the night before the morning after

It's crunch time. Tomorrow I'm due to fly back to good ol' Amsterdam and leave the Caribbean behind. So tonight is my last evening on the island...

Earlier on, I drove over to Bath, and then inland slightly to a local rum shop/pool bar called Sea Breeze. There was a young guy (about 14, I guess) waiting for someone to come in and play pool, so I was his salvation. Shawn (as I discovered his name to be) lives locally and is deaf, and incredibly hyperactive, but also rather a good pool player. So we left the sparse congregation in the bar to watch a movie (with astonishingly cinematic sound) while we outdid each other playing ridiculously ambitious shots on the pool table. Actually I ended up winning every game, but was 'coached' a great deal by Shawn throughout, who was only marginally less interested in my shots than his own, and was itching to advise me on shot selection for every play.

Just got back to the apartment at Bathsheba (it's 10:30pm) and looking forward to a morning of packing, clearing out and then finally heading to the airport. Unless of course I 'accidentally' miss my flight. Watch this space.

harrrisonssappho

harrrisonssappho
Originally uploaded by soki.

Sappho in Harrison's cave, deep in the bowels of Barbados

lindsayart

lindsayart
Originally uploaded by soki.

Art on the walls of the Dover beach apartment - all original designs by Lindsay, the other Caribbean queen ;-)

skc_southapt

skc_southapt
Originally uploaded by soki.

Me having just woken up, sitting in the apartment on Dover beach, South coast

bathsheba_trees1

bathsheba_trees1
Originally uploaded by soki.

view back from the beach at south end of soupbowl, bathsheba

beach_collage

beach_collage
Originally uploaded by soki.

sea egg shells, a sea coconut, little crab, shells, etc. on driftwood, on rock, on bathsheba beach

bathsheba_sky

bathsheba_sky
Originally uploaded by soki.

a calm day at Bathsheba

seau_balcony

seau_balcony
Originally uploaded by soki.

From the first week: my balcony with hammock at Sea-U! guest house, Tent Bay

frogjewels

frogjewels
Originally uploaded by soki.

found this poor dead little tree frog and shot it with bracelet and earrings

harrisonscave

harrisonscave
Originally uploaded by soki.

stalagmites and stalagtites in Harrison's cave

the sun strikes back, but the comeback is short-lived

Yes, yes, yes! Finally a day that dawned without that ominous pattering sound on the roof. I spent the morning back over on the South coast on Miami beach (or Enterprise beach, if you're local) which is notable for its lack of beachbums and beachchair vendors. Out to sea from this beach is a line of buoys and oildrums which make a perfect swimming course, and the sea today being calm and current-free, I struck out to see if I could swim to the Grendadines (teehee). If it weren't for the lifeguards spending almost the entire morning trying to fix a mash-up waverunner (noisily), it would have been a perfect scene of tranquility... ah well, you can't have it all.

So then it was back to Bathsheba for a lunch of banana, cheese cutter with peppersauce, cassava pone washed down with a bottle of Banks, just before the resurgence of the rain. Joe's river literally flooded the sea with mud just up from the Soupbowl - rather an impressive sight with a delta of mud separated distinctly from the clear blue beside and beyond.

Blogging may be rather infrequent over the coming days, as I'm likely to be doing lots of nothing and much of the same, so unless my brain decides to ferment some astonishing wisdom due to lack of physical activity, I think I'll refrain from publicising my continued laziness.

On that note, so much not looking forward to coming back to the dry, cold, dusty air of Europe. Sorry all, but the new plan is to metamorphose into a fish and hide out at the Folkstone marine reserve here and get fat off the reef pickings... gulp!

sappho leaving and flood warning

I have a complaint to make. I have discovered why Sappho walks so quickly. Evidently the girl has a peculiar ability to speed up time, which means she has to walk at a near run to make sure she keeps up with her own time-manipulation sickness. Although the evidence would suggest that Sappho has been here for two weeks, I can reveal that the actual real time has been only around 10 days, or a week in Bajan time. Bummer. And although I'm sad to see her go, I'm looking forward to another two weeks' worth of vacation in the six days that I have left here, as I have changed my plans and am heading back East instead of West, and will be slowing right down to Bathsheba pace. Nice.

Having said all that, the weather forecast for the foreseeable future is still rain all the way. It's so bad that a flood warning was issued at around 5pm yesterday, to remain in effect until 8pm tonight, or longer if the rain continues. And it shows every sign of being here to stay.

Yesterday we celebrated Sappho's last full day on the island by going sailing with Brian Parravicino again on Sinbad. After 20 minutes of humid haze and the lightest imaginable breeze, we spent the rest of the day in torrents of liquid sunshine and with the motor on. Quite possibly the worst day 'sailing' I've ever had. Swimming in the rain and seeing yet more turtles and huge friendly fish still made the trip worthwhile, and Brian's cooking was as delectable as ever. Shame about the 11 others on board who started drinking gin, rum, vodka and everything else they could lay their hands on from about 10.30am, and making not-so-intelligent observations about the rain, etc., and then repeating the same platitudes and subtle-as-a-brick innuendoes as often as possible on the offchance that some poor bugger aboard had escaped hearing the first, second or third time around... well, they were from Wales, so maybe that's an excuse.

We left the jolly sailors on board and got a ride to shore from the Fox (Brian's crew) at around 3:30pm, just in time to catch another liberal dousing and to do a bit of shopping in the West coast mall opposite Surfside beach bar in Holetown, grab a coffee and hang out for a bit waiting for the rain to ease up. All of this faffing about saw us finally setting off for home around 4:30.... perfect timing to catch not part but all of the daily rush hour (exacerbated by the rain) and enjoying a particularly pleasant 90 minutes travelling about 100 metres in the Cheapside market area of Bridgetown. Oh joy.

Today will be filled with packing, trips to the airport and a move over to the East coast for me, where I hope to ignore the rain and finally accept the many offers of surfing lessons from the dudes down at the Soupbowl, as wet will be the only way to be, so I might as well get wetter.

Fly safe, Sappho, and thanks for all the fish (and turtles).

rain, rain, rain and more rain

Guess what? It's raining... and raining... and raining. Anyone interested in checking out the 5 day weather forecast on Yahoo or similar will see that the next few days promise a delightful medley of showers, thunderstorms, 'thundershowers' (sic) and more showers. So if we come home without the trace of a tan, it's not because we've been hanging around in bars the whole time, honest guv.

Faced with the not-so-dazzling start to the day, we reacted in typically opposing style - Sappho heading out to the mall and me making a beeline for the beach. I just love swimming in the rain! Down on the South coast, the surf is usually small to medium, but because the weather's stormy the waves were big, boisterous and booming, perfect for diving through and resurfacing into the pelting freshwater from above (Bajans like to call it liquid sunshine). On what is usually a busy South coast beach, I had the sea to myself - no swimmers, no soakers, no jet skis... even the beach bums were sheltrin' (another word for limin' when it's raining outside and you're under cover.. Bajan dialect has about 50 distinct words to describe the delicate art of doing nothing, but limin' is the most common catchall) back up the beach under the trees.

Other nice bits of dialect that have been coming back to me as my ears become reaccustomed: win'in' (or winding) which is the circular motion of the hips when moved separately from the rest of the body, used a great deal in soca and calypso dancing... if the dance is between a couple, then win'in' is often accompanied by grin'in' (no translation necessary). The usual soca custom is for the woman to stand in front of the guy, back towards him, and to gyrate her ample behind into his groin. Calypso (for the traditionalists) tends to favour the face-to-face approach, but the technique is pretty much the same. Dancing like this (alone or with a partner) is also often described as walkin' up, so when I tell you that Sappho and I will be heading over to Harbour Lights (popular nightclub on the beach near Bridgetown) for a walk-up this evening, you'll know what I mean ;-).

The best time to start the evening here is around midnight - things don't really pick up until then. We'll be heading out for an early dinner with my friend, Lindsay, who owns the apartment we're renting at the moment, at a local rum shop. None of yer fancy restaurants - this is the real Bajan deal, where the menu will offer a choice of fried chicken and some more fried chicken (maybe some fish if we're extra lucky). The alternative would have been to go to Oistins, the main town in the middle of the South coast, which has a fish fry every Friday night with the day's freshly caught haul. The only catch (no pun intended) with Oistins open-air fish fry is the rain, and the thousands of people who go to what is little bigger than a fishing village, making parking a sort of extreme sport... so I'm wimping out of that one - maybe next week.

As the rain's been falling, it's hit me that I only have 10 days left on the island. Time flies when you're limin' it up...

stream of consciousness

isn't it amazing how when on holiday even updating a blog can become a major task? last few days filled with beach, sun, tropical rain, sappho as mosquito-food, sokisappho as local pool-hustling combo, the reggae lounge in st lawrence gap, and the multiple rasta conversations... here's an example:

ras - "hello darlings... "
s or s - "hi"
ras - "where you beautiful ladies from?"
s or s - "amsterdam, the netherlands"
ras - "(giggles) oooh, so you smoke then... i got some great weed"
s or s - "thanks, but not really interested"
ras - "you can be my frien' while you're here in barbados"
s or s - "(laughter) we seem to be getting many offers of friendship"
ras - "are you single"
s or s - "yes" or "no"
ras - "be my girlfren' and i'll love you so sweet"
etc. etc. etc.

escaping the crazy south today to go up and inland to harrison's cave... if one of us is impressed enough, we might just get back online and tell you all about it.

At last, an update

I'm now ensconced in the apartment on the South coast where I'll be staying for the next two and a half weeks. Thanks to Sappho, we have a dial-up connection here, so blogging should be a little more frequent from now on... unless of course the beach and partying become more important...

Lots has happened in the last few days. I spent quite a lot of time at Bathsheba reading on the beach, or swinging in the hammock on my veranda, scribbling notes. I had made a habit of walking quickly past the gang of surfers on Bathsheba beach, muttering a quick 'Hi' in response to their daily greetings and swiftly moving down the beach. But eventually I was accosted by one of the guys who accused me of being antisocial, and I discovered that most of the guys were actually lifeguards... I had assumed they were just hanging out. So I got chatting to the manager of the Barbados lifeguards, who failed to persuade me to learn how to surf, but found out I was keen on swimming. The following day I was taken around the West coast, where he had to check on several different lifeguard posts and deliver paperwork, and at each beach we got out and swam a sort of race with one of the lifeguards on duty. I ended up swimming about 3 miles in total, getting back to Bathsheba around 4pm completely exhausted and sunburnt, but having acquired the new nickname of 'Olympic swimmer'!

On Wednesday evening last week I went back to the Roundhouse and met a Belgian jazz performer who's been living here for 10 years with his Bajan wife, and is building a house on the South coast. We spoke a little Dutch, but his was very rusty because he's been over here for so long.

Thursday and Friday evenings I went to some local events which make up part of the 'Calypso Cavalcade'. This is a nationwide calypso competition, with bands competing over the course of about 6 weeks for the top spot. The competition travels around the country, going to each parish in turn, and the events are always on a local playing field. There are tents with food, drink and music to buy, and tons of local people, but no tourists! I have to say the most amusing part of each evening was the Karaoke competition, where members of the audience were hauled up on stage to murder the newest Calypso hits. One of the most popular songs from St Joseph has a repeated lyric of "I can't fin' me brother", but the Karaoke victim trying to sing it couldn't see the words on the TV screen, so the MC decided to change the lyric to "I can't fin' me glasses"... I guess you had to be there...

Since Saturday, I've had a really nasty throat infection which has kept me out of action. I went to the doctor's this morning and got some antibiotics and powerful painkillers which are thankfully just kicking in. Hopefully the worst is now over and I'll soon be out and about again and able to post some more news.