There are no words to describe the experience of riding in one of those 'buses', but I was lucky this time (or else was the designated old lady) and was told to climb in the front seat instead of crawling to a seat in the back.
This sounded pretty good to me until someone crawled into the single passenger seat with me, and I was forced up onto a middle hump between the driver on my right (they drive on the left) and the passenger on my left. I was half on his lap, and I'm certain that neither of us was thrilled by that, and there was nothing at all for me to hold on to except the men on either side of me, so, of course, I pressed my left hand against the ceiling of the van (my right hand was clutching my beach bag, trying to keep it off the center gear shift that was almost between my legs). It took all my energy to keep myself from landing on either that gear shift or the driver's lap.
See, you just can't pay for memories like these.
Even more lucky for me than being granted a spot in the front was that, after several stops, my passenger got out and I had the WHOLE passenger seat to myself.
Now, this was providence. For the first time ever, I had a front row seat for one of the most exciting rides of my life. I turned my iPhone on and videoed several segments, which captures this experience far better than words or photos. You really have to get the full sensory effects of the minivan's La Cucaracha-sounding horn, the Caribbean rap music being played on the van's radio, and the buildings and traffic racing by at high speed while we careened down the 'wrong' side of the road to understand why we consider these sorts of experiences to be highlights of our cruise, and why spending the winter at a condo in Florida just couldn't compare.
I need high speed wifi to post the videos, so I'll try to get them uploaded to YouTube in the next few days, and link to them from here. I promise you, it will be worth the wait.
Once in Bridgetown, we were deposited at the private bus terminal, a couple of blocks beyond the public one, surrounded by all sorts of stalls selling everything from produce to shoes to haircuts to fried flying fish. It was getting late, though, and we had to be back on the ship by 3:30pm, so as much as we would have loved to do some Christmas shopping (haha), we needed to keep on walking.
Along the way, we walked over a different boardwalk that was my personal Waterloo last winter when, 20 minutes from the ship with 20 minutes to go before we had to be on board (WHY do we do that to ourselves?), my sandal caught and I took a fall that stopped both G's and my heart. Luckily, I was able to limp back to the ship with one knee highly bruised and the other swollen to twice it's normal size. This year we thankfully had no such excitement and we arrived back at the ship with 9 whole minutes to spare.
At which point G suggested we go walk around some more, since we were so early.
Yep, that's my guy! Never a dull moment.
Look closely at the second photo and you'll see our first glimpse of the back of the Emerald Princess, a sight too sweet for words after a long hot, sweaty, salty and sandy day on Barbados.