Just North of Bridge Town

If I close my eyes, I can still feel the sand on my feet. For the past three weeks I woke with the waves, drinking my coffee, and giving thanks for the past year and the year to come. These month long trips, they do a life good. 

Barbados welcomed us with a beautiful beach. We stayed right on Brighton Beach where the sand is fine and the water is turquoise. This was the first year out of six (SIX?! Is this really the sixth year we've been able to do this?! Thanks mom and dad!) that we used the ocean more than the pool. Hours of floating in sea water going up and over the waves was time well spent, I promise.




With an area of 21 miles by 14 miles, the island is easy to explore. It was my first time driving in a country where the steering wheel and driving lanes are opposite of home, and I don't want to toot my own horn or anything, but I was a natural! Jes' Tours were in operation again (thinking back to my stint as acting as the Tourista in Nicaragua...). I chalk it up to my constant left/right confusion. Left and Right directions have never come instinctually to me, so maybe it was just easy to follow along with the rest of traffic?! Who knows, but we made it through the trip seeing all four coasts and not getting into an accident, so it's a win!

Hanging at the "Hot Pot." The water that is pushed out by the local power plant creates a hot spring that is enjoyed by all!

Brighton Beach is on the West coast with the other three coasts being full of cliffs and coral, so it's the only coast to be on if you want to do extensive swimming, and we did. We swam off our beach, off Carlisle Bay, and off Alleynes Bay. The kids wore their masks and snorkels religiously and were rewarded with a  couple of fish, and turtles! There are a couple of turtles that like to hang out 100 yards or so off the beach and the kids found and fell in love with them.

The one and only Mike and Nana team! The responsible party that has made the beach a second home to our boys.

Our trek North took us to the Animal Flower Cave. This was pretty cool and Austin could have stayed all day. The water is clear and the views are amazing, though I didn't bring a camera down there as I didn't know if I'd be able to use it. You are standing in the mouth of a cave that is about 10 feet above where the huge waves are crashing. As you stand on the lip, the water sounds as if it's going to roar in and grab you, but then you are just washed with some spray instead. Some days the water does rise and when it goes it leaves behind some nice swimming pools full of crabs, sea cucumbers, and sea anemones that open and give the cave it's name, "Animal Flower." After poking some anemones and banging some shins on the coral, it was time to go.

To the West we found great beaches like Crane Beach, Bath, and Bathsheba. They each offer a different view which keeps the car trip going. Crane Beach you could potentially swim in, or at least play in the huge waves that come rolling in. There is sand to stretch out on and a tree house that somebody put up in the woods. Bath has a long shallow beach that is full of coral. It offers a peaceful sound as the waves are just rippling over the surface for almost a quarter mile before coming ashore. In Bathsheba you will find the Soup Bowl, or the surf spot. The surfers first have to make it past the waves and then they can play in the break far off. On shore there is dramatic evidence of the relentless pounding of the waves. Driving home from the east, we cut across the island heading for our west coast. On the way we found a game of Cricket! We stopped and tried to figure out the rules of Barbados' National sport, but we ended up just enjoying it and looking it up later on YouTube.

Finally, our trip down South brought us to two great dining options that are completely opposite of one another! Our first night out we went to Tapas. YUM! Right on the beach, incredible menu, super friendly atmosphere, and tons of choices. The second night we went to Oistin's Fish Fry. YUM! This isn't a restaurant, as it is a lot of beach huts each frying fish out in the open and offering a couple of side options along picnic tables on the bustling streets of the town Oistin. We snuck in a third dining option for dessert after the fish fry at Surfer's Cafe. This little place is not to be missed. The food was amazing, meaning our ice cream cookies and brownie a la mode!

Cricket

Safari Park

Safari Park...some chain and board  has been entertaining children for years.

Bathsheba

Most of the above, besides the dining, can all be done for free. I think it was $5 to go into the Animal Flower Cave. We did do a couple of touristy things...We we went to Harrison's Cave and Welchman's Gully. These two places show how the island of Barbados was formed. It's the only non-volcanic island in the Caribbean as it was formed when the two tectonic plates collided and pushed the land up. During the hundreds of thousands of years that the land was colliding, natural animal debris and coral formed along the oceanic floor and by the time the land was pushed up and out of the water, it was mainly coral that was being exposed. This is all very interesting when you start to wonder how this tiny island is able to sustain fresh drinking water. It is due to the gullies that were formed when the land continued to move and fracture the coral that fresh water was able to be stored. Harrison's Cave allows you to see the inner workings of these gullies and cave systems that hold the fresh water and Welchman's Gully allows you to walk along a gully floor that has been exposed and see how people found the openings into the sides of the earth to find the water. The plant life in the gully is also much more lush than the surrounding lands in Barbados which tend to be dry in the middle of the island with palm and pine trees along it's shores. Due to the lush plant life, the monkey tribes like to live around there, and therefore we got to see a family of monkeys as the gully has taken it upon itself to provide food and keep the monkeys away from the surrounding farm lands where they are nuisances. 

Chris arrived and brought some new fun as we had left some things for him...like our trip up North and a day on a jet ski. Leaving that jet ski for when Chris got there was great in some regards, but according to Oliver it was almost torture.

Daily life brought sunsets worth capturing {I have only a couple hundred}, monkeys in the treetops, neighbors who run a resort in Vancouver who also happens to have a previous life as a chef who also wanted to cook for us, endless card games of hearts and spades, a puzzle that defeated us, books, school, and the gift of time. Time spent exploring together, walking together, talking together and living life, but in paradise.