Trini Doubles

This is one of my acquaintances here on the island.  I don't even know her name.  But, I do appreciate her.  She is almost always standing at this umbrella stand off of the Coast Road and Rendezvous Rd.  I appreciate her because she treats me as someone other than an "expat".  Like today, driving back home around 10:00, I decided that I wanted one of those trini doubles - and stopped.  She immediately started talking with me saying that she hadn't seen me in a while.  How was I doing?  I like that.  She most always has a smile on her face, too  - as you can see.

So, trini doubles are the ultimate street food!  The food originates from Trinidad.  After you have had one, it is hard not to want one daily.  I guess trini doubles down here is similar to a hot dog stand in New York.  Their very cheap and usually served warm and they are very filling.  Today, I paid 3.50 Barbados dollars for this treat.  Which is equivalent to 1.75 USD.  It is made of this wonderful bread called a bara.  She puts two baras together to form the "sandwich" and then the filling is with curried chick peas.  There are some delicious toppings that can be added to this - like a cucumber relish and a Bajan hot pepper sauce.  Just writing this makes me want to go get another one.  (giggle)

I ask this girl if I could take her picture - and she immediately said yes.  I like it when people don't mind their picture being taken.  These days more and more people don't want their picture being taken - they don't want it ending up on facebook.  I don't really understand this.  It is very frustrating for me at times, because I want to put this stuff in my blog and I know that words are good to read, but let's face it - pictures speak a thousand words.

I remember 2 years ago, when Gary and I visited St. Lucia for a weekend trip - that I was taking pictures soon after we disembarked from the airplane and we were driving in a cab up to our resort.  This man yelled at me from the roadside that I needed to pay him for just taking his picture.  It really spooked me.  Now, here in Barbados - I don't dare take someone's picture without asking their permission first.  I know I'm not perfect, so I guess I need to understand these people and have patience with them.  There are probably many reasons why they don't want their picture taken - and I need to be understanding of this all.  It is kind of like these people that have blanks on their facebook profile pictures - why?  Don't they walk out daily into this public world - where people see them face to face?  What is so different then about posting your picture on facebook - it is the "new age" way of friending people.  More so, than a telephone call or a mailed letter.

Falcon!

Isn't he a beauty?  Look at those big talons!  No guessing what he uses them for.  We have seen he and his mate perched high in a casuarina tree for several days now.  Luckily, I remembered to take my telephoto lens on the camera this morning.  They are a type of falcon called Merlin.  Here is a more up close and personal picture of him.

Cruise Ships

It is nice watching the cruise ships come into port each morning.  Especially when the sun is shining right on them.  I found out last year that these cruise ships time their arrivals into these ports to arrive around 8:00 am.  That way, the passengers are awake and looking at the approaching island with great glee and anticipation for what this new day on this new island will bring.  The captains of these ships could easily have the ship already docked long before it's passengers have awakened in most instances.  But, there is something about watching as the ship approaches an island and also as the ship departs from an island.

Sea Biscuits and Lionfish

I have been told that this is a sea biscuit.  We found this sea biscuit this morning along the shore.  This doesn't happen that often.  I haven't seen one in a while - and this morning, I found two!  I have learned that when you see one of a certain type of sea shell - you will probably see more.

I had heard on the TV news last year that there was a disturbing trend in the increasing population of lionfish, which have venomous spines.  One of our friends had the misfortune this last weekend of coming in contact with one of them - not far from the shoreline on the west coast of Barbados!  He first thought that he had just gotten a jellyfish sting, but the pain did not go away - and he eventually had to be admitted to the hospital with a morphine drip!  WOW!  So, be careful my friends when playing in the ocean.  I have come to learn that after there has been a storm and the sea is rough - it is better to stay away for a few days.

The Hats of Sandy Lane Gold Cup

I had an extremely good time this last Saturday at what is known around here as the "Sandy Lane Gold Cup."  Sandy Lane is this really nice, 5 star hotel that sits on the west coast of the island.  (It is where Tiger Woods was married.)  So, the first two years of living here on the island - if I heard anyone talk about the Sandy Lane Gold Cup - I had differing ideas of what this was all about.  Usually entailing rich people and the west coast.  But, I didn't realize until it was too late last year - that this was actually a horse race.  And that it is raced at the Garrison which is right by where I live on the South Coast.

