Take a Look at Bridgetown, Barbados

After St. Kitts and Dominica, with smaller towns, no real
shopping, and a lot of exposed poverty, Barbados seemed a
bit more commercial. Our visit started with a walk through the
shopping district at Pelican Village.

Mom found something she liked right off!
She turned native the day
before when she bought that colorful shirt.

Diamond International is in all the major ports and we had to
make a quick stop there to pick up our "free gift."
You all know there is no such thing as a free gift, right?
The price you pay is high pressure sales people attaching themselves to you like leeches
and not letting go until someone in your party agrees to let them bleed her dry.
We sacrificed Liz! Much better than being thrown into a volcano, because not only are you allowed to live, but you live looking quite elegant, covered in jewels!

This is Lynn giving Liz a big hug of appreciation for getting us out of
Diamond's International unscathed...oh and that's Bridgetown in the background.

This is Heroes Square, the center of town and where we picked up a taxi to
take us on a tour of the island.

This is the only picture I took on our tour and as I recall
we didn't see much in the way of "sights" on our quick drive.
But this beach was definitely a lovely spot despite the heat and humidity.

So we headed back to town to check out the interesting city sites.
These next 2 pictures are of the Parliament buildings of Barbados.

The next 2 pictures are of the Careenage; the area along the
wharf. We thought we could make the walk back to the ship
but soon learned we weren't up to a 4 mile walk in 88 degree
heat that was accompanied by 100% humidity.
Thankfully we found a cab.........air conditioned cab, to be precise.

This was the prettiest part of Barbados and I quite like this picture.
If you want to stop by tomorrow, I'll have a few pictures of St. Lucia for those faithful followers
of my walk through memory lane.

How About a Visit to Dominica

We received our first view of Roseau, Dominica from our
breakfast table on the Maasdam.



We were impressed enough to go out on deck and take
a few more panoramic shots of the island before walking
onto land and exploring it for ourselves.

This one is for the scrapbooks; you know, the one
that proves I was actually there.
P.S. That's another one of those windy day hairdos.

Before we could check out the island we had to make a
quick stop at the local bazaar.

This stop was about halfway up to the top of the island.
Our guide said this was the perfect spot for picture taking.
It was also the perfect spot for another "bazaar."
(I think he got a commission for this stop)
Our guide was kind enough to take this shot of the 4 of us together.

This is a telescoped view of what our bodies were blocking.
That is the Maasdam docked in the port.

This shot gives you a better look at what we saw
from up there.

We saw lots of interesting critters along the way.
I'm sad that my picture doesn't let you see the polka dots
on this caterpillar's head, and......

...that I couldn't get this entire banyan tree in the pix.
It was a fabulous tree, and you know how I love trees!

We were told that no children were hurt when a
hurricane caused this tree to fall on the bus that you
see squashed under it.

This was our final destination. We took this drive, with the purpose of seeing a fantastic waterfall. But when we got to the top of the island, we were told that it was about a
2 mile, treacherous walk from this point. So you, along with us, will just have to use your imaginations and picture this gorgeous waterfall, somewhere up on this mountain,
amongst all that thick vegetation. Pretty, isn't it?

Tomorrow: Barbados

The Art of Towel Folding

It's now time to confess that I actually skipped out on the Maasdam towel folding class. But not to fear. We were fortunate enough to have several samples delivered to our cabin and I'm sure that you are all clever enough to reproduce anything you particularly like. As you will see, we fell in love with a few of these little fellas.

Lynn took her little buddy home to Oregon, where it's just as
damp as the Caribbean, but not quite as hot.

I slept with this one. Isn't he cute?

We let this one have the bed to himself!

This was my personal favorite.......

The "Edward" of towel animals!

But this was Liz's favorite and she actually took him as her date to
the Captain's formal ball.

There were more, but I failed to get pictures of them all.
However, these were the best of the best and should get you started
on your careers as towel folding connoisseurs.

Jenny is a Genius!!

