Spent the morning wandering around ‘the delightful seaside town’ of Oistins where our Airbnb is situated. At least that’s what the Barbados tourism brochures say. It’s a fishing village about 30 minutes around the coast from the capital that has turned into a backpacker oriented town. Actually it does have lovely white sand beaches, so that part is true. We keep going to the ‘Surfers Cafe’ on the beach for morning coffee, but as yet haven’t seen any surfers, although we did see one older white male kite-surfing.
It’s really a fishing village, where the main attraction is the fish market. Consequently, the main supermarket in the town doesn’t have a fish section. There is also a large food market stall type area known as the Oistins Fish Fry, which is the big attraction for the town, and really comes alive on a Friday evening when half of Barbados descends on the town for live music and community eating.
Other than that, it’s the usual rundown Caribbean town where nothing much is maintained. Reminds me a lot of Jamaica, though luckily there doesn’t seem to be a lot of pot smoking and associated obnoxious hassling and aggression towards tourists that you find there. We have been puzzling for a few days over why the people don’t seem to be at all friendly. Every blog post I’ve read bemoans the diffident service and lack of interaction found almost everywhere. It’s just the way things seem to be. You can get right through a supermarket checkout without the girl even looking at you. I ordered our coffees at the restaurant this morning, whence the girl didn’t respond, and just walked away. Ten minutes later she walked over and stuck a card machine under my nose, and then walked away again without saying anything. Eventually two coffee cups were put on the counter, and the barista walked away. The bus drivers don’t even look at you when you get on. It’s a first-in, best-dressed, push past you type of place, and it doesn’t seem to be just how they treat tourists. Often they seem to serve people without even getting off their phone.
The beach was an interesting sight. Lots of mature locals in swimming, well at least standing. I guess that learning to swim isn’t a thing here as almost every person had a pool noodle tied around their waist and they were just bobbing about in the water. At least that explains why we have two pool noodles hanging in our shower. Did wonder about the chance of drowning in the bathroom.
After paddling about in the main Miami Beach, then drinking our coffee on the beach overlooking the Caribbean Sea, we walked all the way up to the top of Oistins Hill, passing the big ‘foundation’ (primary) school to the big, old Anglican church of Oistins, known somewhat confusingly as Christ Church. The municipality here is also known as Christ Church, so you have a lot of churches in Christ Church including Christ Church Christ Church, and the Church of Christ Christ Church.
Anyway, this particular church was the church of the establishment and plantation owners, with lots of huge gravestones and crypts of wealthy families in the church grounds. Outside the church walls and all the way across the hill were the simple plots of the plebs. Seems that there was a lot of discrimination and regulation of people who didn’t belong to the establishment CofE church, especially if you were Jewish, a Quaker, or coloured.
The afternoon was spent hanging around, reading and resting, soaking up the last of the warmth before we head to sub-zero temperatures up north. Dinner at the fish-fry.
Christ Church
Christ Church
Miami Beach, Oistins