Stephen put me back on blogging duty. We’ve been pretty busy since I got here on Tuesday and my gracious host wanted to keep everyone updated on our adventures, but he also wanted to take a nap. That’s where I come in.
My first night here was pleasant and relatively uneventful, except that we got caught in some torrential rain on our way out to pick up dinner from a nearby BBQ place (excellent ribs and chicken). Eventually we decided it was more important to get the food home warm than to get ourselves home dry, so we braved the storm and trudged back up the road. Impressively, most cars actually slowed down to avoid splashing us, which is a courtesy I’ve never experienced.
The next day was perfect for the beach. Pretty cloudy but not really rainy, so the beaches were not crowded and the heat wasn’t unbearable. We splashed around in the sea for a while before getting delicious flying fish sandwiches for lunch.
Thursday was spent basically doing nothing, with the exception of a nice walk around UWI’s main campus. It was an interesting place, with some cool buildings and a big cricket field (oval? Whatever they call it), but I prefer the frozen tundra of central New York. That night, we wandered down a street in Holetown with a lot of nice-looking restaurants. We ultimately settled on Indian. That’s right: Stephen Okin went to an Indian restaurant. And I hope you’re sitting down for this . . . he LOVED it. Admittedly, I wasn’t much help describing the items on the menu so, other than my personal go-to favorites, we both had to make our best guess when ordering, but it turned out to be an excellent meal. And a nice departure from the usual barbeque chicken and macaroni pie.
Friday was dominated by errands. We went grocery shopping and to the bank, and killed some time exploring Lime Grove, which is a brand new (mostly unfinished, actually) high-end shopping mall in Holetown. It had very few stores up and running and a lot of it was under construction, but we agreed that the completed parts were the nicest shopping area either of us had ever seen. There were beautiful seating areas and fountains, and a lot of it was covered but the whole complex is essentially outdoors. I can only imagine how nice it would have been if they had actually completed it in December, as was the plan. After our adventure in Holetown, we met up with one of Stephen’s friends and his girlfriend (who’s visiting from Canada) and went to Oistins for dinner. It was a lot of fun and we had some really good, fresh fish and other typical Bajan fare from one of the many outdoor restaurants. It was raining on and off, but I can definitely see how the area would turn into a huge party during the peak season. There were plenty of people there (tourists and locals), a lot of music and some dancing, but I’m told it was really quiet for Friday night in Oistins.
We called it an early night on Friday because the next morning the 4 of us had to meet at 8 am to get picked up to go on a catamaran cruise. The weather turned out to be perfect, and the cruise was fabulous. Stephen had already been on one, so I’m sure he’s described it on this blog before, but let me summarize: 2 snorkeling stops (one to swim with sea turtles, the other to look at some sunken ships), a nice long sail up the coast, lunch, swimming in the sea, and sailing back to dock in Bridgetown. Plus, an open bar throughout the whole excursion. It was an amazing trip. I had never been snorkeling before, so getting up close and personal with turtles and schools of bright tropical fish completely blew my mind. The food they served was also really good, and the crew always made sure no one was without a drink in his hand. It was so much fun I don’t even care that parts of me were fried to a crisp.
We were pretty exhausted by the time we got home yesterday, so last night was pretty quiet. We just made dinner and relaxed. Today we woke up to downpours and were happy we chose yesterday as our catamaran day. After the rain had stopped for a while, we ventured out to Holetown to get smoothies and read at Lime Grove. Unfortunately, everything was closed, so no smoothies for us. We did hang out briefly in one of Lime Grove’s public seating areas, which was nice until we discovered we were being devoured by mosquitoes. Oh well. We tried.
Thanks for sticking with this very long post. Stay tuned for more reports.
-Nora
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