Barbados – Visiting the Caribbean

Finally I managed to visit the 3rd continent and be a pirate for a bit, drink rum all day and enjoy the sunshine at the Caribbean.

I was planning this trip since last July, and I managed to get 2 travel buddies. As we went for 10 days, we booked two different accommodation. The first was next to Crane beach – we spent 4 days here, than we moved to the east coast, to Conset bay – where we spent the remaining 6 days.

If you would like to relax, far away from everything, Conset bay is the perfect choice. If you would like to have people around you and nightlife, than better to book accommodation on the west coast.

Barbados is not much bigger than Malta, and I saw some similarity about their driving habitats. I felt like home 🙂 All the cars are shaded and you can’t really see a very new, modern car, unfortunately. They only have a couple of electric cars. They really need to improve a bit on saving the environment. In the supermarket they packed everything in 2 plastic bags, as it’s stronger like that. I wanted to cry. I think we were the only customers taking the shopping bags back when we went shopping. Unfortunately you can see this many plastic bags not just in the shops, but everywhere else. On the fields, streets and in the sea. I think this is the only dark side, which I can mention, but I need to mention it.

They have their own currency, Barbados dollar, but most of the places accept US dollar too – 1 USD = 2 Barbados Dollar.

What to do

First and most important: Drink rum!

No, it’s not a joke. You can’t skip this must do in Barbados. We visited Mount Gay rum factory in Bridgetown. The tour was $20, included a welcome rum punch and 5 different rum tasting. Well at 11 am in the morning it might was a bit lot, but well: it’s never too early to drink rum as they say.

Visit the Harrington Cave

The whole island is a coral reef and in the middle of the island there is a stalactite cave. You can book different tours, we choose the tram tour. It was really nice, but be prepared, it’s not cold in the cave at all. It’s around 24 °C, but better to take a small raincoat or something to cover yourself as there is water dripping from the ceiling.

They showed us how dark is in the cave, turn off all the lights and told us not to use our phones for a half minute. It was really scary, as you could not even see your nose!

Go swim with the turtles – Catamaran tour

I still need to improve my snorkeling skills. Well at the moment this skill is 0, but maybe one day I will be brave enough to check what is going around in the sea. At this moment is better if I don’t know and just chill in the water.

We booked a 5 hours tour with “Wasn’t me” – http://www.barbadossailing.com/. I highly recommend this company, the captain and the staff were very nice and friendly and the lunch was amazing.

The tour included the pick up and drop off -from the place we booked- a 30 mins snorkeling with turtles, a 20 mins snorkeling at a wreck ship and lunch. If you are lucky, you can also see stingrays. As I said for me it was better not to see any rays, as I would never go back to the sea. 😀 I think I am a land mermaid. 😀

Visit the Animal Flower Cave

The cave is located in the north area, where the Caribbean sea and Atlantic ocean meet. It is full with small water flowers, which disappears if you touch them.

Also prepare your swimming dress and towel, as there is a natural pool in the cave where you can swim.

Note: the water is really cold and refreshing.

Where to eat

Oistins – Fish market

This place is a must. If you would like to avoid the crowd, go on a weekday, but if you would like to see the Caribbean party at the fish market, visit on a Friday. It opens from 6 pm, where you can have fresh grilled fish, prawn, octopus etc. We visited the place twice and we really recommend this place. It has its own vibe.

Bay Tavern

We got some recommendation from a local friend. Never skip a restaurant, which was recommended by a local. Also if you visit Bay Tavern, don’t go there hungry, as we were in the queue for an hour and it was not even weekend, just a normal Thursday.

I have to say, it totally worth to wait that long. I had a grilled marlin fish with some breadfruit and potato.

Oh and be prepared, bajan food is always spicy – which I really liked btw.

Note: If you see that the catch of the day is dolphin, don’t freak out – as I did- because they call the mahi mahi fish dolphin.

Sunbath on the beach

I will write another post just with the beaches of Barbados with lots of pictures. But obviously, this is a must.

Watching the wild animals

There is a couple of animals, which I have never seen in the wild yet. The first day I saw a hummingbird, and I was not even sure I could see a hummingbird in Barbados. But no worries, you can, and I saw one nearly every day. They are quite common, but they are really small, very fast and cute.

The second is the monkeys. They are not really friendly, but we saw a lot crossing the road in front of us. There is a couple of gardens where you can go when they feed them, so you can make sure you won’t miss them. We missed the feeding, but we saw them coming back with the food and sit on the trees.

There are also mongooses, but we only saw them crossing the road, so I can’t really tell where to go to see one.

There is 14 different kind of sharks, but we haven’t seen any of them. Also you can see a hundred other kinds of birds all around.

Two more animals I would like to mention. One is the firefly. I have never seen one. We were watching TV when I saw a strange flashing lights. It took me a while to realize it’s not a car coming, but there is a firefly in the apartment. After we realize there are a lot around the house after sunset. It was really nice to see them flashing all around.

The other animal is the whistling tree frog. Yes, they are whistling. Whistling all the night. This means from 6:30 pm (after the sun goes down) till 5:30 am in the morning. As our second apartment didn’t have a glass or net on the window, I was quite worried one will visit me during the night. Luckily I only had a gecko as a regular visitor… It was more than enough.

Visit the market in Bridgetown

Bridgetown is not the biggest capital in the world, not much bigger than Valletta I guess. One of us went for a submarine tour, in the meantime  2 of us went to town. We found a market and traveled back in time a bit. They were selling home written CD-s – I guess reggae 😀 – gold fish in a bag etc.

All together Barbados is a really nice place to relax and I am happy that we spend 10 days and not just a week there. Also it was a good decision to celebrate my birthday there. 🙂

I will post the beaches part soon, in the meantime if you would like to see more pictures, please visit my Instagram page: evi_4

Also I would like to say thanks to the travel buddies for the photos. 🙂