Last week in Barbados

This past week has been phenomenal. Last Friday night, we went to Oistens which is a small town on the South coast of Barbados very well known for its Friday night fish fry. The whole main street of the town is right next to the beach and is set up with many small food/drink stands all in front of a large stage with music playing. There are picnic tables set up everywhere so you can get food from any of the vendors and sit wherever. Every place is selling a combination of kingfish, marlin, dolphin, mahi mahi, tuna, mackerel, fish cakes, flying fish, barracuda and shrimp. Basically it is a huge outdoor party where everyone is eating fish and drinking beer or rum and dancing to reggae music. There were a lot of tourists there, but many locals as well, so it had a really fun vibe.

A few of us woke up really early Saturday morning and headed up to the north coast beach to go fishing with a guy we had met earlier in the week. He is a friend of our professor and had offered to take a few of us out on his boat for his weekly Saturday morning scuba diving harpoon fishing. Him and two other Bajan guys go almost every Saturday and Sunday morning to fish, mostly just to eat the fish themselves, but they do sell some of it as well. We were out on the water for about 5 hours and during that time they each dove twice, for about 45 minutes each time. They would surface with a wire of between 5 to 12 fish each that they had shot - an assortment of parrot fish, red belly chub, mackerel, ning ning (local name - not sure what the real name is) and barracudas. The fish literally looked like someone colored them with neon magic markers because they are all so brightly colorful. Between dives, we anchored closer to shore and went snorkeling near a jetty. The water is so salty that is so easy to swim and we just needed masks, not even life jackets or flippers or anything. Being out on the water was so great and gave us a good idea of real, non-touristy Bajan life.

Monday afternoon we had decided to again go out on a boat, but to do some more touristy activities - snorkeling and swimming with sea turtles! We were out on a glass bottom boat which also had an upper part which you could climb up to and soak up some sun. We weren't very far off shore to snorkel, but the water is so clear so you can basically see the bottom everywhere. We jumped in to snorkel and were immediately surrounded by schools of fish... some small striped ones as well as larger, shiny purplish ones. The local guys who took us out were throwing some bread in the water so they fish were jumping at us to get to the bread. It was a little weird at first, but then when there was no bread and I was actually trying to touch the fish, it was hard to. We relocated again and were able to swim around for about 45 minutes with approximately 12 sea turtles. Some were bigger than other, but none more than 3 feet long. We could touch them and try to hold on to them too. It was amazing! Their shells were kinda slimy and their fins (hands/feet?) were really rough.

Tuesday night was the beginning of the Twenty20 Caribbean cricket tournament which is being hosted here in Barbados at the main famous stadium, Kensington Oval. We went to the 8pm match which was the Winward Islands versus Leeward Islands. The stadium is quite large and is really cool. There is a party stand section where you can buy tickets to and not sit in the regular stands. They have music playing all the time and food and drinks. I somewhat understand the rules/scoring of cricket now, but still have a long way to go. Is has just been really fun to attempt to understand the value and centrality of cricket to life here in Barbados. It is far beyond the importance of any sport we have in the US. Maybe slightly comparable to baseball as America's past-time, but not totally since cricket is legitimately a way of life here.

We had our final dinner last night at our friends local rum shop and go to say bye to all the Bajans who helped us out this whole trip and who were our classmates. Some of the students left this morning and everyone else is leaving this afternoon. I will stay here one more night and fly to St. Lucia tomorrow. So excited for the next part of my Caribbean adventure... and if it's anything like Barbados, I'm not sure I will ever spend another winter in the US!