Barbados recap

We just got back from 10 days in Barbados and since I'm currently unemployed, I've got nothing to do all day but blog all about it!!!
We stayed at the New Edgewater Hotel (thanks, Travelocity!)

The hotel isn't anything too spectacular but the view is ridiculous:


We had breakfast at the restaurant to this view every morning, so it got a little boring to see all that beach and stuff. Well, no, not really, it was pretty damn cool.
We rented a moke, which is a totally slammin' ride which happens not to have doors:

Barbados drives on the left side of the road, so the steering wheel is on the right. It took a while for me to get used to it, but the SO seemed to have no problem zipping us all over the island under my superb navigational expertise. Actually, it was sort of funny. Leaving the airport, I was wondering why the map had hardly any road names on it, and thought it was sort of strange. Of course, this was beacuse I am a stupid tourist and--duh, most of the roads don't even have roadsigns, much less names. After the first few days, I think I nailed the right combination of guesswork and luck required to get us to where we wanted to be.
We shared the road with many giant potholes, crazy drivers, and the occasional coconut truck:

We saw a lot of animals, which of course are my favorite part of any trip:

A gaggle of goats crossing the highway in front of us, totally unsupervised. These goats were adorable and all over the island and I had to work really hard not to yoink one and sneak it past customs.
There were also a lot of cows, many of which would graze very near the roadside, the better to sneer at passing tourists:

There were also little ghost crabs ALL OVER all the beaches--here's one making himself a new pad:

We also went down this crazy dirt road trying to find consett bay. We turned around because it got really scary, but we did see a BIG MONKEY cross the road a few hundred feet in front of us. No picture of the monkey, just the road (before it got even more overgrown and crazy):

Oh, yeah, and the island was pretty scenic too--though it did rain quite a lot while we were there--the beginning of the hurricane season. You'll see a lot of the pictures are overcast.

North Point. As the name might suggest, the northernmost tip of the island, where the Atlantic meets the Caribbean.

Enterprise "Miami" Beach, our favorite swimming beach. Pink sand, no rocks, gentle waves. Those are fishing boats from Oistins in the back.

The lighthouse at Ragged Point, the easternmost edge of the island. Lighthouses don't do much for either of us but we felt obligated somehow to see one of the several lighthouses on the island.


Bottom Bay, totally the most postcard-perfect of the beaches. Not so good for swimming, though.

Foul Bay, our favorite all-around beach. Beautiful scenery, nice palm trees, and waves that don't threaten drowning. Too much.

Our freakin' sweet setup at Foul Bay. The "Neat Sheet" is the greatest thing ever to happen to beaching.

Around sunset on the West coast

A breadfruit tree--these grow ALL OVER the island and taste, when cooked, rather like a potato.

Mango trees also were in great abundance, usually in people's yards, but often with big branches loaded with mangoes hanging over the road, bus stops, etc.

Anyway, we had a great time, ate lots of macaroni pie and flying fish, and got a little tanner despite all our best SPF 30 application and re-application.
Now we're back and unfortunately it's packing/moving time.
The crafts are going to be on hold for a while, folks...