More Barbados!

Barbados is a lovely island!  It's fairly small - 21 miles long by 14 miles wide.

The southern end is pretty built-up and busy.  But we stayed on the northwestern side where it's pretty residential.

We visited many of the beaches....but left 100's unexplored since there are so many!!  All lovely.

We rented chairs and umbrellas several days.  We all did a good job of staying mostly sun-burn free!

Fun to people-watch.  This sweet family came strolling/crawling by.  The little boy had a huge amount of energy!

Pat, being the extrovert....always seems to make instant friends.  This lady was with her husband on a cruise ship.  They had taxied over from the nearby cruise-ship dock to the beach just to spend a few hours while the ship was in port.  They were fun to talk to but their time was short!

The photos so far are from the calm, Caribbean Sea side of the island.

We took our trusty little rental car and did some touring - here is a completely different view - from the Atlantic Ocean side of the island.

The rough ocean is a favorite for surfers.  Beautiful waves crashing on the cliff sides!

Caribbean Sea side beach....

In search of a pretty sunset.  But the clouds prevented a pretty picture.  No worries!

Another day -  more exploring on the Atlantic Ocean side.  

And a drive across the interior of the island in search of Hunte's Gardens that I had read about as a "must see".

We were not disappointed!  The garden is one man's project - he owned a landscape company and decided to make a beautiful garden oasis over 10 years ago.  It is in a "bowl shaped" area that is actually a collapsed cave.  It's his private passion and it shows!

Wandering thru the pathways, we all missed Sharon!  She would have kept us there for hours looking at all the different plants!

After we wandered thru the garden, Mr. Hunte invited us up the hill to his "home".  It was a stable in the 1700's!  Over the years, he has refurbished it and takes folks on tours regularly.

He had us sit on his porch and he told us stories about the house and the gardens.   I spied his little kitty cat - looks just like Robert's Alice!!

A lovely place!

Then it was on to another botanical garden - this time Welchman Hall Gully.   A lovely walk thru tropical forest. 

And I'll leave you with a blurry photo that Pat took of us being a bit silly on the trail!

Barbados!!

We knew that we were in for a long day to get to Barbados. American Airlines had switched our flights around and changed it from about 8 hours total to about 16 hours! But we were prepared - with Admiral's Club passes!

There is no better way to spend an 8 hour layover in the Miami airport!  Free snacks and drinks.  Plus nice quiet  areas to sit.  The time flew - and before you knew it, we'd met up with Pat and Diane for the  flight to Barbados.

But, wait....we're sitting on the plane...it's raining....the captain comes out and announces that they may need to change a tire.  And that it'd be about an hour.   Groans abounded.  But, hey, most were going on vacation so everyone just chatted and waited. 

Then the captain came back out of the cockpit and said that it'd be another hour.   And told us we could get off the plane if we wanted.  So, we did - went to a little bar just a short stroll away for a snack. 

We got back on the plane and everyone was settled back in their seats.

And we waited.

Then the captain came out and announced that they were cancelling the flight!  

But, we got a free night in a pretty nice hotel and a mostly free meal.  They told us to be back at the airport at 8AM the next morning for the flight.

This time it worked out just fine!  Everyone showed back up - mostly smiles since we were all a little "familiar" with each other after all the fuss!


And before you knew it, we were in sunny Barbados!

You know you're in the Caribbean when you get to walk down the stairs instead of a companionway!

We quickly found our little rental car - the nice attendant helped us pack all our luggage in the tiny car.  It was hilarious how much luggage we had - and how small the car was!

Diane and I had exactly enough room to sit on either side of the bags - Pat sat up front and had a bag in his lap.

We'd rented an apartment for the week from VRBO - and it was everything they advertised!

Our bedroom -  lovely bed - but we're not sure why they had mosquito netting.  We didn't slap a SINGLE mosquito the entire week!

Open air apartment - no screens on the windows, just shutters.

And it was off to the beach.  Just a short walk away.

We were at the Mullins Bay Beach Bar when we spotted this fellow with what looked like a blue "hand" painted on his back.  We dared Diane to go ask him about it.

Which she, of course, did!

Turns out it's not a fun painting - it's some sort of therapy for sore joints.  Go figure....

We did some snorkeling - pretty fish but the water was a bit murky.

Did see a couple of eels though!  Both different types of moray eels.

Creepy, aren't they?

The highlight was a turtle!!

Just lovely beaches.....

And lots of cool palm trees!!

On our little outdoor porch, we noticed a nest with a dove sitting on it.  Unfortunately, most everytime we went on the porch we scared her off.  The first day we looked, we saw one egg and what looked like one dead baby bird.  The next day, the egg had hatched and both babies were very much alive!

And here is Momma bird.....

That's all for now - I'll bore you some more tomorrow!

Kitties last day

The kitties have to go home to Robert's today.....

Last photos - they're both being naughty.  They know they're not supposed to be on the counter.  Robert has not trained them well!  Ches about to get swatted off....so innocent looking.

And an equally guilt-less looking Alice, also about to get shooed off the table!