Barbados holiday, Post 4: Sunday

On Sunday morning we were picked up from our guesthouse and driven to the meeting by Eglon and June, whose contact details we had been given by some Canadian friends who visited Barbados a few years ago. They had also invited us back to their house for Sunday lunch before they even met us!

Eglon and June became one of the best parts of our holiday, so here are a couple more details about them... Eglon is Barbadian and June is Indian, but they met in Canada. They retired (sort of!) to Barbados a few years ago, after raising their now grown-up children in Calgary. They live on a hill in the beautiful home they built in St James, and this is the view from their backyard...



June cooked delicious Indian food for lunch, and they had invited a few other people for us to meet, too - they thought it would be nice for us to meet some of the local young ones. :) Here we all are on the back porch at the end of lunch...



Clockwise from left: Frank, me, Tracey, June, Eglon, David, Raquela, Roxane and Jonathan.

At lunch we were discussing how many nationalities were represented at the table... we had Australia, Canada, India, Barbados, St Vincent, Trinidad and Jamaica! We had a wonderful time getting to know everyone and being introduced to the Barbadian drinks of mauby (made from tree bark; tastes sweet at first but has a really bitter after-taste) and sorrel (made from hibiscus fruit; tastes kind of like a non-fizzy creaming soda).

This is Frank and Roxane's son, Jonathan...



...who thought my skirt was a handy 4WD track/ helicopter landing pad...

...and then got to be a helicopter himself!

Once the other visitors left, we sat on the front verandah and talked with Eglon and June until it was time to drive to the 6pm study meeting. Here is one of their two gorgeous but timid kittens playing nearby...





After the evening meeting, June and Eglon invited us back to their home again for a simple dinner. We ended up chatting on the front verandah until nearly midnight, so by the time they drove us home we had spent 14 hours straight with them!! AND they had offered to spend Tuesday giving us a tour of Barbados, so they'll be back in an upcoming blog entry!

We can't stress just how much our Barbados vacation was made by these two. June and Eglon were absolutely wonderful company, so fun and comfortable to be around. And they looked after us, too - that evening June loaded us up with insect repellent, antihistamine tablets and soothing cream for my copious mosquito bites, aloe vera from her garden for my sunburn, homemade slice, a jar of fruit...!!! By the end of two days together they were calling us their Australian kids. :D



Making new friends - and discovering so much common ground with people we've just met - is one of our favourite aspects of travel. We were discussing recently that experiences like this are what make a country really stand out in our memories.

More than anything else, this is what makes us long to return.