Around the hotel

The hotel is providing adequate food – the pineapple and bananas are particularly good, as you might expect. The omelettes made to order in the morning are excellent and Diva loved her ‘well done’ one.  A lot of the food is deep fried or battered or both. A sandwich with cheese, bacon, chicken, ketchup and fries was labelled ‘healthy option’!!

The first full day was an unusual one of heavy rain. Half the car park flooded and the approach road was deep in water.  But with that out of the way, the climate is very pleasant. Low 30s, with a breeze and some cloud seems constant day and night. The balcony is always in the shade, which makes it very pleasant. The view from the balcony is of Bridgetown and the cruise ships, which look impressive after dark at about 18:00. In the early mornings, a troop (??) of black horses is taken for a swim and only the heads can be seen for a while.

During the Little England tour, TSH and Diva saw many remnants of the sugar industry, which is now in decline. These included a windmill dating from the seventeenth century.

The driver on the Little England tour said that major hurricanes are rare here and the last one was in the 1950s. So why does the room have a document describing a four-phase hurricane alert system? At one level, guests are required to pack and then seal their suitcases in plastic bags, before proceeding to the hurricane shelter.

Bridegtown was disappointing – TSH and Diva were hoping to spend the day there. But there is really only one street, with a few international designer names and not really much else. There are a few interesting and horrifying plaques marking the place where the African people were disembarked and placed into cages. Names ‘Cave’ and ‘Shepherd’ on some shops reminded TSH and Diva of two of the names they heard yesterday at the plantation. So maybe the same old families still own a lot of the island.

Around the hotel

The hotel is providing adequate food – the pineapple and bananas are particularly good, as you might expect. The omelettes made to order in the morning are excellent and Diva loved her ‘well done’ one.  A lot of the food is deep fried or battered or both. A sandwich with cheese, bacon, chicken, ketchup and fries was labelled ‘healthy option’!!

The first full day was an unusual one of heavy rain. Half the car park flooded and the approach road was deep in water.  But with that out of the way, the climate is very pleasant. Low 30s, with a breeze and some cloud seems constant day and night. The balcony is always in the shade, which makes it very pleasant. The view from the balcony is of Bridgetown and the cruise ships, which look impressive after dark at about 18:00. In the early mornings, a troop (??) of black horses is taken for a swim and only the heads can be seen for a while.

During the Little England tour, TSH and Diva saw many remnants of the sugar industry, which is now in decline. These included a windmill dating from the seventeenth century.

The driver on the Little England tour said that major hurricanes are rare here and the last one was in the 1950s. So why does the room have a document describing a four-phase hurricane alert system? At one level, guests are required to pack and then seal their suitcases in plastic bags, before proceeding to the hurricane shelter.

Bridegtown was disappointing – TSH and Diva were hoping to spend the day there. But there is really only one street, with a few international designer names and not really much else. There are a few interesting and horrifying plaques marking the place where the African people were disembarked and placed into cages. Names ‘Cave’ and ‘Shepherd’ on some shops reminded TSH and Diva of two of the names they heard yesterday at the plantation. So maybe the same old families still own a lot of the island.

Little England

Pasta night at the Barbados Hilton is a little bizarre. The pasta dish is designed and cooked to order. The guest chooses ingredients (fish, chicken, onions, prawns, beef, a variety of vegetables) and the chef puts them all into a pan in the manner of a stir-fry. Ready cooked pasta, chosen from three varieties, is then added to the mix, with a choice of cream or tomato sauce. Because this takes a long time, and the queue is building, the assortment is not fully hot by the time it is turned out on to the plate. Diva was not very impressed.

The Little England tour seemed to be the best leaving on Sunday morning and it turned out to be an excellent choice. Only four passengers in a minibus with an informative local guide. The tour covered a large part of the island, including the coral Caribbean side and the shale, sand and clay Atlantic side. There are sugar plantations, sweet potatoes and a field of pigeon peas. Northern English readers might remember that back in the 1950s when there were travelling fairs, everyone used to eat black peas. No-one from anywhere else has ever heard of them (they are fairly disgusting, by the way). Well, black peas are reputed to be pigeon peas and Diva has seen them growing!!

Highlights included Hunte’s garden, dense tropical undergrowth in a collapsed cave. Very beautiful but a bit of a nightmare for Diva when the owner described the pack of Rottweilers and rescue c*ts he keeps on the premises. Mr Hunte’s family owned several plantations and now, at the age of 78, he spends his time developing this one as a garden.  Bathsheba is so called because the sea has so many white horses it is like the milk she used to bathe in. At St Nicholas Abbey, TSH and Diva watched a fascinating 1935 film about the plantations and tasted rum punch and rum. Passed the golf club where Simon Cowell used to stay before we bought him a Barbados home of his own.

The charming guide had a notice in the vehicle suggesting he was carrying a Glock pistol, so perhaps Diva’s fears about the crime rate are reasonable.

Animals spotted include several mongoose, large millipedes, large snail and lizards. Black bellied sheep were bred in Africa and carry no wool. Traditional British sheep die of heat exhaustion. The early indefinite sighting has now been put down as a monkey. Another monkey was seen today but it was captive and posing for pics so probably does not count.

Hotel

The Barbados Hilton is competent and comfortable but a bit 1970s soulless. Massive public spaces, which are a bit empty because the season has not got going yet. Weather very wet.

Birds spotted: Humming bird, sparrow, something with a yellow front.

Animals spotted: TSH saw a tail which might have been a monkey or mongoose. No polar bears, penguins or tigers yet.