More English than England

On Friday, our Caribbean Island du jour was Barbados. 

We disembarked at the port city of Bridgetown. Our excursion consisted of 3 hours at the local Carlisle Bay Beach, because when you’re in the Caribbean, that’s what you do, go to the beach. Carlisle Bay is a crescent shaped bay and natural harbor located very close to Bridgetown.

Barbados beach

Along the way, the bus driver gave us some history and culture of Barbados. This is one of the few Caribbean islands that was solely colonized by one nation – England. The local people are known as Bajans, and they describe their country as being “more English than England.”

When our cruise ship docks, we usually meet up with our tour at the end of the dock. Here in Barbados, the end of the dock was about a mile down the road, a little fact the Princess people forgot to mention. After our long trek to the busses, we boarded and headed for the beach. Our bus driver’s name was Lizzie or Liz, but not Elizabeth. She said only her mother calls her Elizabeth, and even then only when she’s mad at her.

The drive from the port to the Beach took us 35 minutes. Lizzie kept telling us that the streets were very crowded because it was Friday and it was lunchtime (even though it was almost 2:00). The drive back took only 8 minutes. That tells you how much we crawled at an annoying slow pace to go the short distance from port to beach.

Along the way we passed some very old buildings, but colorful and full of character. There was a bargain store called Dis ‘n Dat. And Lizzie showed us the Woolworth Store and proudly told us that it is the last remaining Woolworth store in the world. She said it shows no signs of closing down anytime soon, as the people here love it and it is always busy with shoppers. We took pictures of typical Barbados street scenes.

One of the reasons for the abundance of traffic, according to Lizzie, is that many people are buying cars. It is interesting that we haven’t seen any motorbikes, even though they would be very efficient on these crowded streets of the small islands. Also, when you have 3 or 4 cruise ships dumping 3000-5000 people each on to the small two-lane streets, filling up buses, taxis, shuttles, vans, etc., that can lend to traffic jams.

We passed Heroes Square, where there are 11 national heroes memorialized, the Parliament Building and Museum, Independence Square, and Freedom Park. Lizzie told us that the government provided a fleet of over 60 electric buses for local transportation. We were also told that Barbados is a very religious country, with over 100 practicing religions here and over 500 churches.

St. Patrick Catholic Church

Our time at the beach was much more enjoyable than our previous day at the beach in St. Martin, since this day was full sunshine as opposed to the rain we experienced there. Also, a couple of friends – Susan and Urby – also happened to be on this excursion, and we set up a couple of umbrella chairs next to them and enjoyed visiting with friends, sunning, and taking refreshing dips in the cool, clear waters of the Caribbean.

When we returned to the port after our afternoon at the beach, we decided to take the shuttle back to the ship rather than hike the mile. There was quite a line waiting and apparently only one shuttle running. The shuttle was taking quite a while to make the round trip from terminal (where we got off the bus) to the ship. The ship “all aboard” time was 5:30 and we were getting dangerously close to that deadline. A few of the people in line were wondering if the ship would wait for us remaining stragglers. Someone said that of course the ship would wait, while another lady remembered stories she had heard of people getting left behind by cruise ships. As we stood there impatiently waiting for the shuttle and nervously eyeing the clock, I pictured Joe and me standing on the shore watching the Majestic Princess head out to sea, and saying to one another “That ship has sailed”. Sorry. I couldn’t resist.