I went along with 6 other people to this race - and had a great time. Definitely going to be one of my top memories (other than Queen's Park on Christmas Day).  We decided to sit in the stands for this event - so that we could see the horses as they crossed the finish line.  So glad we made this decision - it was ecstatic/electrifying as those horses raced towards the finish line each time.  There were 10 races in total.  The 9th race was the "biggie" - the Sandy Lane Gold Cup!  Each race was rather short in time and then there would be about a 30 minute wait between that race and the next one.  (So that anyone that wanted to bet on the next race - had time to get their bet placed.)

But, it was just so much fun watching the people in between the races, that the time passed very quickly.  I got carried away with looking at the hats that everyone wore.

I like the ribbon and how it was tied into such a nice, elegent, long bow.

                    

Hey, the jockeys had to wear a hat, too.....

Nice strong hat with a very nice, stylish ribbon - on a guy by the way....

Nice hat...

I bet this guy likes Bob Marley...

Here you go.......

Back in Mississippi, my uncle wore one like this to fish in....

This is one of my friends - he wanted to get in on the picture taking by putting on his wife's hat...

Wait, what is this - flowers tucked into the hat?  Nice...

 Now, this guy was the announcer - I think he wins the prize!

Love the ribbon.  I want one of those hats....

Hum, I wonder where this one came from?

Even the little ones had their bonnets on...

Ok, this guy is totally deciding on who to bet on in the next race.  If his horse doesn't win, his hat would.

Pretty good...

This is fantastic - love the white ribbon around the white hat.

Very nice.

Hey bandannas can count, too.

Ok, this young lad just couldn't get it straight.

Love it...

Now how many people do you know have a pair of sunglasses to match their hat?

Love, love it.

Hat matches the shirt - cool!

Totally awesome.

Love the purple accessory.

Man, I didn't realize a hat could come in so many different colors/stripes.

Love them both - I've always wanted to wear a red hat.

You have to look closely here - but this is actually a very cool hat with the gorgeous accessories attached to the side.

Hat?  Who needs a hat when you have all these cute berets?

He was actually walking on stilts - and wearing that hat at the same time!

Barbados colors - blue and yellow - for the sun and sea.

Who says you have to wear the hat actually on the head?  Why not about a foot back of your head?

Nice...

Seriously?

I wish I could have gotten a better shot of this hat - very eloquent! 

Hike of Barbados - Barclays Park - December 25th, 2012

This is a picture of me and my daughter, Alisha, at the beginning of the hike.  Notice that we are smiling and all relaxed looking.  This picture was taken at Barclays Park which is on the eastern coastline of Barbados.  At Barclays Park, you have the Atlantic ocean on one side and mountains on the other.  So, when the Hike of Barbados group publishes that the hike will take place at Barclays Park, you can pretty much bet on the fact that there will be some mountains to climb - otherwise, it would be a swim meet.  :)


OK, folks - this was Christmas Day!  My children had just arrived on Christmas Eve, on the evening flight.  As a mother, I was so excited to have my children with me.  The last thing on my mind on Christmas Day would be a hike - especially one on the northern east coast!  But, Alisha had heard me talking so many times about my past hikes that she wanted badly to do one herself - and since she was only going to stay with us for one week, it had to be the one on Christmas Day (sigh).  I really wanted to do it because of her - I wanted her to experience things that I have experienced here on this beautiful island.

So, after we had gone to the early Christmas Day church service and opened our Christmas presents and I had gotten the turkey stuffed and in the oven....we hurriedly packed our backpacks and put on our hiking gear and headed off for the eastern side of the island.  Now, although Barbados is a small island of about 166,000 square miles, it still takes a good while to drive from one side to the other.  The hike was to start promptly at 3pm - so, we left the condo around 2pm to ensure that we didn't miss the hike (I have done that before, by the way - missing a hike, they are very prompt with their start times on these hikes - which I find amusing in that in a lot of other areas of living on the island they are notoriously late).

Picture looking on one side:

And the other:

Yes, I am apprehensive looking at this mountain we are in no doubt about to climb - but, I wanted Alisha to see that her mother was in shape and I wanted her to be proud of me - so, I wasn't about to let her see my fears.  So, George - the leader of most of these hikes starts us out along this journey.  I have a great video of his first talk about this area of the island - but, I tried to download it into the blog yesterday and it just wouldn't download.  Maybe I can post it on You Tube later.  George is a great narrator.  He loves his country and it shows with his talks.  He is very proud of the Barbados heritage and all that went into his country becoming free.  I really admire George a lot and enjoy listening to his talks.  Here is a picture of the first incline that we started up.  Notice the guy leaning over trying to catch his breath?

So, already not 30 minutes into the hike - I am like this guy here - having to stop and catch my breath.  But, there is Alisha ahead of me - young and energetic - I just kept climbing - I could do this.  One really nice thing about having Alisha along for the hike, is that she would constantly turn around and make sure I was ok.  She would help me up many times along this hike.  She was such a pleasure to be with.  If you can't tell - I really love my daughter.  So, here is an example of how much nicer it is to have a partner on these hikes:

You know, someone that will lend that hand to help you on up.  Do you see in this picture how far we had already climbed in just 30 minutes?  It was a brutal hike, I'm telling you.  Ok, so we come to a landing and everyone gets to catch their breath and get a swig of water and if you have any energy left - take some pictures.  What I have found is that I really would like more time in these little breath catcher sessions, but George is relentless and all too often says "On With The Hike" way too soon.

Some pictures taken at the first stopping point:

Yeah, I know - my face was flushed but I was really trying to appear like I had my act together and not that I was about to collapse.  :)  Of course, Alisha was loving it.  She said, "Oh Mom, thank you so much - this is just what I wanted to do.  This is awesome."  ;0

I had really hoped at this point in the hike, that most all of the climbing would be over.  I mean, look at the pictures - we are already pretty high above the sea level.  And after all, it was Christmas Day and George had told us that he would cut the hike shorter today because they were wanting to have a lime afterwards.  Now for any of you reading this - that have never heard of "liming" - well, it is the Bajan way of saying having a party - food, fun, dancing, music, and drinks.

Oh, horror of horrors, we started up another incline!  This incline was so bad, that it really was more of a mountain climb than a hike.  I was having to pull myself up and pick places to position my feet kind of routine.  And there were tall blades of grass that we went through - I kept offering my shirt to Alisha but she said she would not put it on if I took it off - I believed her but felt bad that her arms were getting torn up with the branches, limbs, thorns that were rubbing against her.  At this point, I was thinking - "Lord, please just let me get to the top of this, please protect us and keep Alisha from getting hurt."  Alisha turned back around to me after this portion of the climb - with the most exhilerating expression on her face - she did not get this from me!  LOL

I was really hoping that because everyone was slowing down ahead of us, that it wouldn't be really bad - but, I was so wrong.  When we finally reached the top of the latest climb, there was no plateau - the other side looked a lot worse than the one we had just climbed  up!  It looked really bad.  I mean, there wasn't even much grass to hold on to, just a lot of slate looking stuff and small, loose rocks, AND a ledge not too far away that had a very significant drop under it.  I was petrified!  Alisha went ahead of me and she made it fine, but I was not too sure of how I would make out.  There was no way, that I could stand up and try to get down, there wasn't much of anything to hold on to.... I got down on my bottom and slid down the rocky area and just hoped and prayed that I would stop and not go over the ledge!  Now would be a good place to stop and tell anyone who is reading this - that there are some really good people that live in Barbados!  There were many times when a helping hand was extended to me along this journey.  And it was never more appreciated to be received than by me!  Several gentlemen positioned themselves along this treacherous landscape to help out.

Well, after this - it was all downhill from there.  George got a little lost at this point and we finally just followed the river bed to get back down to the bottom and the road.  This was also quite interesting - walking through the stream, jumping over logs and rocks, bending way down to get under tree limbs, just hoping that I didn't encounter one of those centipedes I keep hearing the Bajans talk about.  Trying to watch the person in front of you as well - so that when they let go of a limb, you wouldn't get hit in the face with it.  But, we made it.

One of the things that I look forward to at the end of these hikes is the fresh juice!  There is a  guy who brings homemade juices from the fruits of the island!  Oh my, they are to die for!  Alisha couldn't believe how great they tasted - we tried five fingers, golden apple, and black cherry - outstanding!

Also, we stayed around for the lime.  The group gave George a cell phone for a Christmas present and I tasted probably the best lemon-aid I have ever had.  Lorna, if you ever read this blog - I would really love that recipe!

I hope to post many more blog entries on the other hikes, and please don't get me wrong with this first post - I love these hikes - not all of them are mountainous regions and there is so much to see and stories to hear from George that makes it all worthwhile.