Dear Diary,
A bus ride to explore the island of Barbados!~ What a charming idea! The advertising promises a delightful travel experience when using the public bus system with buses conveniently servicing every portion of the island! We can hardly wait to take advantage of this opportunity! In fact, the first day, we treked the distance between our apartment and the "convenient" bus stop..over cobblestones and dirt paths and risked walking on the road where there were no sidewalks, which is more common than not, with vehicles hurtling by. We got to a charming little lean-to with a girls name above it, sprinkled with locals waiting for a bus. Certainly the girls name above the bus stop has some meaning, but we are unable to determine it at this point. Oh good. Here comes a by-pass bus. We know it's a bypass bus because it says Speightstown...not bypass. Thanks to a local who gave us this information. We boarded the bus. Had the fare of $1.50 each ready. Wait..It's $2 each? When did that happen? Did the fare go up while we were waiting? 40 minutes is a long time. It could have happened. Oh, never mind, $2 is reasonable for this charming experience.
Off we went on our photo-op. Accelerating like we were on a carnival ride. He must be going this fast because it's a bypass bus. We figure the other buses must be a lot slower. We are lucky to have this skilled driver. He slams on the brakes, then quickly accelerates then here go the brakes again! We are at a bus stop. We thought this was supposed to bypass things like this, but, what do we know. We are visitors to this lovely land.
We stop again and again and again and again..we bypass nothing! We hurl through charming little villages at a break neck speed, careening inches from stone walls and oncoming traffic, honking horns...our highly skilled driver is able to honk his horn in many languages to clear the path as we speed our way to the bus station so that we can catch another bus to go to our destination. We're there! Look! We can still walk! People pour out of the bus. Wow. We thought there was a maximum number of people allowed. Oh well, the driver must have been counting them.
We went into the bus station and didn't see the sign for the town we needed. Did see signs like "Pie Corner", "Good Intention" and "Poor Outcome"..that last one must have been our town! Anyhow, the bus, we were told, contrary to the advice I had received on the phone from a bus official, only comes every 2 hours and it wasn't our hour. We didn't see the point in wasting this beautiful day waiting in a bus station with pigeons threatening us and we knew we couldn't get to the animal reserve and back again before dark, so we massaged our aching muscles (did I mention that we had to stand for that entire hour bus ride? Having packed people on the bus way beyond it's capacity, we stood toe to toe, compressed like marshmallows in a vacuum packed bag. Oh the humanity! We would have stuck to each other if it wouldn't have been for all of the sweat. At one point, I thought someone was trying to remove one of my kidneys with their bare hands!) and climbed aboard another vessel and headed back toward home.
Look! There's hardly anyone on the bus! We get to sit! Slowly the bus begins to fill up again. Is the driver even looking at that sign that says how many can be on this thing? Even with a calculator, we loose track! If this were India, we would have people clinging to the roof with handles! Look! Did I just see a chicken run up the aisle? I'm sure that I hear one clucking it's last cluck in the mass of people in front of us. The first few days, we gave up our seats to pregnant women and old people. Now, it's every man ,woman and fetus for themselves.
We decide not to get off the bus in our town. Are we insane? No, we just didn't want to waste the $2 and we are courageous explorers, after all. Suddenly, we are the only ones left on the bus! The driver, trying to impress, shows us what the top speed of this baby can really be! It appears that we have been merely creeping along all of this time. The blurred pictures on my camera must not have been from speed, rather a technical glitch! He opens up the throttle, beeping the horn as we careen through the narrow streets, shouting back over his shoulder, "Relax, mon, you're still in Barbados!" We reach the southern-most tip of the island and screech to a halt in a vacant sand lot. Apparently , even he has reservations about ramping out over the ocean. Hey, this is the bus station! We ask how we can get back to Shandra (remember the girls names over the stops?) and, with a puzzled look on his face, the driver asks "what is that near?" OMG! Even they don't know what the heck those names mean! We are leery about getting off the bus in this sand lot because all we see are fishermen selling today's catch and we have no immediate need for a fish. The driver tells us to just stay where we are and he'll take us back for no additional charge. Eventually, after mach-3 speeds back up north, we arrive at Shandra and get off the bus. This stop is located on a charming triangular, 3 point intersection, with a pedestrian push button to give the walkers the right of way. We have learned that some of these buttons have been disabled since the dawn of electricity. You learn which ones don't work by waiting, and waiting and waiting, as traffic constantly zooms by from every direction, the drivers all honking their horn messages to each other. Did I mention that they drive on the wrong side of the road here? So you must always look in the wrong direction first to see if someone is poised to run over you. It's amazing. We dash across the street against the light. We wobble up the street to the nearest restaurant, where despite our objections to the prices. we collapse and, being insane from the heat and humidity, bodies still tingling from the speed, we order a $100 lunch.
A bus ride to explore the island of Barbados!~ What a charming idea! The advertising promises a delightful travel experience when using the public bus system with buses conveniently servicing every portion of the island! We can hardly wait to take advantage of this opportunity! In fact, the first day, we treked the distance between our apartment and the "convenient" bus stop..over cobblestones and dirt paths and risked walking on the road where there were no sidewalks, which is more common than not, with vehicles hurtling by. We got to a charming little lean-to with a girls name above it, sprinkled with locals waiting for a bus. Certainly the girls name above the bus stop has some meaning, but we are unable to determine it at this point. Oh good. Here comes a by-pass bus. We know it's a bypass bus because it says Speightstown...not bypass. Thanks to a local who gave us this information. We boarded the bus. Had the fare of $1.50 each ready. Wait..It's $2 each? When did that happen? Did the fare go up while we were waiting? 40 minutes is a long time. It could have happened. Oh, never mind, $2 is reasonable for this charming experience.
Off we went on our photo-op. Accelerating like we were on a carnival ride. He must be going this fast because it's a bypass bus. We figure the other buses must be a lot slower. We are lucky to have this skilled driver. He slams on the brakes, then quickly accelerates then here go the brakes again! We are at a bus stop. We thought this was supposed to bypass things like this, but, what do we know. We are visitors to this lovely land.
We stop again and again and again and again..we bypass nothing! We hurl through charming little villages at a break neck speed, careening inches from stone walls and oncoming traffic, honking horns...our highly skilled driver is able to honk his horn in many languages to clear the path as we speed our way to the bus station so that we can catch another bus to go to our destination. We're there! Look! We can still walk! People pour out of the bus. Wow. We thought there was a maximum number of people allowed. Oh well, the driver must have been counting them.
We went into the bus station and didn't see the sign for the town we needed. Did see signs like "Pie Corner", "Good Intention" and "Poor Outcome"..that last one must have been our town! Anyhow, the bus, we were told, contrary to the advice I had received on the phone from a bus official, only comes every 2 hours and it wasn't our hour. We didn't see the point in wasting this beautiful day waiting in a bus station with pigeons threatening us and we knew we couldn't get to the animal reserve and back again before dark, so we massaged our aching muscles (did I mention that we had to stand for that entire hour bus ride? Having packed people on the bus way beyond it's capacity, we stood toe to toe, compressed like marshmallows in a vacuum packed bag. Oh the humanity! We would have stuck to each other if it wouldn't have been for all of the sweat. At one point, I thought someone was trying to remove one of my kidneys with their bare hands!) and climbed aboard another vessel and headed back toward home.
Look! There's hardly anyone on the bus! We get to sit! Slowly the bus begins to fill up again. Is the driver even looking at that sign that says how many can be on this thing? Even with a calculator, we loose track! If this were India, we would have people clinging to the roof with handles! Look! Did I just see a chicken run up the aisle? I'm sure that I hear one clucking it's last cluck in the mass of people in front of us. The first few days, we gave up our seats to pregnant women and old people. Now, it's every man ,woman and fetus for themselves.
We decide not to get off the bus in our town. Are we insane? No, we just didn't want to waste the $2 and we are courageous explorers, after all. Suddenly, we are the only ones left on the bus! The driver, trying to impress, shows us what the top speed of this baby can really be! It appears that we have been merely creeping along all of this time. The blurred pictures on my camera must not have been from speed, rather a technical glitch! He opens up the throttle, beeping the horn as we careen through the narrow streets, shouting back over his shoulder, "Relax, mon, you're still in Barbados!" We reach the southern-most tip of the island and screech to a halt in a vacant sand lot. Apparently , even he has reservations about ramping out over the ocean. Hey, this is the bus station! We ask how we can get back to Shandra (remember the girls names over the stops?) and, with a puzzled look on his face, the driver asks "what is that near?" OMG! Even they don't know what the heck those names mean! We are leery about getting off the bus in this sand lot because all we see are fishermen selling today's catch and we have no immediate need for a fish. The driver tells us to just stay where we are and he'll take us back for no additional charge. Eventually, after mach-3 speeds back up north, we arrive at Shandra and get off the bus. This stop is located on a charming triangular, 3 point intersection, with a pedestrian push button to give the walkers the right of way. We have learned that some of these buttons have been disabled since the dawn of electricity. You learn which ones don't work by waiting, and waiting and waiting, as traffic constantly zooms by from every direction, the drivers all honking their horn messages to each other. Did I mention that they drive on the wrong side of the road here? So you must always look in the wrong direction first to see if someone is poised to run over you. It's amazing. We dash across the street against the light. We wobble up the street to the nearest restaurant, where despite our objections to the prices. we collapse and, being insane from the heat and humidity, bodies still tingling from the speed, we order a $100 lunch.
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