Hello irony, my old friend.

Been meaning to post this for about two weeks now, here we have two separate stories about the Transport Board, conveniently placed next to each other in the daily nation. Someone over at the Nation newspaper, Barbados clearly has a dislike of the Transport board authority and/or shares my sense of humour.

Don't let the B.E.D.Y bugs bite?

True to form, the hotly anticipated BEDY ferry service between the EC territories has been delayed yet again. Their facebook group's wall is littered with comments from anxious patrons just begging for an alternative to current regional air carriers, LIAT (Leave Island at Any Time) and BWIA (Baggage is Waiting In Africa)

The main question on everybody's mind, however, seems to be when will they finally pull their act together and get the show on the road?.

The little Joys of Island life

I found the photo above on a surf photographers forum by someone posting as tarikbrowne (his photos are awesome!). It's a shot of my favorite break on the south coast called 'freights bay', it's a left reef-break that rarely gets above 6' - 7' but when it does break, it's usually a very clean wave, which suits my basic level skills perfectly.

I ended up spending the entire morning last Sunday out there. I didn't plan for it to end up that way, and nothing spectacular in surf terms, maybe only waist high. But, it just was a really nice morning, clear sky, clearer water and the occasional turtle popping up for air. So it just panned out that whenever I decided that it was time to head in, a nice set would roll through and I'd say to myself "...just one more"

Anytime I travel for extended periods it's things like this I miss the most, coincidentally, it also happens to be one of the many reasons I love Barbados that much more.

N.B. If anyone could give me a site for Tarikbrowne so I could link to it that'd be great

Bahia 2010 or bust!

So I'm planning a trip to brazil for 2010, nothing big, and still 90% conceptual right now, but my capoeira professor from london's going home for a month or so and he wants me to train for a bit.

There are currently 3 options that I know of right now and that's;

1. OPTION 1 - direct flight to miami, then direct to Bahia - this is probably the most comfortable option (and expensive!) but surveying has turned me into a bit of a cheapskate, plus I don't see why I should have to suffer the indignity of grovelling to the US gov't for a visa to transit in a fucking airport, (really now!, why the fuck should I need to pay $200.00 US for a visa when technically I'm going to be on international territory??) no wonder they're disliked.
2. OPTION 2 - *heh heh* bum a cheap flight to Guyana and travel overland to Bahia.
   

ಠ_ಠ


yes, seriously

there's a number of things that could go wrong there and when I mentioned this option to a guy in my local capoeira class he just stared at me as if I had just made an indecent proposal regarding his mother. Needless to say after a few choice bajan 4-letter words I realised that was a really, really REALLY bad idea.

1. OPTION 3 - Take a flight to Caracas via Trinidad, overnight in Caracas, on to Sao Paulo then last stop Bahia, Salvador, total trip time 34 hours. Jesus Christ on a trike 34 HOURS!!

Anyway, I'm not particularly comfortable with the idea of traveling through Venezuela (or over the amazon for that matter!!) but I guess it's a means to an end and everyone I know that's gone to Bahia for capoeira has had a blast. So I guess that's it then, unless someone reading this has a more sensible option..............hmm, are people reading this??



*UPDATE*

1. OPTION 4 - I've found another possibility that seems to be the cheapest but involves me flying to Guyana via liat then taking another rinkydink dash-8 type plane to belem and then I can pick up a flight to Salvador. Right now seems to be my preferred option as it's also only about 11 hours in total, but I must say that the prospect of flying over 700km of thick jungle in a questionably maintained aircraft especially after this incident leaves much to be desired by "the I".