Barbados
Anyhow, after a long day at sea (which wasn't super exciting - while there *is* a lot to do on cruise ships - they're essentially floating cities, after all - most of it is really canned - think D-list family movies and mediocre comedy and musical theater), we reached Barbados.
Barbados is a Caribbean island that seems mostly known for two things...rum and Rihana.
Rhinna's mansion. Apparently her entourage stays here while she retreats to her childhood home, according to like EVERYONE. Because EVERYONE cares about this on Barbados.
Although fear not my friends, beer is also really good in the Caribbean. I rather liked Banks beer, although Carib (popular on other islands) was also pretty good.
Anyway, aside from their pop star celebrity, Barbados is a rather poor island. It was an English colony prior to independence and used mostly to grow sugar cane. And, of course, like everywhere else in the world, growing sugar cane required a large labor force who didn't particularly mind working hard in the tropics, not being paid very much, and working with a plant whose leaves are like daggers.
Clearly there was no labor force who thought this a good idea, so, yeah. Barbados (like most of the non-Spanish Caribbean) brought in a ton of slaves.
Barbados eventually declared their independence, but it wasn't like the English put a lot of time into educating the slaves (something like 80-90% of the island) or investing in them or much else, which hasn't particularly left Barbados in the best of places. It's a gorgeous country with fertile soil, friendly people, and gorgeous beaches. But...it's pretty poor.
Barbados, celebrating 50 years of independence! These pretty blue and gold signs were literally EVERYWHERE. It was pretty cool to see so much patriotism!
Anyway, I and KP arrived in Bridgetown, named because when the English got there back in the 18th century, everyone was dead, but had left a bride behind. (Seriously...Caribbean history is *dark*.)
Bridgetown is pretty, though, so there is that.
The bridge in Bridgetown. It was built over the old one.
More bridge.
It is a gorgeous colonial town. Amusingly there were TONS of ads for "pirate ship" rides and such, which I imagine were a rather big deal here back in the day. (Well, pirates, not the rides.) Still, the local colonial authorities + planters did their best to avoid such things and Bridgetown was the capital of a MAJOR English colony, not a pirate haven.
Anyhow, after exploring the town (and having a rum punch, since when in Rome Barbados...we went on a Green Monkey tour, which was meant to show us the island as well as the green monkeys that lived in it.
The green monkeys, incidentally, are originally from Africa, not the Caribbean. But they happily came over with the slave trade and colonized most of the Caribbean. They're cute, kind of pesky, and have been really critical in research as their immune system is similar to that of humans. So we owe these adorable little creatures a lot.
Anyhow, for the tour, we got on these odd little seats kind of built into the back of trucks and took off through the island.
These things are definitely Jerry-rigged. Sturdy, though!
After a bit of driving, we got to the green monkey preserve. We promptly saw this:
It's just...weird.
There were no others like it and it was...odd. Like, what is this creature? When I got home and checked Google, I found it's probably a "Patagonian Mara", which supposedly only lives in Argentina so...it really doesn't answer much. Regardless, it seemed to be an abomination.
Anyway, we started wandering around the preserve just to hear a Chthulian noise. We wandered down the trail to where there were a few orange traffic cones and saw...this.
It's more disturbing than this. It's more disturbing than you can imagine. The male is making this horrible sound, like a dragon that's coughing up the last phlem in his body, while drooling mucus on the female. The female is vaguely walking away, yet the male follows her. Words cannot describe.
We fled to see the monkeys.
Anyway, the monkeys were summoned to the sanctuary by a large trough that was filled once per day with food. Apparently there were rival gangs that only returned for the food sometimes, or beat others up, or other monkey things. (Monkeys are kind of awful, really.)
Of course, since there was food left out, pretty much everything in the sanctuary came for it.
Everything. Seriously.
The monkeys are pretty cute, though.
This seems like an adorable mother/child scene up until I watched the baby pick up food just for the mother to slap it out of his/her hands. Monkeys apparently aren't the best parents...
Just to make things worse, the monkeys were apparently very *interested* in the humans. One looked directly at an 8 year old girl and started up, doing things to himself frantically. At which the girl told her father, "Dad, that monkey is *touching* himself." And his dad got to try to explain interspecies self-pleasuring to his daughter. It was awkward.
Far more innocent than he looks, and this guy is *not* innocent.
Anyway, we escaped the monkey preserve with our lives and drove to a rather scenic beach where a guy who *clearly* knew that this was the last stop on the monkey tour came up to us with a really cute monkey asking for money for pictures. Of course KP went for it.
Me with a very cute and very tame green monkey baby.
The beach itself was quite gorgeous, too. Really, all of Barbados was. I know, know, Caribbean island, easy stuff, but still...
