riontel | Barbados

Spent few days on Barbados with

a_lazy_legend to give her some relaxing time before she has to go back to the grind. We looked at a bunch of Caribbean islands before settling on Barbados, which is a former British colony, so they speak English and drive on the wrong side of the road. It's a much lusher island than Aruba, lots of flowers and greenery but the sea is much more turbulent. They used flags to indicate the water conditions, from safe to dangerous: white, yellow and red.

Except on the first day when it rated a red flag, the rest of our stay was all yellow, which didn't stop us from going in. I loved the waves and the warm water and how very few people were on the beach or in the water most of the time. There were few people because we picked the low (read rainy) season for our visit. It did rain every day and one day was a complete washout but we didn't let that ruin our vacation.

This little blob in the waves is me swimming on the calmer side of the beach. I only tried it once, it was too shallow and rocky, bad combination. The other side was more fun so I stuck to it from then on.

Main attraction of the island, outside of the Caribbean itself, is Harrison cave. I've been wanting to see a real cave, with stalactites and stalagmites and underground lakes and streams, so took this opportunity. Very pretty, my lame camera does not do it justice at all. It was warm and drippy and they dug out a tunnel for a small tram alongside the natural passages so tourists wouldn't have to walk.

As part of the tour we were also taken to the East Coast of the island to see Bathsheba, after the wife of King David, who liked to bath in milk to keep her skin soft. The foamy surf covering the shore of this area reminded somebody of such a bath. They hold surfing competitions here.

We also stopped by the local Botanic Garden and Wildlife preserve, to see local flora and fauna.

Flora consists of a variety of lovely tropical plants.

Animal visit was slightly spoiled by the rain, we limited ourselves to the major attractions of monkeys and animal feeding which allowed us to see all the most populous inhabitants: green monkeys, deer, tortoises and peacocks.

The rest of our time was spent vegging out on the beach, except in the evenings when we would venture out to dinner. In the four nights we found one place, "Tapas", that managed to combine good food, decent service and great atmosphere in one spot. If we had a car our chances would have been much better. Hotel eateries had food which was not bad but largely unimpressive, especially their breakfast and dinner buffets. "The Grill", restaurant on premises where Lena took me out for my birthday, had very good food but a rather stuffy atmosphere that was ironically combined with frigid overconditioned temperature. We skipped shopping altogether so no impressions on that area.

We had fun and as far as a beach vacation goes I declare this one a success.