Sunday, December 13: Barbados

As soon as we docked at Jamestown, Barbados, I went ashore to the pier terminal to find some souvenirs. It was very hot – about 85 degrees – and the terminal, like so many buildings in the tropics, has a tin roof. The only air conditioned spaces were in the shops that sold jewelry – keep that Sugar Daddy happy – and I was soon drenched with sweat. (Whatever I suffer from is only getting worse. When I get home, I may just wear shorts and T shirts for a week!) Even though I understand, at least intellectually, that Christmas comes to the tropics too, it seemed incongruous that “Silver Bells” and “O Come All Ye Faithful” should be playing softly in the background while I was sweating profusely.
As it turned out, I was unsuccessful in my bid to get a seat on the tour called, “Barbados by Photograph.” The Destination Manager told me they were seriously overbooked and had tried to get another bus, and a guide from nearby Antigua, but this was not possible on such short notice. So, not wanting to stay on board the ship, even though in air conditioned luxury, I took a tour called, “Where de Sugar Come From.” As we were boarding and I had taken my seat about halfway down the aisle, a large man with an imperious air loudly declared that he didn’t like the seats on this bus and if there was another one going to the same place, he and his wife would get off my bus and take the other one. There was some discussion while the man held up the progression of others trying to find a seat and when told, yes, there was another bus, he pushed his way back down the aisle toward the bus door, scattering others as he went.
Our bus driver/guide provided a running commentary on what was on each side of the bus as we made our tour through Jamestown. On the sea side were mostly resort hotels, many of them new. I guess money thinks Barbados safe, unlike Jamaica from which money fled some years ago. On the other side of the road were small houses, some of them painted in a very bright orange or turquoise, along with houses that didn’t look so prosperous. The driver said they weren’t painted because if the house looked too new, it would be taxed at a much higher rate. Un huh. (In Maine, a new house is not assessed for tax purposes until the stoop is added to the front door. That’s why so many houses have a three foot drop from the front door to the ground.) I learned from the driver that Barbados is a member of the British Commonwealth so the queen also has a representative here. (I wondered what happened when these two officials have conflicting opinions about where to go or what to do about some problem). The island produces100,000 tons of sugar each year (and honey, that’s a lot of sugar cane; it’s everywhere). The island is limestone coral, not volcanic, which filters the water and makes the sea around the island “…the clearest in the world. They’ve been making rum on the island for over 300 years. Some sugar cane plants are cut into “knuckles” like the joints on your finger and these are used to replant after a harvest; you just stick the knuckle into the ground and it automatically sprouts.We drove a long way through the countryside to St. Nicholas Abbey, a still working sugar plantation that was founded in 1650. The house is in typical British country style, with fireplaces that were never used. It’s furnished in slightly seedy, 1930’s British style; nothing extraordinary except the china, all hand painted, set on the dining room table. The plantation is now owned by a local architect who opened it to the public. We soon discovered that its main purpose (and the main purpose of the whole tour) was – surprise, surprise – to sell plantation products: molasses, chutney and a 12-year-old rum in a fancy bottle that could be etched with your name, for about $60.00. I passed all that up. My idea of souvenirs runs to baseball caps. I can’t imagine schlepping home a fancy bottle of rum etched with my name on the bottom. We took the road that runs along the Atlantic shore of Barbados (as opposed to the Caribbean side of the island) and stopped for some photographs of Bathsheba, a beach known worldwide for surfing competitions. It was very pretty and the water – our guide told us that waves here can reach a height of over 50 feet – looked uninviting and dangerous.
But the most interesting feature of the tour came at a round-about (in the wrong way round) when the back of the bus exploded with a loud bang and smoke enveloped us completely. Many of the passengers jumped up from their seats and rushed for the door. As might be expected, those seated in front were the handicapped and their inability to get down the steps quickly, quickly panicked the crowd behind them. I was afraid they would be trampled, like so many Thais in a burning night club. But we finally all got out. The driver lifted the door over the engine in the rear and he, and many of the men, stared into the exposed mechanisms as though just looking at it might make it work again. But the best part of the whole episode was a big billboard behind the bus that advertised auto repair. “Free 24 hour service,” it proclaimed. “On the road or at your home.” Needless to say, I got a picture of that: a disabled bus with tourists crowded around it and this sign above. The driver called the other bus in our two-bus caravan and after it had delivered its passengers to the terminal, it came back for us. I was very pleased to see that the seats were far less comfortable than the ones on our original bus. Karmic justice for the complaining man, I thought.