I know this because when I yelled for help and tho she was over 700 miles away, she managed to come to my rescue without leaving her home! She traveled through cyberspace and snatched my St. Kitts blog off the Smart Remarks blog, folded it up and put it in her pocket or knapsack or maybe even her purse. Then she traveled back through cyberspace, took it out, unfolded it, pressed out any creases, and put it back onto my blog. I love her. She's the greatest. Thanks Jenny Lou Who.

Come and Check out St. Kitts

As you will see, if you stick with this tour of the Caribbean,

we old ladies aren't too good at the interesting posing.
But lucky for all of you, the scenery is worth the browse!

This shot of Lynn, Mom, and Liz was the last one

we took before re-boarding the ship, but some how it

got left out. This is the port city of Basseterre.

As our ship pulled into Basseterre, St. Kitts, it was pouring
rain and we weren't too sure about trying to brave the
weather. But thank goodness we're committed tourists
because this island is beautiful.

Above you can see the downpour more clearly. We were
a little too brave, because if we'd have waited just a
few more minutes, we wouldn't have gotten soaked. But
we soon dried out when the sun came out and the temperatures
rose into the 80's.

As we toured the island we came across these locals
cleaning the fish they'd caught that morning.
Who knows, Mom may have eaten that fish
right there for dinner in the Maasdam dining room that night.

There are lots of these egrets all over the Caribbean, but we
were fascinated by this tree full of them that we spotted
on our way to the top of the island.

This young girl offered to let me have my picture
taken with her green monkey on my shoulder for
the bargain price of $1.00. But I offered her $2.00
to let me take a picture of the monkey on HER shoulder
and I felt that was definitely the better deal!

We came upon this beautiful spot at the top of the island
in the heart of the rain forest.

Can you believe this gorgeous vegetation?!

I'm a lover of trees like my dad was, and this is now
one of my favorites.

This is Lynn standing in front of these ruins.

A view of the rain forest.

At the top of this island is this fortification on
Brimstone Hill, that was built in the 17th century.
The views from here were to die for!

This is one of those "to die for" views. That island you see
in the distance is Nevis Island which is a part of the
St. Kitts federation.

That's me holding up that ancient cannon at Brimstone Hill.

And this is Liz at the entrance to the fort. We had to take
these pictures of ourselves as proof that we made the extremely
difficult climb up to this fort. Lynn and Mom accepted
defeat and stayed below.

More views of the island from the fort.

This is a ruin of an old sugar cane factory.

Lynn at a quick photo stop as we came back down
from Brimstone Hill.

Another old sugar cane factory. Sugar cane use to be the
main source of income for St. Kitts.

You can see from all these pictures that this island was a favorite. Believe it or not, this is only a sampling. If you made it this far through this post, I applaud you. If you lost interest halfway through, I am in complete sympathy. I'm doing these posts mostly for myself and I'm loving reliving the trip. I find that the anticipation before a trip and the looking at the pictures afterwords are always my favorite parts of any vacation.

I'm going to give you a break from island hopping tomorrow and instead I plan a lesson on the art of towel folding. So those of you who made it to the end of this post, spread the word to your friends who have an interest in this lost art.

Oops!!

If you gize didn't already think I was a complete idiot when it comes to computer "stuff" this huge boo boo will surely seal the fact. Unfortunately, my post of the Island of St. Kitts is over at the "Smart Remarks" blog. Don't ask me to explain how that happened, 'cause I'm still trying to figure out how television works. But do accept my sincere apology. If anyone knows how to get rid of it, please feel free to send it back this way.

A Day in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands

After a night of bouncing around on rough seas, it always
felt good to set our feet on solid ground.
This is one of my best pictures of our ship.



Lynn is posing with the island in the
background. Lots of lush vegetation!

This is a view of the port town of
Charlotte Amalie.

Many of these islands, at one time, were big
sugar cane producers and the windmills were
used to grind the sugar cane.

A view of the island from our ship.

We were going to try to convince people that the
rusty barge in the background was our ship.
But you gize are all too smart for that, right?

Liz, Lynn, and Mom all feeling hot and sticky and ready
to say adios to St. Thomas, and board the old Maasdam
where the air conditioning is set low and the buffet awaits!

One last look at St. Thomas as the ship pulls out of port.

Join me again tomorrow when I'll introduce you to one of my favorite islands,
St. Kitts