We’ve finished our time in the Caribbean on a high note. Several months ago, I booked a private tour of Barbados with Mike’s Maxi Taxi Tours. Michael met us outside the cruise ship terminal at about 9:45am. For the next 7.5 hours, he took us from one end of Barbados to the other and back again while telling the story of his family and their African slave heritage.
We traced a clockwise circuit around the tear-shaped island, travelling up the resort-friendly west coast to its rocky northern tip from Bridgetown, then back down the stormy Atlantic east coast. To complete the circuit, we crossed the island's hilly interior to the international airport on the southern coast. We spent very little time in Bridgetown, the nation's capital, beyond a quick stop outside its cricket stadium and a visit to popstar Rihana's childhood home.
Rihanna’s childhood home was a curious sight. Her original home felt more like a shrine to royalty than a real house. This is definitely one island nation that's enormously proud of its greatest cultural export. Our photo stop at the Grammy-winning singer’s first home was followed by a drive-by of her fancy new digs at One Sandy Lane, a gated community on the island's east coast.
One Sandy Lane is run like a private, five-star boutique hotel. There is a staff of 34, including gardeners and security personnel, who are always on hand to keep everything running like clockwork. In addition, each of its eight palatial villas has its own private staff, such as a chauffeur, housekeeper, butler, and chef.
It's easy to see why the island's west coast, with its upscale luxury resorts, plush private villas, white-sand beaches and calm, clear waters, is known as "the Platinum Coast." Tiger Woods was married here, and Concorde once flew in celebrities on a scheduled weekly flight. I was surprised to discover that a Concorde retired here in November 2003. Unfortunately, for us, this popular tourist attraction is now closed to the public.
As we've travelled through the Caribbean, we've learned that former British colonies are typically divided into districts called parishes. Barbados is no different. It consists of eleven such districts, each with its own head church. The island’s oldest parish is St. James Parish in Holetown. It was established in 1628 near the site where English settlers first landed.
Today, a magnificent parish church stands on the site of the island's first church. The original building was a wooden structure built in 1675, while the current stone building dates back to 1874. However, some of its stonework comes from an earlier stone structure built in the 1690s. We caught a brief glimpse inside but couldn't enter as a Sunday service was in progress.
Mike then drove us to the island's northernmost tip for a tour of the Animal Flower Caves. These coastal caverns were carved by wild seas relentlessly pounding the island’s northern and eastern coast. A steep staircase takes you into a surprisingly spacious cavern with filled shallow rock pools, while a second cavern features a natural swimming hole.
The animal flowers they’re named after are actually delicate sea anemones living in the cave's tidal waters. We considered taking a dip in the cave pool. However, the sea along the Atlantic coast isn’t particularly warm, so we gave it a miss. As you can see from the opening image, the view from the caves is pretty spectacular.
We drove through the island’s sugar cane fields past chattel homes that once housed the emancipated slaves. While Jim Crow Laws never took hold here, an equally oppressive local landowner ordinance required plantation workers to move their homes every three years. Hence, these early structures were both small and cleverly segmented for easy transportation.
These modest homes stand in stark contrast to those built by the island's wealthy plantation owners. At my request, we visited St Nicholas Abbey, one of the island’s lovingly restored plantation homesteads. Curiously, despite the name, it’s never been a religious facility. It was built around the year 1660. At its peak, it was considered to be one of the most successful sugarcane plantations in the Caribbean.
These days, most of the Abbey’s income is derived from tourism and rum. According to Mike, it’s the only plantation homestead currently open to the public. It’s been distilling and bottling its own prestigious brand of rum since 1750. Much to our delight, visitors are welcome to wander through the estate’s warehouse filled with precious barrels of ageing rum. We also stumbled upon a staff member diligently filling and capping its fancy bottles in a repurposed building next door.
I'm so glad we added this attraction to our itinerary. The Abbey wasn't included in the tour I originally booked, but Mike agreed to slot it in for us. The old homestead gave a good sense of colonial life during the island's colonial plantation era, offering a stark contrast to the numerous demountable homes we'd driven past.
The Abbey’s story is in many respects the story of Barbados. Take, for example, the island’s landscape dominated by open fields. Until 1660, Barbados was clad largely in thick forest, remnants of which still cover its inland hills. In less than a decade, the forests were gone, replaced by sugarcane fields.
The ownership of these fields was highly concentrated. In 1667, records show that 745 families owned most of the island’s land, and from 1680, more than half of the land and its many plantations were owned by less than 100 families for the next 100 years.
Conversely, in 1644, there were only about 800 people of African descent, but this shifted rapidly to 27,000 by 1660 and 50,000 by 1700. Barbados was the Caribbean’s first "sugar island" and thus developed the model for plantation-based slavery across the region. It’s no surprise to learn that it acted as a major hub for the British slave trade. Historians estimate that up to 400,000 people were brought to Barbados from Africa.
I asked Mike about his black heritage. He explained that he could trace his ancestry back to a forebearer documented in records made shortly after emancipation in 1834. However, before the date, his family lineage is impossible to trace. Slaves were sold without family records, and families were regularly separated by these sales.
Furthermore, as Mike noted, it’s impossible to trace his ancestors from Africa. Modern DNA testing might yield a few clues, but beyond the limitations of modern science, there’s no way of knowing where on the continent they once lived. It’s mind-blowing to think that entire populations across the Caribbean are unable to trace their ancestry to an area of the world no smaller than a continent.
Mike made a stop at Cherry Hill for a stunning view of the island’s stormy east coast, and again at the Morgan Lewis Windmill. Since 2013, the Morgan Lewis Sugar Mill has featured on the reverse of the Barbados two-dollar banknote. It’s the last of 506 windmills that once crushed cane around the island. Unfortunately, it was closed during our visit, so we had to satisfy ourselves with a view from the car park.
According to Mike, there's only one sugar mill still processing cane in Barbados. In 1721, a survey by William Mayo recorded 320 windmills and 870 sugar estates. By 1895, the industry was rapidly modernising, with 102 steam-driven mills supplementing around 338 remaining windmills.
Lunch was a simple affair, just fish and chips. That is, Flying Fish and chips. Yes, read that correctly. Flying Fish is a rather delicate fish and tastes a lot like sole or flounder. Another first for me.
Our tour finished with a wander along the beach in Bathsheba, a location renowned for its eye-catching “mushroom rocks”. Our flight to Heathrow departed on time (although a brief but intense rainstorm delayed our walk across the tarmac to board our plane).
Garry and I slept like babies on the flight to London. We’re now resting in the lounge before boarding our flight to Frankfurt this afternoon. The Caribbean was everything we’d hoped for and then some. The colonial history alone was genuinely eye-opening.
It’s hard to imagine the great powers of Europe that now drive the European Union were once bitter rivals constantly doing battle throughout the Caribbean. Our guide reminded us today that St Lucia changed hands seven times between the French and the British before gaining independence in 1979.
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