Pirates and Beauty Queens

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5-19
Hotel: Silverpoint Hotel, Barbados, $177
Flight: Austin (AUS) to Dallas (DFW), American
Flight: Dallas (DFW) to Miami (MIA), American
Flight: Miami (MIA) to Barbados (BGI), American
It's been a bit of an adventure just getting here! We arrived at the airport early morning on Saturday to find our our original Austin-Atlanta flight was delayed, and Delta was rebooking people on alternative flights. After waiting 45 minutes in line, we finally had an itinerary to take over to American, where we found out Delta had given us an illegal connection time in San Juan. By the time we had sorted this out, it was too late for checkin with American, and not possible to make it to Antigua the same day. Since we had tickets from Barbados the next morning, I then asked if they could reaccommodate us to Barbados instead of Antigua, using M's internet phone I finally found a routing via Dallas and Miami to Barbados. After almost two hours on hold, it turned out Delta couldn't change my ticket, but was willing to change M's. I had booked my ticket with Northwest miles, and M's with Delta miles.. since it was Deltas fault the flight was late, they were willing to send her to Barbados, but wouldn't change mine since it was a Northwest ticket. Finally M got in the AA line while I ran over to Delta to reticket her itinerary. Took only a few minutes and since the Northwest counter was next door, I asked if they could now change my ticket. They couldn't as they were busy still checking in people. They gave me a gate pass so I could have my ticket reissued at the Northwest gate; running through security and down to the other end of the terminal they were able to reacommodate my ticket on American as well. Whew. Ran down to the other end of the terminal, still waiting on M who had checked in our bags at the American desk and was still going through security. We made the flight to Dallas barely with minutes to spare!

We had a few hr layover in Dallas, after going to the lounge found out M and I were booked on different Dallas-Miami flights. The earlier flight was sold out and I would have to wait to get a seat at the gate. The flight was totally full, no chance of an upgrade at the last minute. We were able to get seats together though luckily. We had a 3+ hr layover in Miami before our flight to Barbados, we went to the lounge to drop off our things then went and had a jerked chicken sandwich in a pasty bun. why is airport food so unappetizing? Finally we boarded the flight to Barbados after they changed terminals on us! The flight was pretty uneventful, but we actually had to buy dinner onboard, no more free meals in coach, even international flights to the Caribbean! The Barbados airport was pretty new and had signs all over for the cricket World Cup which had been in April. I had booked a last minute hotel for Barbados when we were in Miami, the Silver Point. Our taxi driver took us everywhere else, Silver Crest, Silver Wave, etc before finally finding our hotel. By this point it was nearly 11PM and our flight out the next morning was at 8AM. The guard already had our reservation, but reception had already closed. The Silver Point hotel was quite nice, certainly worth a check if we ever come back. But we pretty much crashed after setting up an early wakeup call and taxi.

5-20
Flight: Barbados (BGI) to St Vincent (SVD), LIAT
Early wake the next morning for our taxi to the airport. The reception wasn't open yet for the hotel, good thing our stay was prepaid! As we were arriving at the Barbados airport, Dean and Scott showed up as well. They had spent the previous week in the Caribbean hitting all the independent countries; St. Kitts, Antigua, Dominica, St. Lucia and Barbados. We checked in for our flight, and still had over an hour to wait. We grabbed a quick breakfast before going through immigration. We didn't have to pay a departure tax here. Our flight to St. Vincent was about half full and only took 40 minutes. We arrived early, but took awhile at the airport to see if we could checkin our bags for our evening flight. It was too early, but the Customs area would let us store our bags for the day. I tried the ATM, first time failed but second time was a charm. We caught a taxi (EC25) into town, first checking at the ferry to find the sailing times to Bequia (pronounced Beck-way). Sunday isn't the time to visit St. Vincent; everything is closed and the minibuses don't run so often. We had a good breakfast at the Cobblestone Inn, then hired a minibus for EC60 ($17) to take us up the west coast out to Wallibou (sp?) bay, where they filmed Pirates of the Caribbean. It took about 40 minutes, over the winding roads. The film crew had left the film set mainly intact, but with time some of the fake stone/plywood was already falling apart. There was a huge pile of empty coke bottles lying around left by the film crew! We walked the plank (not nearly as adept as Johnny Depp) over to the peir then back. We walked back into town, about 20 minutes (quite warm at this point), and were enjoying an icy Sprite in a shop when suddenly these guys on motorcycles pull up and say that the Miss St. Vincent contestants are about to arrive. We go outside to have a look and this truck pulls up blasting music with a busload of beauty queens. They all come out and seeing us, rush over and say hello and ask how we are enjoying St. Vincent! What a neat experience! We then waited for over an hour for a minibus back to Kingstown... again Sunday being a slow day. It was almost 3 PM by the time we arrived back in Kingstown, and we deciced not to try the east coast, spent awhile walking through town to a few churches; Kingstown not being very large. We then went to the ferry to see about Melissa's ticket. It was still over an hour, so we all had a beer. Soon the ferry arrived and Melissa and I had a long kiss goodbye; she was going to go to Bequia for a few days, then onto St. Lucia, while Dean, Scott and I went onto the Guianas. We hopped in a taxi back to the airport, but still had a few hrs wait before our flight. We were on the same flight, but I would be getting off in Grenada for 24 hrs while Dean and Scott went onto Trinidad. I would fly onto Trinidad the next evening.

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Photos

Pub
Arr.. tis a movie set I see

More sets
Just molded stone over plywood, they are already falling apart

St Vincent Beauties
gearing up for Vincy Mas