Barbados - Tuesday, 8 February 2005

Our first port of call was Barbados, a flat coral island.  It was hot, but too humid.  Sugar was their big crop and there are still sugar plantations there.  Our first shore excursion!  We were excited.  We went ashore early and wandered around some shops.  We went into a cigar factory, where the ladies explained to us how they make the cigars.  It was quite interesting and we were the only ones in there that early in the morning, so we could watch and ask questions for as long as we liked.
     
The woman in the middle picture lays several tobacco leaves down, first one way, and then the other.  She fills these with chopped tobacco, then uses the machine to roll them together into a long roll.  She then chops the edges off to make them a uniform size and they go to the next lady.  The ends that are chopped off will be chopped smaller to make filling for cigars another day.  The next lady takes the rolls and uses very high quality tobacco leaves to roll around the outside and seals the ends with water.  These leaves are beautiful and she let us feel one.  They felt really wonderful, strong and stretchy, although very thin.  (You should also know that I grew up with a father who smoked cigars and I HATE cigar smoke!  But this was quite interesting and the outside leaves looked and felt marvelous.)

Then it was time for our shore excursion: a ride in a sightseeing submarine, called Atlantis Submarine Adventure!  We were taken on a boat out to watch the submarine surface.  The group ahead of us exited onto our boat, and then we boarded the sub.  It is sort of like a giant underwater bus, with viewing ports.  It went down to several depths (due to varying coral formations on the bottom), where we saw coral, fish, sea anemones, starfish, a shipwreck and more.  It was great fun!
              
           

We didn't have time for lunch, and went right back out on our second shore excursion: the "Best of Barbados" tour.  We traveled by bus to Gun Hill Signal Station, a historical spot with views across the island.  From there we enjoyed Orchid World, beautiful gardens and greenhouses.  We were impressed by the banyan trees, fascinating trees that send shoots down from branches to form multiple trunks.  These trees are massive, and can take over a huge area!  A man with a green monkey entered our bus and there were huge poinsettias growing by the side of the road.  Many of the houses have a solar hot water heater on their roof.  The last stop was Harrison's Cave, a large underground very drippy cave system that we explored from a three-car "train" with a driver.