A Look Back: One Night in Barbados

(In car, en route to the airport in New York to travel to Barbados... working the "cowgirl straw hat" look.)

(David tried on the hat, too...)

David and I are back in New York after 8 days away. It has been a while since we've returned to New York from a trip that was solely for ourselves, i.e. not a work trip. This difference was nice. And while we were loathe to leave Mustique and the gorgeous white sandy beaches, we were happy to be in New York again last night in a quiet, relaxed way. We have had a vacation, indeed.

We never had the chance to post anything, photos or anecdote-wise, about Barbados, where we spent one night on our way to Mustique. So I shall step back a little and do that now.

One cannot get to Mustique without going through Barbados (well, not unless one has one's own private airplane), so we decided that we would spend one night there. We had a great time, and it turned out to be a pleasant way to break up the trip.

Barbados is not a very big country. But it's not a small island country, either, which we discovered when we arrived there and traveled through many sugar cane fields to arrive at our hotel. The Fairmont Royal Pavilion, where we spent the night, is on a strip of beach known as the Millionaire's Mile -- it's a fabulously white sandy strip of pristine blue beach, on which there are various upscale hotels. We had a gorgeous room overlooking the beach, with a little patio area. Beautiful. It was a great place to sit back, relax, unwind from our travels and get some rest.
(David with a welcome glass champagne in front of our hotel room, right on the beach.)

(David's first Caribbean tropical fruity smoothie drink.)

(Dusk, on beach just outside our room.)

On our way to the hotel, we asked our taxi driver which rum we should try in Barbados. We were instructed to drink Mount Gay Extra Old. This rum turned out to be unanimously recommended -- "You can't do better than Mount Gay Extra Old," we were told whomever we asked.

(Mount Gay Extra Old rum, on the rocks...looks and tastes more like whiskey!)

We are not rum drinkers, usually. Being culturally curious, however, we tried this Mount Gay Extra Old rum about which everyone kept telling us. When we think rum, we think sweet and fruity... but we discovered that there is a whole range of rums in this world. Mount Gay Extra Old rum is a blend of rum aged from 15 to 18 years, and does not taste at all like rum, as we think of it. It tastes more like a more aromatic whiskey. One drinks this rum as an after dinner drink, on the rocks.

(David holding his breath and taking a sip of the Mount Gay Extra Old.)

David and I don't normally drink whiskey, either, and with good reason -- it's too strong for us. Mount Gay Extra Old, which tasted like whiskey to us, had the same kind of punch, too... it took a bit of commitment to drink it on the rocks, as we were told by the locals to do...

...so how did it go?

I ended up diluting the powerful rum with my vodka martini...

...while David poured the rum into his tropical fruity drink. We did this rather stealthily, as we did not want anyone thinking we were lame American/Australian tourists. (We also had drank a bit before dinner at the welcome cocktail party, where one could order any kind of drink for free... one might imagine how we went.)

As we mentioned in an earlier blog, there was a live band that played at dinner, so David and I got to dance a bit. We weren't lame on the dance floor! I think we provided quite a "show"...

(One of numerous sugar cane fields on the island.)

David and I enjoyed Barbados, although we did not see much of it. We ate a few interesting things: We ate grilled barracuda, which I never knew one could eat -- it was delicious. And we tried a coconut bread at the airport, which was kind of reminiscent of banana bread but much more dense, hard, almost (quite heavy in its weight, could hurt someone if one flung it with enough force), not sweet but aromatic. We developed a taste for it.


We also tried a tamarind ball at the airport. This we did not care for. It's a ball of sugar granules with tamarind and other spices. Surprisingly not sweet and with an interesting, tart flavor, but we could not imagine eating a whole ball of it.

And so it went. We kicked off our Caribbean getaway with a bit of initiation into Caribbean-style treats and rum. Our rum-interest, especially, had been piqued in Barbados... which turned out to be useful, as we discovered in Mustique that rum drinks simply seem to go best on the beach, in the tropical heat!