Aug 8 All Day Tour

A tree grows in Welchman Hall Gully.

Wednesday, August 8, 2018: There are, according to Eldridge, our Coconut Tours tour guide/bus driver (historically Moitt's favorite), just four formal towns in Barbados--Speightstown (in St. Peter's Parish), Holetown (the oldest, in St. James' Parish), Bridgetown (the capital, in St. Michael's Parish), and Oistentown (Christ Church Parish). All the rest are villages? 

Of the 11 parishes, one is named for a woman (St. Lucy), one for a church (Christ Church) and the other 9 for men (Saints Andrew, George, James, John, Joseph, Michael, Peter, Phillip, and Thomas) OR you could say 10 are saints and one is a church... however your memory likes it! Two of the parishes are landlocked--have no beaches: St. Thomas and St. George. I'll be visiting St. George's Parish on Monday afternoon and the ancestral Walker Plantation.

Our tour itinerary: 

1. Welchman Hall Gully, a public park and nature reserve. Among other very wonderful plants there was a nutmeg grove. We scavenged for nutmeg nuts. Green monkeys and wild fowl. Palms, caves, bamboo, moss. A view from the overlook. Screaming hogs overheard down below - grim reality of domestic meat production. 

2. Harrison's Cave

Tram ride through Barbados geology. Our guide: Gabriel (historian Pedro Welch's nephew). Tram driver: Paris. Artificial lights diminish the experience, but, as Amy posited, "How else could you do it?" Neither of my cameras were up to the task without using a flash and that further diminished the impact of the natural beauty which is the wonder of it after all.  To go through with a candle or small lantern would have made each reveal all the more remarkable. Click here to see and hear a few minutes in the cave.

Moitts' for lunch

Red snapper and Sweet potato mash

(does anything else matter?)

3. St. Nicholas Abbey

Ancient sugar plantation, still growing and processing sugar, molasses, and rum. Passed a woman cutting cane on the way up the hill... ack. Clusters of homes in various valleys and hillsides mean some locals are still tied to old employers. 

4. Chalky Mount Pottery

Saw a video of Winston Paul at the Arlington Museum in Speightstown, and samples of his work on display on the floor beneath the monitor. We met Paul and he gave us a five minute demonstration on making a pot for plants: from preparing the clay bits to throwing the planter to cutting the finished pot off the wheel. Then we shopped.

5. Bathsheba, East coast, Atlantic ocean

Our familiar. The Atlantic. Dark green waters breaking frothy white on stony shores. The "land" of the water "people." Not our terrain. Sharks and whales and plankton and barracuda and swordfish. Beautiful terrors. 

Bathsheba, Barbados. Approaching sunset.

Aug. 11: More details and photos for each stop to follow.