from the desk of stinkpot

i’m really behind in sorting through the photos i’ve been taking.  here’re some from a trip i took with my family to the caribbean over the christmas break.  the trip was quite lovely — i can’t remember the last time my family was together, just the four of us, for an entire week.  i had an especially good time hanging out with my little sister, who i unfortunately see quite rarely nowadays.

i sat next to a fascinating lady on the plane ride down.  she was in her 80s, a self-published poet, and mother to twins who died sudden deaths within a year of each other recently.   she had also had cataracts removed a couple of months ago, which gave her a nifty hipster meets grandma look.  i’m completely blanking on her name; i know i wrote it down somewhere though.

we stayed at a rather ritzy resort (at least by my usual backpacking standards), replete with courtyard (and parents walking through):

big fancy rooms:

and finally, lots of signs keeping the locals out:

and the tourists safe from themselves:

we spent a lot of time on the beaches:

which also had lots of photogenic things, such as scary pieces of driftwood:

and awesome little coral formations.

in fact, a naturalist down there told me that the island (grand bahamas) is basically a 2-mile thick coral fossil, formed over the course of millions of years.  i wonder if that was true.

we also went kayaking (we went out to that small island in the distance):

where we struggled to put on wet suits:

and went snorkeling:

another day, we went to a national park and visited a network of limestone caves:

i was told that, indigenous carib families used these caves to hide from the conquistadors.

when not exploring the island, we also found ways to keep busy at our hotel.  shuffleboard, namely, was a popular game:

finally, we did do some walking around and exploring at night:

we’d go out for dinner, where the menu never changed: fried fish, fried conch, or macaroni.  by the end of our trip, i had nearly resolved to become a vegetarian when i returned to the states.  i certainly didn’t fall off the fried food wagon for weeks.  below is a particularly expansive bahamian dinner selection:

although it wasn’t the chronological end to our trip, new year’s eve i think is the appropriate thematic end to this post: a big, flashy, close.

pictures from the trip worth significantly less than 1000 words / photo can be found here.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS