What A Week

Work has been cool more or less this week. Living in a different country and getting the opportunity to explore the island when you have free time makes the entire experience holistic for me. I get to work and be a tourist at the same. Hehe!! Anyway..

Saturday I did my first tour of Barbados with Island Safari, one of the leading tour companies in Barbados. We basically did a drive through each parish, apart from Christ Church and St. Michael, since these are 2 parishes everyone tends to frequent. Our tour guide's name was Ian, and he was very knowledgeable about new developments and history throughout the island. One thing that had me a bit disappointed with Island Safari beforehand is the package we took, they told us no refreshments would be provided apart from cups and ice, so the group of us decided, to just walk with our own refreshments. To my pleasant surprise however, the tour guide offered us jungle juice (just a variation of the famous Bajan rum punch), and orange juice.

We went to several major look out points and I got some fantastic shots of Bathsheba Bay and Cove Beach on the east coast of the island. It was absolutely amazing, and I thoroughly enjoyed the safari experience with the tour team.

Isn't Port St Charles absolutely gorgeous?

When I saw the first class port in the parish of St. Peter, Barbados and how beautiful the water looked, I just thought wow Trinidad and Tobago has a lot of work to do as it regards its tourism industry. I remember there were some talks about investing in yachting tourism, but damn, after seeing this port facility, we have a lot of work to do.

I snapped photos of the yachts in the distance >.<

Barbados is indeed a beautiful place. The one thing I probably should have done is make note of the major points Ian drove us to, because I honestly cannot remember the name of some of the gorgeous places I've seen.

Cove Bay, St. Lucy

The tour was finalized by us going to the Bathsheba Bay and through a rainforest that is either Joe's River Rainforest or Turner's Hall Woods. I really cannot recall :/

Bathsheba's Bay

The forest

In the rural areas, agriculture predominates

Black-bellied sheep :)

Mayne that tour was awesome, and to top if off, we got some refreshments, which I was not expecting lol.

Afterward, my friend and I ventured to The Crane. I have no shame in saying this, it was the first time I took the bus in Barbados. And I laughed in my head, because I had to stand, and I kept swaying initially, and the people around me watched me as though I wasn't right in my head. The Crane is one of the premiere resorts in Barbados, and it really is an awesome property.

For me, The Crane has a more romantic, secluded atmosphere, as opposed to Atlantis Resort, the Bahamas, which I've had the pleasure of visiting earlier this year. Atlantis Resort is of course probably the most popular resort in the Bahamas, and there is more of a fun, bright atmosphere up there.

Just a snippet of what I first saw

The Crane I believe was named after the nearby Crane Beach. It is a beautiful beach, and if I only had my swimsuit, I would have been in that water in a heartbeat, but there is time to do that still in Barbados.

Crane Beach

We happened to meet up with the manager of the property, and we were able to see how the suites looked. I was literally on a high. We walked around the property and took several shots, and afterward, went to 1887 Bar to try the talked-about rum punch. In my opinion, their's was just alright and really strong.

I met some pretty cool employees at The Crane afterward, and listened to their life stories, while I heard remixes to mostly Rihanna's music in the background. I found out about the extent of domestic violence and a person's quest to be independent and settle down. It was good vibes. Afterward the intention was to revisit St. Lawrence Gap for dinner, but that did not happen, but it's all good. There's still time for that of course.

Sunday evening, I went to the Globe Drive-In Cinema, we watched two movies: 2 Guns with Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg and Redemption with Jason Statham and Agata Buzek.

Part of the drive-in cinema

2 Guns was okay for me, but because I was more or less distracted while the movie was going on, I didn't really take it in as much as I would have liked to, but the part at the end was awesome. And I'm huge fan of these two fantastic actors, so I would recommend it. Redemption was awesome for me because I actually paid attention to what was going on. It was really symbolic and interesting especially the relationship with the two main characters; in the end he was indeed redeemed.

For the first time in my life, I have been a part of a television audience, called 'Destination Caribbean', on CaribVision. It was really cool with all the lighting, and the cameras. It was hard not to laugh at some things though, but it was such a great experience. The panel discussed Festival Tourism and whether it is truly beneficial for the Caribbean region, and basically at the end of the discussion one can say so. My personal difficulty has always been whether we actually make money from these festivals, and how these festivals can remain authentic, if it's a cultural, and not become highly commercialized.

Panelists: The Gabby, Ms Sutherland, Mr Keens-Douglas and Sr Villalba

But it was a pleasure to have and meet a Trini representative, Shaneil Sutherland, and the other three panelists Elias Villalba of Venezuela, Anthony 'Mighty Gabby' Carter of Barbados and Ricardo Keens-Douglas of Grenada. If you want to catch episodes of Destination Caribbean, just YouTube 'CTO Destination TV Show' and enjoy!

Ah what adventures beheld in Barbados :)