Pearly light shimmers off the early-morning ocean as a swimmer breaks the
water, tearing a surface as still, tense and silver as mercury. Back on
shore, life has a less subtle, more primary palette: a breakfast of orange
guavas and fresh cherry juice watched by an inquisitive yellow-eyed
blackbird and a tiny bananaquit, hovering over white and pink hibiscus.
It’s a vivid, intoxicating mix — exactly what you’d expect from an island that
is rarely out of the paparazzi spotlight. For the past couple of years, I’ve
been increasingly curious about Barbados. Why is it impossible to pick up a
paper without a mention of which famous person stayed where? Just what is it
about the place that keeps it in the news? It seems to be the most
fashionable winter destination — even the Russians are coming here now.
In particular, I wondered why people talked about the “west coast” as if
really there were no other coast in Barbados worth talking about. It turns
out that the west coast is expensive, smart, glittering with fine
restaurants. This is the Caribbean served on silver platters. Don’t expect
miles of white beaches and laughing inhabitants — this is poised, elegant
and respectful.
It’s beautiful, of course, because somehow nobody can take white sand and make
it too white, or package clear water in a Tiffany box, or wrap the sunset
into a silk scarf for a wealthy wife to wear. Nature here remains raw,
gorgeous, tropical, far more tastefully opulent than the marble corridors of
Sandy Lane.
In our west-coast hotel, the Fairmont Royal Pavilion, each room was right on
the ocean, so we stepped from our terrace over a tiny wall into sand so soft
you felt you might disappear, and a minute later you were plunging into
water that had a particular ability to remove all anxieties, like clothes no
longer needed. My friend was recovering from her mother’s death last autumn,
and the suicide of a good friend, and needed all the restorative warm, clear
Caribbean water and glorious sunsets she could get. The first few days, she
hardly noticed her surroundings, but bit by bit Barbados worked its magic.
The poet Horace said those who travel or depart change only their skies, not
their condition, but I’m not so sure.
There was plenty to notice. All day long there was the whisper and twitter of
birds, as if passing on some riveting gossiping, and at dusk the cry of the
tree frogs, which jump over your path, startling you as the trees are
silhouetted dark against the sky. In the Fairmont’s tropical gardens, purple
morning-glory clambered over a fountain with the head of a lion spitting
water, and a “bearded fig tree” flamboyantly extended its roots — the trees
are said to have given Barbados its name, Los Barbudos, Portuguese for
bearded ones.
Eating on the hotel’s Palm Terrace, backed by the echoes of the ocean, the
trees so particularly green and lush, I began to understand why many British
visitors turn up here on the west coast, stay in one of the fine hotels,
decide they want the holiday to last longer, maybe a lifetime, and end up
buying somewhere. It’s not an adventurous choice. Here they drive on the
left and have dog shows and a Glyndebourne-style opera season, as well as
polo, horseracing and plenty of cricket. It is an idealised 1950s Britain
transported to a lavish tropical island, and what is wrong with that? No
wonder Tony Blair comes here to escape 21st-century Britain, staying at
Cliff Richard’s house high on Sugar Hill, guarded by stone greyhounds.
The problem might be the other British, American and Russian residents of the
“Platinum Coast”. The business-class and first-class seats are full on the
plane out there, yet some in economy are empty. We went for lunch at the
Sandy Lane hotel, which has helped brand Barbados as a luxurious resort. In
the plush marble foyer, a middle-aged American man sat on a pink-seated
chair, as if on a throne, and puffed cigar smoke into the atmosphere while
his wife hovered nearby, her eyes full of panic.
It is an awful irony that if you become extremely rich you tend to spend time
with other rich, spoilt people, whereas those in the local youth hostel are
probably far more fun.
We also ate at The Cliff, the most revered and expensive restaurant on the
island, set in an amphitheatre of terraces overlooking a cove, the waves
crashing against the floodlit rocks below. It was pompous and overpriced.
Far better was the Lone Star restaurant, right by the sand, with flaming
brands at night, and mirrors propped up here and there to reflect the ocean,
so nothing was quite as it seemed. Not that that was cheap, either. The west
coast is not somewhere to economise.
ON THE FOURTH DAY, my friend still sad, we were sunbathing on a diving
platform when a huge Rastafarian popped up by our side, suggesting that we
join a boat trip to swim with turtles and dive down to a shipwreck.
“Yes!” I said.
“No,” said my friend.
“Come on,” I said. She smiled slowly, opening up to the possibility of a new
adventure. “Well, maybe.” The Rastafarian abandoned us, but the boat
eventually arrived, speeding us past great mansions cascading down to the
ocean. We swam beside friendly hawksbill turtles that seemed happy to have
us as companions, and later explored an old shipwreck’s rusting metal
skeleton — one Barbados visitor who had chosen to set up permanent home in
the sun-licked, cobalt ocean.
