Oasis Hotel Christ Church

... to Rhonda and her advice, we also visited St Nicholas Abbey, which was lovely…..and in the evening treated ourselves to dinner at The FishPot (excellent) after lunch at Nanika (no wonder we piled on the pounds this holiday)!

All in all, a most relaxing and enjoyable end to our Caribbean adventure…..the R&R necessary to ensure a calm approach to our 44 hour journey back here to Surabaya!

... his hardest to get me on a plane, however my not acting fast enough led to a very good ticket for $500US slipping away. So I pulled some strings, and I'm now going to Toronto direct on Wednesday I'm bummed out like mad that I can't go to NYC and possibly not even Detroit, but I guess it just happens sometimes. Next time I guess.. But at least now I can go to Canada! Wednesday can't come fast enough.

This is my third day trying to get out of the island on standby. I was 38/47 on the list earlier. So many families of staff members using their tickets for holiday.. It's insanity. It seems to be impossible to get out of the Caribbean right now! Hopefully I'll figure out something soon, otherwise I may have to cancel parts of my itinerary.. :(

... Barbados (or Indonesia or Malaysia or Thailand), and I'm convinced they drive from the airport to their hotel with their eyes closed (or in the dark), sip Pina Coladas for a week and never give a second thought to where the people who work there really live or how they really live. If you've read this blog before, you know we have a love for discovering the "real" side of the places we visit. And this bus ride, was the first part of that ...

... I was a little bit disappointed that the tour did not stopped here. I would have like to.

We then proceeded to St. John's Church which is perched 800 feet above the Atlantic ocean. Here, we got off the bus and enjoyed our tour inside as well as outside the church. It was amazing. From the back of the church, a magnificent view of the blue azure ocean could be seen. It was absolutely breathtaking.

There were several tombs ...

... huge sea turtles swimming one next to the other one in their environment. What a beautiful scene! Too bad I couln't take any pictures, my camera not being waterproof. Small coloured fishes could also be seen next to some huge yellow angelfish. Here I was, in the Caribbean Sea snorkeling. I was this little (well not so little) fish swimming in this huge aquarium. It was a dream come true. It was magic ...

In Barbados at the moment - going to head to the beach later - apparently Simon Cowell and Michael Winner are around and about - they're staying at the Sandy Lane Hotel and there's a nice beach nearby - thats North of here - so we're going to head South! Hot and sunny as per usual - definitely ...

The day started raining and our plans for the beach weakened. We waited until it stopped and walked to town, and there we spitted as I didn't want to loose any swim. We hired a cab to Mullins beach (about 25' and $25 one way) and when arriving asked the driver to pick us back 3 hours later. He wasn't very convinced we were going to be there but he agreed. It was really cloudy and the sand was wet so ...

... for no charge since he lived up there and was heading back anyways. the trip ended up being this huge excursion where we got lost, almost got the taxi van stuck in a mud patch, etc. we finally found the spot he was talking about, which was a five-minute walk through some cornfields and down this really steep jungly path. the surf wasn't that good, but the spot itself was beautiful: it was this little cove, no more than 25 yards of beach, in between these huge cliffs ...

... the waves are fairly dangerous. the beach we were at was bathsheba, which is known worldwide for it's consistent surf. tomorrow i am going back with another group, and i think i will take surfing lessons. it was nice to get away from all the hustle and bustle (if you can call it that) of the west coast and to go to a beach where you aren't constantly hassled by people trying to sell you something. it was a much more rugged and natural-looking beach, which i enjoyed. that's all i can ...