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Feeding turtles and conjoined tortoises

It was inevitable there would be another incident with the authorities, fortunately this time we were merely onlookers. Our bus, the number 27 to Oistins, pulled out from the gap by the racecourse and onto the main road at the Garrison, ignoring a compulsory stop sign directly in front of the Hastings Police Station. That, in our view, was asking for trouble and within several hundred metres the bus was being hounded by a police Land Rover, lights flashing and siren wailing. So there we all were, in the middle of the highway, traffic backed up, while the driver got a good old fashioned dressing down from the local constabulary. It seems to be one of the things about the authorities on Barbados; they like to make a point and then let matters rest. We were free to go.
At 41,000 feet above the Atlantic Ocean, heading away from the Caribbean Sea and on our way back to London it was time to reflect on our last few days on paradise. Along with several of Fleur’s current colleagues and two former ones from Dusseldorf, we headed north east to the Barbados Wildlife Reserve where, it seems, they have a prized collection of conjoined tortoises. The park claims the largest gathering of tortoises in captivity and it may well be right, but these tortoises were not conjoined at all, they were merely ensuring the continuation of the park’s population; hundreds of the things grunting and humping, making more noise than on a pornographic movie set. For those like us who had not previously considered the question, tortoises have toenails and are land-based creatures whereas turtles have flippers and swim. In any event, this island has presented to us an absolute feast of both.
The park is home to a number of iguana, some spectacled caiman (a species of small crocodile), Brocket deer, brilliantly coloured parrots and a huge python which only has to be fed once a month. More regularly fed are the green monkeys which are not so much housed in the park, but come and go as they please. It’s more come than go at feeding time and we were captivated. These are not your usual unpleasant, mangy, bare-red-bummed monkeys, but quite cute ones and we, the collection of school teachers and us, took hundreds of photos. It was quite remarkable, the tortoises took time out from copulating and hot-footed it to the food (faster than a hare they were), pushing their way past the human onlookers and then, looking like a collection of boulders, ate while the monkeys used them as stepping stones and perches in their own bid for food. We were entranced as the monkeys entertained, particularly one with a very small baby, and would have stayed an hour or more.
The day was completed with a visit to the home of two other teachers, for tea and cake on their deck which looks out over a bay called St Martin’s on the Atlantic coast. This is the sort of place that makes it tempting not to ever go home. Set among a banana plantation, these people have all the modern conveniences such as internet and television, and a million-dollar view over the blue waters of a palm tree-lined bay. What could be more enchanting?
We will miss Oistins, a working class part of the island. On our last night we went to the fish market and close a couple of fresh fish, the variety of which we cannot recall and, while they were being gutted and filleted, went out onto the wharf armed with fish scraps to see if we could spot any turtles to feed. There were and of course there was the local who, for a donation, would lure them to the surface and, in this case, actually jump in the water to hand-fed them.
How good is it to be able to pick out the fresh fish and wait as it is prepared? There are flying fish, barracuda, snapper, kingfish, tuna and the much discussed dolphin. Perhaps it is time to confess that the dolphin, which we didn’t actually sample, is not the mammal we know and love but is something described on the Barbados web guide as an ugly but delicious fish.
Another thing we will miss about Barbados will be the daily newspaper, The Nation, with its remarkable reporting style. Our last day’s highlight story was that of Verna Alodia Louis of Syndicate Road, Bush Hall, St Michael who was determined to establish whether the postman’s threat not to deliver any more of her mail had substance. She posted letters to herself, got her husband and her friends to do the same, and in the absence of their being delivered telephoned the Attorney General’s office and threatened to blow up the post office with two sticks of dynamite. After being reprimanded by Magistrate Christopher Birch, Verna was discharged without conviction, but we are none the wiser whether her mail delivery will resume.