Vacation Day 4 - Barbados

The plan for Barbados was for all of us (Less Nancy) to meet up and get a taxi to Harrison's Caves.  It started falling apart immediately as we waited for Katrina, 20 minutes past our meeting time.  Grandpa and I were especially mad about having to wait for her.  It was decided the group would go down to level 0, but shortly after, we split into 2 groups.  Mom, Ramlin and I were to wait for Katrina in our original meeting place, the rest were going to go to Harrison's cave before us and get tickets (as we had heard the line to get tickets could be over an hour long)

Waiting longer and longer for Katrina, Ramlin went looking for her.  Of course, just as she left, Katrina arrived.  She must have came to our meeting spot as we went down to 0, missed us in the elevator, and spent some time wandering around the dock (but didn't happen to run into the other group)  Now a good 40 mins late, we went out to the dock, but wouldn't you know it, group #1 was still there!

There was difficulty with the taxis charging more than we had thought.  Mom had researched the taxi price in advance, and they were asking what we thought was double.  Since Mom was with me waiting, it turned the situation standstill.  Turns out, it wasn't much more than we had originally priced out, and we got a lovely tour guide Jennifer out of it.  She was really amazing!  Took us out for the whole day, knew lots about the island, and really made up for the bad start to the day.

Upon arriving at Harrison's caves, there was no lineup at all!  Perhaps the reviews before were of when it reopened, making it a hot spot. 

Even better news was that they were celebrating an anniversary of them opening and were giving out free samples of Barbadian food!  What did I like most?  The fish balls were good (nice and spicy) but the best was by far "Sugar Cakes"  Sugar and coconut are the only ingredients.  Everyone in my family made a point of getting extra and giving them to me :)

We took the elevator down to where the tour started, beautiful garden, cool elevators:

 

Here are a bunch of pictures from inside the caves.  Sadly my camera died in the process of getting pictures, so this is it for my Barbados photos!

This one reminds me of pacman ghosts!

Underground waterfall

 

After the cave tour, we hit the road again.  Jennifer dropped us off at the beach and returned my grandparents to the port to do some shopping.  Thankfully Grandma offered to buy sugar cakes on my behalf, so I was able to enjoy the beach.

 

The beach was beautiful!  Sand was like icing sugar and despite the boiling temperatures outside, the sand was cool.  The water was nice and warm, clear and calm.  Not good snorkeling at this beach however, but I did see some silvery fish around me once or twice.  While sitting on the beach after, a guy with a plastic bag came by selling "Golden Apples"  At first we didn't want any, thinking it was golden delicious apples, but he gave us a sample and it was WONDERFUL!  Somewhere like a mango meets peach meets apple.  I bought one and Heather and I shared it.  Jennifer had told us that Barbados has a "Green Banana" which is tastier than regular bananas and doesn't grow anywhere else in the world. I wanted to try it, but no luck in finding any.