Mr Smith was disappointed, as much of the beach had been washed away by the sea. Now there was a long line of sun beds to rent, not the wild beach he remembered from the framed photo on the chest of drawers back home. However, we left the Americans to the sun beds, persevered and found some steps down to the next bay along (Ginger Bay), where the beach was beautiful and deserted.
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| Coastal path, Bathsheba |
We visited the east coast, leaving the bus just north of Bathsheba where we walked along the the glorious, wild beach where the currents are too strong to swim. We picked up the coastal footpath and walked towards St Martin's Bay further south where we caught a bus back to Bridgetown. Timing our journey at the end of the school day as our waiter Kevin had warned us not to, we watched the blue bus fill and empty with boisterous, shouting school children from various schools along the way, so smart in their uniforms and polished shoes.
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| Downtown Speightstown |
There were old friends to catch up with who were still making a living on the island. Australian Art Taylor had taught my husband to surf as a boy and now owns and runs the restaurant
Lobster Alive on Carlisle Bay. He'd arrived in Barbados by sailing boat in his twenties and has been there ever since. Arriving on a Sunday afternoon, the restaurant was full both inside and out and the jazz band played while diners got up and danced when the whim took them. Art is an incredibly youthful and fit seventy four year old and has just had his pilot's licence renewed; he flies his plane to the Grenadines each week for fresh lobster. He keeps them in a large tank in the restaurant, hence
Lobster Alive! We caught up with Art over a drink at the bar, his hard working Guyanian staff pouring us large glasses of white wine and promised to come back for dinner in a few days and to watch him play piano at The Waterfront cafe in Bridgetown, which we did.
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| Art Taylor, Lobster Alive |
Other family friends treated us to a meal at
Champers in Hastings one night, where the food and service was superb; the night time setting at the water's edge, listening to the waves slap against the wall, was wonderful. I caught a few insights as to how it must have been living in Barbados in the seventies. We talked about Barbados now: obvious changes are building development, increased road traffic, turtles are an endangered species and Bajans aren't so keen on their cricket. Up in Speightstown we walked past the
Almond Beach Village, Barbados's first all-inclusive resort which is up for sale. It is now a ghost hotel with a couple ceiling fans still spinning around, there were tree branches in the pools, large terracotta pots with bougainvillea unsuspectingly tumbling out, yet a little further north the new marina development is pushing ahead. Reading the Barbados Advocate newspaper most mornings, it is clear that Barbados is aware that it needs to attract more tourists, but we passed half built luxury developments and some very tired hotels that could do with a revamp in the south. Perhaps Barbados should be concentrating on better quality mid and budget end accommodation, enabling tourists to arrive with more cash in their pockets.
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| Perfect palm lawn |
Barbados is expensive. Most tourists appeared to be there for a significant birthday, honeymoon or anniversary, something that had been saved up for over time; or they were retired, playing golf or stopping off on a cruise. It's marketed very much as a luxury destination, it costs so much to get there and to stay there, not all visitors can afford the Colombian emeralds advertised on the billboards. I felt that perhaps Barbados is pitching its tourism too high. Our souvenirs were a bottle of Mount Gay Rum for us and a bottle of extremely fiery hot pepper sauce for our teenagers.
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| Renovating the roller |
Our last day was spent aboard a
Cool Runnings catamaran. I wanted to see the island from the sea and to swim with the turtles. We were not disappointed, and as much as Cool Runnings is a party boat, it is a truly professional one. The rum punch was good, but not too strong and the hospitality impressive. A nervous swimmer was looked after and elderly snorkelers swimming towards the wrong catamaran were gently redirected and helped back into their boat. Everyone was well taken care of. The lunch was delicious and some of the staff showed off their dance moves on the way back into Bridgetown; by the end we were all dancing and didn't want to disembark (the sign of a good party). This is a great way to see the island, swim with the turtles, catch a glimpse of Wayne and Colleen's (not forgetting Sir Cliff Richard's) holiday home and even better for people watching on board.
Since I've been home, I've been asked about crime on the island and whether I felt safe, and the answer is I did; but of course, as a tourist you have to be aware, which we were, as two British tourists were shot (they survived) in Bridgetown a few of weeks before we arrived. We also heard about a couple mugged at gunpoint on the east coast while we were there, but a gunpoint robbery happened in my home town of Tunbridge Wells last week. Travelling around by bus we met some incredibly helpful and friendly people who were proud of their island and who always had time to talk to us, particularly the ladies in charge of the bus depots. That will be my overriding memory, together with the warmth, sunshine, swimming in the sea, torrential showers and the special, welcoming, laid back Bajan vibe.