Boat just doing boat things in paradise.
In front of a really cool looking rock!
Barbados is a Caribbean island that seems mostly known for two things...rum and Rihana.
Rhinna's mansion. Apparently her entourage stays here while she retreats to her childhood home, according to like EVERYONE. Because EVERYONE cares about this on Barbados.
Although fear not my friends, beer is also really good in the Caribbean. I rather liked Banks beer, although Carib (popular on other islands) was also pretty good.
Anyway, aside from their pop star celebrity, Barbados is a rather poor island. It was an English colony prior to independence and used mostly to grow sugar cane. And, of course, like everywhere else in the world, growing sugar cane required a large labor force who didn't particularly mind working hard in the tropics, not being paid very much, and working with a plant whose leaves are like daggers.
Clearly there was no labor force who thought this a good idea, so, yeah. Barbados (like most of the non-Spanish Caribbean) brought in a ton of slaves.
Barbados eventually declared their independence, but it wasn't like the English put a lot of time into educating the slaves (something like 80-90% of the island) or investing in them or much else, which hasn't particularly left Barbados in the best of places. It's a gorgeous country with fertile soil, friendly people, and gorgeous beaches. But...it's pretty poor.
Barbados, celebrating 50 years of independence! These pretty blue and gold signs were literally EVERYWHERE. It was pretty cool to see so much patriotism!
Anyway, I and KP arrived in Bridgetown, named because when the English got there back in the 18th century, everyone was dead, but had left a bride behind. (Seriously...Caribbean history is *dark*.)
Bridgetown is pretty, though, so there is that.
The bridge in Bridgetown. It was built over the old one.
More bridge.
It is a gorgeous colonial town. Amusingly there were TONS of ads for "pirate ship" rides and such, which I imagine were a rather big deal here back in the day. (Well, pirates, not the rides.) Still, the local colonial authorities + planters did their best to avoid such things and Bridgetown was the capital of a MAJOR English colony, not a pirate haven.
Anyhow, after exploring the town (and having a rum punch, since when in Rome Barbados...we went on a Green Monkey tour, which was meant to show us the island as well as the green monkeys that lived in it.
The green monkeys, incidentally, are originally from Africa, not the Caribbean. But they happily came over with the slave trade and colonized most of the Caribbean. They're cute, kind of pesky, and have been really critical in research as their immune system is similar to that of humans. So we owe these adorable little creatures a lot.
Anyhow, for the tour, we got on these odd little seats kind of built into the back of trucks and took off through the island.
These things are definitely Jerry-rigged. Sturdy, though!
After a bit of driving, we got to the green monkey preserve. We promptly saw this:
It's just...weird.
There were no others like it and it was...odd. Like, what is this creature? When I got home and checked Google, I found it's probably a "Patagonian Mara", which supposedly only lives in Argentina so...it really doesn't answer much. Regardless, it seemed to be an abomination.
Anyway, we started wandering around the preserve just to hear a Chthulian noise. We wandered down the trail to where there were a few orange traffic cones and saw...this.
It's more disturbing than this. It's more disturbing than you can imagine. The male is making this horrible sound, like a dragon that's coughing up the last phlem in his body, while drooling mucus on the female. The female is vaguely walking away, yet the male follows her. Words cannot describe.
We fled to see the monkeys.
Anyway, the monkeys were summoned to the sanctuary by a large trough that was filled once per day with food. Apparently there were rival gangs that only returned for the food sometimes, or beat others up, or other monkey things. (Monkeys are kind of awful, really.)
Of course, since there was food left out, pretty much everything in the sanctuary came for it.
Everything. Seriously.
The monkeys are pretty cute, though.
This seems like an adorable mother/child scene up until I watched the baby pick up food just for the mother to slap it out of his/her hands. Monkeys apparently aren't the best parents...
Just to make things worse, the monkeys were apparently very *interested* in the humans. One looked directly at an 8 year old girl and started up, doing things to himself frantically. At which the girl told her father, "Dad, that monkey is *touching* himself." And his dad got to try to explain interspecies self-pleasuring to his daughter. It was awkward.
Far more innocent than he looks, and this guy is *not* innocent.
Anyway, we escaped the monkey preserve with our lives and drove to a rather scenic beach where a guy who *clearly* knew that this was the last stop on the monkey tour came up to us with a really cute monkey asking for money for pictures. Of course KP went for it.
Me with a very cute and very tame green monkey baby.
The beach itself was quite gorgeous, too. Really, all of Barbados was. I know, know, Caribbean island, easy stuff, but still...
Boat just doing boat things in paradise.
In front of a really cool looking rock!