Because there was a cabaret act going on in our usual lounge, the Solos gathered in the Observation Lounge on Deck 11. The directions were a little confusing and a few of them didn’t show. Still, we had Diane (from near Tampa), Rosalie (more about her later), Anne (who breathes superior air), Brenda (the gambling private banker), Ellie (of the emeralds), Maryella (the Afghan Hound), Marissa (her roommate from Croatia), Terry (the bookie), Heinz (and you already know enough about him), Elsa (with the Cheshire Cat grin, her teeth clamped firmly together), Margot (with the T), Lise (who has a wandering eye and has five cruises already booked for 2010), Shirley (a former airline stewardess who loves to dance, mostly with Heinz) and little old me. Diane had asked a number of these fascinating guests, including Heinz, to join her in Prime 7 for a fancy dinner and Maryella and Marissa were off to a Public Television event. Elsa had promised to join Henry (of the meandering diamond ring; he’s been through the Panama Canal 17 times) so that left Terry and me to host a table for six that included Ellie, Shirley, Brenda and Rosalie. On the way to the dining room Shirley, who has become very particular –she’s a Gold – told me that if Libby joined us she would have to be seated at a different table. She couldn’t stand Libby. And she (Shirley) would not sit at any table that included more than six. When we got to the dining room and the nice Maitre d’ took us to our table for six – Libby never showed – Shirley didn’t like the location. But the dining room was crowded so Shirley had no choice.
Rosalie, form Medford Oregon, looks like she has just escaped from a Grandma Moses painting. She’s 84, prim and proper, her becoming hair of no discernable color fluffed around her face and with carefully painted lines for eyebrows, her blouse pulled up all around her neck, the kind of woman who should be a retired librarian, with a proper gold pin at her throat. But when her margarita came, I realized I had to take her more seriously than that. We had a really interesting conversation about her life. She sat next to me and to break the ice, I asked her where she was from. Well, she said, she was born in Canada but her parents divorced when she was six and her father went back to England, from which he had migrated. So she was educated in England. Her mother moved to California where Rosalie spent the summers. But then, in her adult life, she spent some time in Mexico and once lived in Hawaii but she guessed that now living in Oregon meant she was an American. Terry, the bookie, said he was surprised (as was I) that Rosalie drank margaritas and he soon dubbed her, to her delight, Racy Rosalie. This brought on a discussion of what drinks most fit each of us. We decided that Shirley was a whiskey sour. No surprise there. Ellie got the vodka martini (which she favors at cocktails) and Brenda was a Singapore Sling. We decided Terry, who doesn’t drink alcohol, should be a Cosmo. The table had a lot of trouble with me, finally settling on a Manhattan. You can see that after almost 30 days at sea, we’re running out of dinner conversation.
I skipped the show and went instead to my suite (read stateroom [read cabin]) where I lay down for a half an hour, trying to summon the energy to go to the Lounge for dancing. Heinz wanted to be in the Voyager Lounge, one deck below where, he said “..evry zing is happenink.” I told him to go; I would hold the fort. We had lost some time at port in Barbados and the captain was driving the ship pretty hard to make it up so the dance floor was quite tipsy. So was Maryella, who’d certainly had her share of whatever they were serving at the Public Television dinner. We tried to dance several times but the floor always seemed to be some place other than where our feet expected it. We laughed a lot and sat down. Even the Dragon Lady, resplendent in filmy white pants and turquoise sequined shoes – I couldn’t help but notice – had trouble keeping her footing and seemed, for the first time, to enjoy herself as she and her compliant husband stumbled around the floor. Marissa asked me about my gig and if I would do it again. I told her I didn’t think I was very good at it. She disagreed, saying I was far more approachable and social than Heinz. But comparisons are unfair. Still, I was happy to hear that I’d made a good impression on at least one Solo. I’m sure Margot (with the T) would disagree with Marissa, if only because she is disputatious about everything. So onward we go. Tomorrow is Antiqua. Stay tuned.