Posted by:
contessa
(---.bos.east.verizon.net)
I, also, love Barbados!! Great restaurants and terrific people. I honestly can't say the people are stuffy, just more mannerly than most other islanders. That probably comes from the fact that most are very educated. But, family life is important, too. I used to work for a hotel there and got to get around quite a bit. Can't say enough about the place. In fact, I think that's where we're vacationing in Feb.
Re: Bermuda, I worked for a hotel there, too, and really like the island and people, but they're much more reserved than Barbados or any other island I've visited. Beautiful beaches, great restaurants and pricy!
Re: DR We visited a couple of years ago. Can't remember the resort, but it wa 4*. Eh....not 4* by my standards. Food, mediocre. Beaches, crowded and also, not impressive. Security Guards on the beach. One day we decided to go into town. We took a taxi. A short time after we got into the taxi he made a stop and told us we had to visit his 'cousin's' store. What? We told him we didn't want to get out, we wanted to go into town. He said he was stopping and we could take a bus into town. Can you believe that? So, guess what.....we went into the store. We didn't buy anything much to the taxidrivers surprise. So, then he acquiesed and took us into town, which wasn't impressive, either. While walking along and going in and out of stores, two women approached us and appeared nervous and scared. One asked us if they could join us. They told us that a man was following them since they got off the bus. When we looked behind us, there was a man staying close behind us. My husband went up to him and asked him what he wanted. He said he was the women's 'escort'. They'd never met him before. Apparantly, from what we gathered from him, he was staying with them and when they purchased something from a store, the store-owner gave him a percentage of what they purchased. He was supposed to encourage people to shop in a particular store. A complete scam!! Who needs this added B.S.? My hubby gave him a few words of 'advice' and he quickly left our group. These poor ladies were from Canada and they travel quite a bit and have never encountered anything like this.
A while into our walk we found the courthouse. Of course, my husband had to go inside. As we were entering a homeless woman came up to him and grabbed his pant leg. We didn't know what the heck was going on, but she started pointing at his sneakers. It became obvious that she wanted his size 13 & a halfs!! This poor soul could have sat inside his shoes, so it became obvious she wanted to sell them. And he wasn't parting with them, either!! She was relentless just hanging onto him! We offered her money but she didn't want it, she wanted his shoes and she wasn't taking no for an answer. Finally, he 'shook' her off himself and we ran down the road to get away from her. All we wanted at this point was to find a taxi to get the h*ll out of Dodge!! All this happened within one hour of being in town. We found a taxi, left town never to return!!
We can laugh about it now, but it was tense, at the time!
Sure, these things don't happen in SXM......in all my 60+ times there!! However, there are worse things going on, now. No sneakers......guns, machetes and possible bodily harm. Enough to shake my 'fix' of the island, for a long while. C'est la vie!
Contessa