Pam's Blog

The sunset on the Caribbean was pretty tonight.

Sunset from our balcony.

There were actually a few quick rain showers today and it was cloudier than the previous days this week. I actually used the windshield wipers on purpose.

Driving is better and better, easier and easier. Not to say that it is “easy”. Everything I know about sitting on the left side of the car and driving on the right side of the road is slowly (very slowly) being rewired.

I don’t know how to convey how intense the driving is. The roads are narrow and the whole sense of the width of the vehicle driving while sitting on the right side of the car is totally off, which is tricky when driving on the left side of the road. I keep looking right to look in the rear view mirror, but it’s still in the middle of the car, which means looking left. Left hand turns are easy and the right hand turns are the hard ones, it being necessary to watch for oncoming traffic. And, the round abouts go clockwise (left). The gear shift is still in the middle of the vehicle (thankfully, it’s an automatic), but the wipers are where I am used to having the turn signal and the turn signal lever is where I am used to having the wipers. So, the first day (and many subsequent ones) I used the lever for the wipers to signal turning.

Linda said “It’s not raining” and later in the day “It’s still not raining” and now it has become one of the mottos during our drives.

The day Linda took a turn at the wheel the curb jumped out a time or two resulting in the wheel looking like this.

Wheel after intersecting with two curbs

Sometimes there are curbs, other times these huge gutters, feet deep. Rarely are there lines in the middle or on the sides of the road and the locals put the pedal to the metal. The real heart stopper is when the big buses or trucks are in the oncoming traffic. I don’t know which is harder; being the driver or the passenger.

The day we went to Animal Flower Cave, as a bus approached on a narrow road I pulled to the left as far as I could go into the vegetation, stopped the car, clenched the steering as tight as I possibly could, and closed my eyes hard. Everything worked out.

Look at me! Parking on the sidewalk like a local.

Whenever I’m on vacation, I always end up going to church. I’ve been in more churches when traveling than anywhere else. So, today, we made a pit stop (really we were looking for a bathroom! As Linda said “Even Christians have to pee”).

The northern part of the island is filled with sugar cane and dinky little towns. We had been in search of the road to the lighthouse, which we ultimately couldn’t find. At a round-about, we came to St. Lucy’s and pulled into the parking lot. The church was unlocked so we went in. It was entirely empty so we had a look around, including going up to the choir loft, looking at the organ, and climbing the stairs to the belfry.

The bathrooms are in a separate out building, not attached to the church!

St. Lucy’s

In the choir loft looking at the organ

We did not ring the church bell!

The Animal Flower Cave in Barbados is located under the cliffs at the Northern tip of the island. The website says the cave is “an interesting study in geology, local history and stunning sea activity.” I have to agree whole heatedly with the “stunning sea activity”. Often the eastern part of Barbados is described as rugged with stunning views and I have to say this area tops the eastern coast.

The Animal Flower Cave is the island’s only accessible sea-cave and was discovered from the sea in 1780 by two English explorers. Out tour guide, Don, told us that the cave’s coral floor is estimated to be 400,000 years old and the ceiling is 130,000 years old.

Twenty-seven tall coral steps leading down into the cave were hand cut. Down in the cave there were, at one time, sea-anemones, locally called ‘animal flowers’, the creature for whom the place is named. Now, there aren’t so many. In fact, we saw just two. The flower consists of tentacles that retract into the stalk for safety reasons. The flower then waits a while before coming out of the stalk again.

Twenty-seven tall steps into the sea-cave.

The swimming pool is in an adjoining cave. The totally transparent, cool, and absolutely still water was quite refreshing. And the views throughout the cave openings are stunning. At least once the waves were big enough for some water to come into the swimming pool. At certain times of the year and in bad weather the caverns become filled with water and the entrance acts like a giant blowhole, sometimes blowing the entrance door off and out into the parking lot.

On the way to the swimming cave

The views of the Atlantic and the Caribbean joining and crashing against the island are really the star of the show here, and swimming in a sea cave was a new experience for me.

View from inside the sea cave

Sitting on the edge…this photo is for you Dad!!

Our first stop was Earthworks today, a local pottery place. Their tag line is “Earthworks, no ordinary pottery” and they aren’t kidding. The colors are vibrants and the inventory vast. The best part is patrons are free to wander around the pottery making area. The main guy, David, the son of the woman who started the place, of Canadian decent, was at the wheel. David expertly and tirelessly threw one pot after another. He happily chatted with us in a soft spoken voice while he did. The pottery that doesn’t pass inspection gets tossed on the scrap pile, used in the walls, or, in its a bit better than scrap, there is a ‘seconds’ shelf.

Linda looks at the pottery at Earthworks

David, the potter

The scrap pile

Wall made beautiful with scraps of pottery

We went coast to coast today, from our apartment near Holetown to Bathsheba, where the waves are rough and the surfers catch the waves and the view is stunning. Going from coast to coast (and back again) in the same day …. can’t say that in America!

Holy cow! The driving is harrowing! The roads are narrow and I’m sitting on the wrong side of the car driving on the other side of the road. It is intense. A monkey (yes a MONKEY) almost ran out in front of my car today on a very busy road. We saw a lot of goats (all off the road), one horse (“parked”) in the road, a couple of hens, who scurried back off the road when seeing me, and a rooster in the road taking his sweet old time getting across.

The roads aren’t marked well and there are no street names. Or, if they are, they aren’t marked at all.

Here’s a the best sign we saw all day!

We stopped at the beach at Bathsheba, where the waves are strong and the surfers hang out (or is it “hang ten”). It’s stunning and wild.

Huge rocks, strong waves, and amazing views at Bathsheba.

We stopped at Andromeda Botanical Garden and saw lots of flowers and trees. One in particular, a jade colored flower, that was quite beautiful. It isn’t just the sunshine that’s missing in the winter, it the vibrant color, the sweet smells of the flowers and plants, and the songs of the birds.

Jade colored flower

After lunch at The Round House (Flying Fish, Cou Cou, and fried plantains) we headed to a pottery place. The clay comes from the island and the woman staffing the place makes jewelry and both she and her husband make pottery. They have a lot of inventory in a place that is off the beaten path in a building that has an addition started but not finished. For the most part, the houses and tiny, tiny places, many brightly colored. It is not unlike Ecuador or Costa Rica in that respect.

The view from the pottery place…addition started and a view of the sea.

Not an abbey at all (and never was), this former sugar plantation is an example of a stone house built by a wealthy planter in the mid-17th century. The Jacobean great house is two stories and has seven bedrooms. The upstairs is off limits but the guided tour of the main floor included information about a couple of unique pieces of furniture and some extremely beautiful shell art pieces. Oddly, there were also a couple of cases of stuffed birds, but I suppose it’s no different then stuff moose or dear heads mounted on walls. The house is oriented so there is a cross breeze front to back, taking advantage of the wind’s cooling quality.

Shell art

The guided tour included a glass of rum punch (or pineapple juice), a run tasting and an 18 minute film from 1935, showing the owner at the time making the trip from England via boat, life on the plantation harvesting sugar cane and making rum. He also explained how the windmill would be manually (or rather with the labor of a beast of burden) to catch the trade wind from one direction and then another. Fascinating.

This windmill just down the road from St. Nicholas Abbey, is Barbados only currently working windmill

We had lunch at the cafe. I had something called “fish balls” which were delicious.

Lunch at St. Nicholas Abbey

Here is a shot of Linda and me yesterday on the Atlantic Coast of Barbados.