--------Welcome to Fernando Candido's Trip to Barbados

Day 1- Aruba Day 2-Barbados Day 3- Grenada Day 4- St-Lucia Day 5- Margarita Day 6- Curacao Day 7- Aruba

Barbados, was our first stop in our South Caribbean cruise after we left Aruba. When we arrived in Bridgetown, the capital of Barbados, we looked for a taxi. We made the mistake of taking a taxi with a driver called Richard, a great guy but his motto was drive as little as possible but charge as much as you can. He had an old car on the verge of total “rustation”.

At first, he drove us through a sugar cane plantation, which was nice. The green sugarcanes, who were all over the place, paralleled the road.

We had great views over the rolling hills.

Later on, he brought us to the Welchman Hall Gully where there were Barbados Green Monkeys roaming but unfortunately, the only ones we saw were prisoners in a cage. Although, we still had a nice walk in this small jungle, set in a deep gully, with rain- forest tropical plants all around us, which gave it an exotic charm.

Derek took a picture with Richard on top of a hill with the Atlantic coast behind. In a friendly hug both looked totally happy, especially Richard who had his best model pose.

We expressed to Richard the desire to go to the east side of the Island, which faced the Atlantic Ocean. We could clearly see the coast from where we were but he kept insisting it was too far and he did not want to drive us there.

By that time, we asked him how much we owed him for the ten to fifteen kilometers he had driven us. He tells us that the fee was up to $75.00 American dollars. I could see that he was undoubtedly overcharging us. He later on drove us to a beach on the Platinium Coast with the promise that he would come to get us a few hours later. When it was time to be picked up, we waited close to 15 minutes but he never showed up.

The time at the Sandy Lane Beach was quite pleasant because this was our first time ever in a Caribbean beach. It was located close to Holetown. Derek went on a Seadoo tour. He paid $20.00 for twenty minutes but he had barely did anything, it seemed not more than five to ten minutes when they were already calling him to come back.

The place was also infected with people trying to sell marijuana to Derek. I was starting to wonder about this island of dishonest people and poachers.

By the beach there was some Pirate party boat and there was also the M.V. Harbour Master. People seemed to have a lot of fun especially the pirate-boat visitors who were jumping from the ship and swimming in the turquoise water of the bay.

We went for a walk when the sun was disappearing in the horizon. A lot of locals were eating on the rocks by the water. I made a quick video of my stunning surroundings.

We decided to take the city bus back to the cruise to Bridgetown since Richard, our cab driver, had not arrived in time. We only paid a few dollars for the bus fee a huge difference from what the cab driver wanted. We had to leave since we could not wait no longer for Richard, we were unable to pay him.

We happily went back in the boat stunned by what we saw, by the beauty of the island was miraculous. We would be aware of the dishonest people that we may encounter in the next islands of the beautiful Caribbean.

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