Day 22 - 12/11 - Barbados

Barbados turned out to be much different in many pleasing ways than I originally expected. We sailed into the harbor leading the Celebrity Summit and took our mooring positions at the pier behind the Scientology ship, Freewinds. After Ian's 'The ship has been cleared . . .' message, our little group of 5 headed off the ship in search of adventure.

The cruise terminal is a short pier walk from the ship (not so for the passengers on the Summit). We passed through the large terminal with its many shops and apparently good WIFI and eventually found a 15 passenger van where the company representative finally agreed to a partial day rate of $300 or $350 all day. We set the itinerary. Dan rounded up 4 more to join us so our group of 9 would only have to pay a maximum of about $40/pp. And off we went with Trevor our driver.

We navigated through town passing by Rhianna's (pop singer) house and then up the west side of the island which is filled with resorts, beaches and lots of turtle crossing signs. We passed by Fitts Village, Payne's Bay, Holetown, and Speightstown with a nice stop at St. James Anglican Church which is the oldest Anglican Church in the Caribbean dating to the early 1600's. The current stone building is the 3rd iteration after previous structures succumbed to fire.

We wandered our way up towards the Animal Flower Cave at the north tip of the island until we finally convinced the driver we didn't want to go there. Turning south, we reached the Barbados Wildlife Park ($15/pp entry fee) to see the green monkeys. They were photogenic to say the least. Across the parking lot was another collection of animals including turtles, caiman, peacocks, more monkeys, snakes, marra (a large rodent that looks like a rabbit), iguanas, and deer. It was an interesting path to explore the open air zoo.

Our journey then took us south along the east coast through the town of Bathsheba with its interesting beach. The narrow and twisting road then climbed back up into the mountains where we eventually ended up at Orchid World where $10US/pp gained us entry. While most of the orchids were not in bloom, many were and the lighting was such that photography was excellent.

Trevor then took us back to Georgetown where we found a a supermarket to try and find some diet pop, but none was to be found. He then gave us a brief tour of the city before dropping us off on Broad street so we could wander around for an hour. Angela and I went to Woolworth's to purchase some AA batteries. The clerk was really intrigued with the $2 bill I used to pay for the batteries.

We found the bridge, a large display of decorated Christmas trees and then found the major fountain and monuments in the central square before walking back to the van. Trevor then whisked us to the port where we snagged a picture of the Barbados sign before re-boarding the ship around 5:10pm. We took showers and then it was the Celebrity Summit which departed before our special 6:00pm Asian dinner in the Pinnacle Grill with Dan and Joan. This multi-course dinner was wonderful and the company was pleasant.

The evening's entertainment at 9:30pm was a flautist we've seen before, Viviana from Chile. She's really good.  

Tomorrow is a sea day on our way Aruba where we are meeting friends we met on our Maasdam cruise. Stay tuned.

Tim

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