We had a nice dinner with two of the cast members, Gemma is the dance captain and we had sailed with her last year on the Voyager and Marshall is the male singer who had worked and lived in Las Vegas for a few years so we had lots of things to talk about.
On Sunday morning we arrived in Barbados. We had an 8 am tour so we had to get up a bit earlier than usual for us. Being Palm Sunday the town was very quiet, very little traffic and most stores were closed. Out tour was a photography tour with a local professional photographer, Ronnie Carrington. He was an excellent tour guide telling us all about Barbados and taking us to several places to take photos. He showed us a lot of his own photos as well as giving us tips for our shots. One of the stops was to have a rum punch at a small restored hotel that was originally built about 1830. At that time there was a railroad that was used to transport the sugar cane. There is very little sugar cane grown on the island now so we saw a lot of unused agricultural land.
At one time there were hundreds of sugar plantations with small homes called "chattel houses" that housed the workers. The chattel houses are interesting in that they are meant to be easily moved since the workers would not own the land, only their house. They were all the same basic construction, wood in 10 or 12 foot lengths (the available lumber size) set on rocks. They have a steep roof with no overhang because of hurricane winds. They all start with one section and may have been added onto over time with additional sections and sheds. The fronts all have a center door with two windows evenly spaced on each side. Our tour guide told us that originally all the chattel housed were the same color, brown with white trim but now they are often painted in bright colors.
The front of the chattel house
No comments:
Post a Comment