St Lucy's Parish by the Connelltown Bus

Back in 2010, we had planned to explore the north coast of Barbados, as we had heard it was spectacular. Then the GH's face met with a rock on Gibbs Beach and our plans were derailed. In 2011, we finally got to visit St Lucy—and were blown away. It is now a staple excursion for us, just as Bathsheba is.

The Connelltown bus leaves Bridgetown on the hour every hour and travels up the West Coast road. I figured it would pass by Gibbs Beach at a little past the half-hour, and I was right. The bus came by at about 11.35. The ride took us north along the coast (calling in at the Speightstown bus terminal briefly on the way) and through an interesting-looking settlement called Six Men's Bay. There's a good-looking restaurant there called the Fish Pot which I would like to try some day when I win the lottery (Fodor's guide lists it as $$$$).

If you are going to the Animal Flower Cave (which an old gentleman at the Speightstown bus terminal once told us, sotto voce, was not worth visiting), the Connelltown bus will take you there, but you have to tell the driver that's where you want to get off, because there are no clues from the road that the Cave is even there. You get off at a bend in the road where the bus swings right, and walk down a dusty street past a couple of stalls selling postcards and seashells.

Alternatively, you can do like we do and walk to the Animal Flower Cave from the River Bay picnic ground, which looks like this ...

The Kindness of Bajans Part I

When I left off writing this blog in 2010, I was in the middle of recounting our efforts to avoid the Oistins Fish Fry Traffic Jam by visiting Bottom Bay in the afternoon before going to Oistins for supper (from the opposite direction to everyone else!).

It turned out to be a hot and slightly uncomfortable walk from Bottom Bay back to where we could catch a bus. We found ourselves sitting on the kerb in a small settlement on a sleepy Bajan afternoon. Behind us in a vacant lot, three or four young men were sitting and shooting the breeze in a peaceable way.

We noticed another man walking around unsteadily on the street in front of us. He was obviously rather inebriated (I'll call him Mr Cups) and, unusually for a Bajan, just a little on the surly side. He came and squatted down in front of us and started asking us why we were looking at him. I didn't feel threatened, but it was plain that he was invading our personal space. We really did not want to offend him, so we kept smiling and saying that we were just trying to be friendly. However, he didn't go away—just kept staring and questioning.

One of the young men from the vacant lot came over and told him to stop harassing us. When Mr Cups refused, the young man grabbed a fallen palm frond and chased him off with it, making like he was thrashing Mr Cups' behind. Everyone started laughing—including Mr Cups—and the tension was broken.

Watching the young man chase the town drunk down the street with his makeshift whip, we felt like we were watching a scene that has probably played itself over and over, all around the world, for hundreds and hundreds of years. It was touching to me that a stranger would come to our assistance this way, and that he would do it humorously and without either physical or verbal violence. There's not many places in the world you could count on that happening. While I was rather sorry that we had caused a little scene (one reason I've neglected my blog for over a year), I also felt like I had gained an insight into local Bajan life that we'd have missed if we'd stuck to the tourist tracks.

Rise in Bus Fare!

Oops, I have been rather lazy about keeping up this blog in the last year or so (despite having had two wonderful vacations in Barbados since my last post—I guess they were too relaxing), but I feel I must report that bus fares are now BBD2.00 per ride.

That's a 25 percent increase over the old fare, but compared to transit fares here at home in Toronto, that still seems like a pretty good deal, especially when you consider the spectacular places you can go in Barbados by bus!