Whether it was the turtles or the stoned Rastafarian or the dazzling tropical
fish, by the next day my friend had begun to cheer up, and we decided to
investigate other parts of the island. “The west coast is very spruced up
because of the tourists,” our driver told us.
“But the north and east are natural. We all like the east coast best — you get
a lovely breeze there, actually.” The Barbadians, or “Bajans”, use “lovely”
and “actually” nearly as much as my mother. “The east coast is where we all
go on holiday.”
We headed north along the coast, past the Sugar Hill estate, to Six Men’s Bay,
a fishing village where women in headscarves and aprons deftly filleted
flying fish. A lady in a pink T-shirt with a straw hat sporting a pink
flower sat on a wall by a church, resting her weight on her umbrella.
“Churches for the women, rum shops for the men,” remarked the driver. At
last we were beginning to see snapshots, glimpses, of the old Barbados.
Next we travelled east, across the island, through banana and sugar
plantations and fields of papaya, by grey-stone parish churches and grand
plantation houses, and by pastel wooden chattel cottages, built on rubble so
they could be moved. We saw a shape dash over the road. “Look at that
monkey,” said the driver. “Did you see it?” “Yes!” we both cried. It was
final proof, as if more were needed, that we were now most definitely in a
tropical country.
Up in the mountains, on a terrace of Naniki restaurant, we ate salt bread and
seared flying fish with Creole sauce as a breeze cooled our necks. The epic
view took in the hazy hills of “Scotland”, leading down to the eastern
Atlantic coast, where froths of waves crash down on wide, empty beaches.
Here you can find the surfers’ heaven of Bathsheba and the dishevelled,
romantic Atlantis hotel, with its windswept lunch terrace. This is where I’d
stay if I returned, a perfect writer’s retreat.
We drove away from the windy and rugged east coast, up a hill, to the
magnificent gothic St John’s Parish Church, where a man was gilding the
altar screen as two little sparrows flew up and perched on the cross, one on
each side of Christ. From its churchyard, we looked back down at the misty,
craggy coast as an ice-cream van and its nostalgic tune shimmered below us.
We seemed to be in another time.
FROM THEN ON, we truly relaxed. Sunday was a risqué black drag act — one
song’s refrain was “You can always use my butt” — at Holetown’s Ragamuffin’s
restaurant, a ramshackle old chattel house. Its porch was the perfect spot
to hang out in the heat, while the street outside filled with locals as well
as guests, and broke out into a spontaneous party.
But if we wanted to let our hair down, it had to be a Friday in the livelier
south of the island. More specifically, it had to be the fishing village of
Oistins. Bob Marley serenaded us as we sat by the ocean and fish arrived at
our table, grilled or fried in nearby beach shacks. Later, we stood in the
doorway of a rum shop and watched dancing Bajan couples; one stately elderly
gent tenderly held the back of a vast woman dressed in red as they moved to
As Time Goes By. It seemed we were glimpsing Barbados in all its quiet
dignity.
In the last few days, we changed hotels — moving to the small, friendly
Sandpiper — but stayed on the west coast. By the very last evening, my
friend was so relaxed she had no desire to stop drinking champagne and
laughing. It was a transformation. Now I was the one who wanted to get to
bed. “But listen to the tree frogs,” she said with a beatific smile. She was
much, much better. Horace was definitely wrong.
Sally Emerson travelled as a guest of Caribtours
Travel brief
Tour operators: Caribtours (020 7751 0660, www.caribtours.co.uk)
has a week in an ocean-front deluxe room at the Fairmont Royal Pavilion from £1,377pp,
B&B, including flights to Barbados with British Airways or Virgin
Atlantic, private transfers and airport-lounge access on departure from
Gatwick. A week in a garden room at the Sandpiper starts at £1,386pp, B&B,
with flights, transfers and lounge access as above. UK regional connections
from Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester and Newcastle are free of
charge.
Alternatively, try Complete Caribbean (01423 531031, www.completecaribbean.co.uk),
Harlequin Holidays (01708 850300, www.harlequinholidays.com), Elegant
Resorts (01244 897999, www.elegantresorts.co.uk) or Carrier (0161 491 7620,
www.carrier.co.uk).
Getting around: as the island is relatively small (about 15 miles
by 18 miles), taxis are the best option for getting around. They can be hired
per journey for about 75p per mile or booked for the day or half-day for sightseeing
tours (from £9 per hour). Local buses are regular and cheap (40p per
ride), but as most services fan out from the capital, Bridgetown, they aren’t
great for travelling from your hotel to restaurants or beaches.
You can also hire a car; from £50 per day with local companies such as
Corbins Car Rentals (00 1-246 427 9531, www.corbinscars.com) or Direct Car
Rentals (246 420 6372, www.barbadoscars.com).
Further information: call the Barbados Tourism Authority in London
on 020 7636 9448, or visit www.visitbarbados.co.uk.
