Hibiscus

Katrine found some beautiful hibiscus (at least I think they are), so I took a pretty picture to make you all wish you were down here with me :D

Broken Hole

In Barbados, there are these things called 'holes.' They are brackish, freshwater pockets right by the ocean. One hole near our current site is the roosting place for egerets. This past Tuesday, after a long and rainy night (and morning), the hole near our site broke. In other words, it overflowed and went straight into the ocean. The white-ish foam in the ocean was the line of where the hole had overflowed into the ocean. The problem with the holes is they stink, and have all sorts of lovely things in them (like sewage and other icky things). Needless to say, we were already on stand by since there was thunder (no diving during thunderstorms!), and the hole put the dives on hold for two days. It happens every year, and apparently, this year wasn't so bad - usually the water is more brown!

Kadooment!!!!

Monday was Kadooment. Uhm, wow is all I have to say.

There are bands, which are groups of people in colourful costumes, who assemble in the stadium and do a little show and get judged for costumes and choreography. We didn't go to that, but we did go to the parade that follows. After the stadium, the bands hit the street and travel through the streets. Each band has a music truck, one of which had two live singers which was very cool. The better bands had booze truck(s), and the really god ones had port-a-pots as well. For those that weren't fortunate enough, you ducked behind a building and did your business there. Due to the amount of booze, there was an incredibly amount of drunk people (as in being dragged along by your friends).

The dance style that seems to be preferred here can basically be called hard core bump and grind, and I'm not posting some of the more debaucherous (is that a word?) pictures.

Anyways, despite it all, it was lots of fun, great costumes and colours to be had, even if it was raining and we had to keep ducking for cover. (yes my camera survived!)

Camera casing is back!!

Guess who finally got a replacement for the lost underwater camera casing?!?!

Bridgetown Market

Crop-over fever as officially taken over Barbados. Crop over is the celebration of the end of the sugar cane harvest. It is now more and excuse for parties, parades, and various other things. Over the weekend, there is the Bridgetown Market. They shut down a section of the main highway near Bridgetown, and vendors and crafts people come to display and sell their wares. At the market this year, there was a group of men who played some music, but it was an incredibly hot day, so I think they spent more time resting in the shade than actually playing :-)

One of the places was a glass making place, where they use blowtorches and tools to shape glass into beautiful pendants and beads. Vanessa and I both asked for custom pieces, which they made on site. I got a fabulous little fish that looks like a cross between a angelfish and a damselfish, with gold touchs on the fins. It's quite nice, and at $25 Barbados (2 Bajan = 1 USD), the price as right too. There were tons of places to eat, though it took Sylvain and I a couple tries to find a place that had both chicken and macaroni pie, but we found one and enjoyed our lunch. As we were leaving, we found one loan dancer lost in his world. Mind you, the sun was glaring and it was 34C, but he certainly had a great time dancing right in front of the speakers!