Our last full day in Barbados (which is already a distant memory) we had the choice of either hanging around the resort all day, or renting a car and crisscrossing the entire island. Beth preferred to do the car thing, so we got ourselves lined up with a mini Moke, a car with no doors and no roof (one rental companies web site says of it, "not suitable for small children", delivered right to the hotel. Had to pay cash for a temporary Barbados drivers license, and the rental for one day was over $60 US, including LDW (which seemed like a good idea) but didn't cover any damage to the tires, which fortunately were indestructable.



I drove for a little while until it proved that Beth couldn't read the map to save her life, so we stopped for gas and then switched places. Me navigating and her driving meant we'd get where we were going sooner, but not necessarily in one piece. We got on the one highway on the island, prosaically called the ABC Highway, and headed to Bridgetown to find the Pelican Craft Center, which we did without too much trouble. This was on the western edge of town, away from the old part of the city but close to where the cruise ships dock, and there are about 20 duty free stores selling various types of crafts, clothing, etc. The place was deserted (no cruise ships) and a few stores were closed, but we poked around for awhile and found a nice batik print by a local artist to bring home as a souvenir you could hang on the wall.



While we were inside it rained a bit, but it had stopped by the time we were ready to go. Beth wanted to find the post office, as Chloe had some class project where she was supposed to send a drawing of herself to someone in a foreign country and they were supposed to write a letter and fill up an envelope with local stuff and send it back. Rather than prevail upon her friend Lexi in Japan, she had us take it along on our trip, and Beth had everything packaged up and ready to mail, but needed a post office since it was a large envelope. We saw the post office, but there was nowhere to park (we probably could've walked there from the Craft Center, but didn't know that until it was too late), and driving around the block was a challenge with all the one way streets, so we decided to look for one somewhere else.



We headed up the western side of the island, which we'd only seen from the catamaran the day before, where all the posh resorts and golf courses are (Tiger Woods just got married at one yesterday), with our first stop in Holetown. Holetown isn't really a town, just a collection of shops, but given the clientele they're more like what you'd expect in the U.S., even a little mall with several tourist-oriented stores and a big grocery store. I got me a t-shirt and Beth found some things to bring back for Julie, plus some beanies for the kids. While we were in the shops it rained rather heavily, and while inside the last place we went, the power went out. They said that happens occasionally this time of year whenever there's lightning. But it cleared up reasonably quickly, although the car got a little wet inside (no doors, remember, and just a ragtop for a roof, which deposited some accumulated rain into the car as soon as we started moving).



By now it was lunchtime and we were starving, so we backtracked south a quarter mile or so to the local Chefettes, a fast food chain that we figured we had to hit at least once (no McDonalds on Barbados has ever succeeded, although there are several KFC's). Chefettes has the standard burgers, chicken, fries and so forth, we opted for the roti, which seems like more of an Indian-style wrapped sandwich with chicken and potatoes, and a salad. This particular Chefettes is the only one with an ocean-front dining area, some covered picnic tables outside along the beach across the parking lot, so we ate out there, as by now the sun was out and everything was drying off.



The next stop up the western coast was Speightstown (pronounced "Spikestown", even though there's no "k" in the name), a real town with a very narrow old-looking main street with a number of local shops for local people (as they say on "League of Gentlemen"). We asked around and found the Speightstown post office and just like an American post office there were tons of people in line and only one person working. After waiting 15 minutes or so, Beth had the lady put on as many different stamps as she had to add up to the requisite amount, and "Flat Chloe" was off to the U.S. (arriving exactly one week later).



There didn't appear to be any tourists at all in Speightstown, and not much for them to do if they had been. I was worried I'd run low on cash, so I tried ATM's at three different banks and all three of them weren't working (as it turned out I had enough after all). We walked along a beach that fronted some luxury condos (although the beach was empty and needed some trash removal), then walked back towards the car along the main street and stopped for ice cream. So it wasn't a place you'd base your vacation around, but it was the only other real town we saw besides the relatively "big city" of Bridgetown.



Driving along the coast it was hard to get lost, and the guide books all promise that if you drive, eventually you'll get lost, so the only thing to do was turn inland and head for the east coast. We found our way right to the Farley Hill National Park, just across the street from the Wildlife Preserve we'd been to on the Saturday tour. The park isn't large but it encompasses a large hill with plenty of trees and a gazebo at the top where you can look out over the eastern coast. Also on the grounds is the ruin of a 1930's plantation house that was gutted by fire and all that is left is the stone walls and foundations, and it has been in that state for so long that tons of vegetation is growing in it, including along the tops of the walls themselves. It's sort of typical of Barbados that one of it's primary attractions, and one that is the centerpiece of an area they felt worth preserving, is a bombed-out building, but while it's not Stonehenge there is a certain visual presence in its disintegrating edifices.



Back in the car, the little mini Moke wheezed its way up one side of the mountain and down the other to the "rugged eastern shore" (as all the guide books call it), which we had seen on the tour but hadn't gotten to walk around. Walked along the beach there, north of Bathsheba, for quite a while, Beth doing what she does on any beach anywhere and picking up lots of crap disgorged by the ocean to bring home.



By the time we were ready to leave there the sun was going down and it was time to head back to home base. We discovered as we drove west in the late afternoon that not only did the car have no doors, it had no sun visors either, so Beth did a lot of squinting and hoping for the best until we were headed south again, getting caught up in rush hour traffic as everyone headed away from Bridgetown. The sun was setting and we weren't on the beach, so we hightailed it to the hotel and got there to see the tail end of the sunset one last time, and by now there was a full moon in the other direction.



Pretty well pooped and covered in sand, we washed up and decided to bring all our dining documentation with us to the bar poolside for a drink and figure out where to go for dinner. We still had the car, after all, so we could drive to any restaurant we chose. But after sitting there for awhile, we decided we'd just as soon stay put, so we had dinner at the hotel restaurant adjacent to the bar, which didn't seem to be a real restaurant and had just a few specials on the menu, but it was fine for our purposes and the food was good.



Back in the room, we packed up our stuff as we had to get up bright and early for the cab that was coming at 5:15 am for our 7:30 flight. I don't know why they insisted on coming that early, since we were at the airport by 6:00 and checked in and at the terminal within 20 minutes. It gave me the opportunity to stand in line to cash in my leftover Barbados paper money, but otherwise there wasn't much to do at the airport. We got a big plane this time and stopped over in Miami, where we had a couple of hours to kill after going through immigration and customs, but it was just as well as the connecting gate was like a mile away. Beth was prepared this time for the metal detectors, so no problems there. It rained much of the time we were on the ground in Miami, so we didn't bother to go outside, and the flight to Boston was a little late leaving, but we were still back in Logan by 5:30 and home by 7:30 or so. The kids were relieved to see us (we picked them up at the school as Julie had Myra's kids too and had taken them all to a Cub Scout meeting), we grabbed a pizza to bring home, and that was all she wrote.



If we were to go back to the Caribbean I think I'd try a different island just to have something to contrast with Barbados, nothing too rustic, but not too touristy either. But our next island trip is already in the planning stages, as we're heading to the UK next August for the Worldcon in Glasgow. I know that doesn't really count, but we'll make do.