Royal Barbados Cigars

Part two of our tour took us to the Royal Barbados Cigar Company. Here, they make cigars completely by hand.

When we arrived, we were greeted with yards and yards of hanging, dried tobacco leaves. As someone who has almost always been repulsed by the smell of tobacco (unless of course we're talking about sweet, sticky, molasses-y hookah smoke), to the smell outside the factory here wasn't exactly pleasant to my precarious nose. But, if you like that sort of thing, the drying Cuban tobacco probably would have been pleasant.

Once inside the factory, we met with the Swiss woman that ran the place with what appeared to be an iron fist. I didn't get a picture of her, but Brian does a great impression of her that I wish I could share with you. Anyhow, Some of the women didn't like to have their pictures taken, but they did allow me to take pictures of their work. In this shot, the woman is unraveling Cuban tobacco to be sorted.
Once the leaves are flattened out and orderly, they're sorted into small, medium, and large. These are the leaves that will determine the size (re: 'number') of the cigar. These leaves were from Ecuador and Cameroon. For those of you too anxious to wait for the embargo on Cuba to disappear, she did tell us that even though the cigars are Cuban tobacco, they are importable to the US because they are a product of Barbados.

At the next station, we watched one woman stuff the tobacco leaves into the wedge on the rubber roller, while the whole leaf was stationary on the top.

She adjusts it and then rolls all of the filler into the larger leaf wrapping. I couldn't believe how many times our Swiss 'guide' said the word nice in describing how this is done. I think she must've said it 30 times. Nice!

Once the filler is done and the cigar is first rolled up, they're placed in these blocks. The block ensures that the cigars are a uniform shape and size for the number that they are producing that day.

In the next step they take an extra large tobacco leaf that has been stripped until it is thin and extremely pliable. She cuts it down to a size that is relative to the size of the cigar. Then, the cigar is rolled inside the final wrapping until it appears flawless. The woman who rolls the cigar then cuts the leaf again and seals the ends with a natural, vegetable-based glue like guar gum. They don't want you to fire up your cigar and burn chemical glue and poison yourself. So a vegetable gum it is. Follow the pictures of the process below:






After the cigars are glued and dry, they move on to the next step in the process, were they receive their pedigree.

The cigars are labeled by hand and each label gets a small dab of Elmer's glue. The glue is not supposed to ever touch the cigar skin, otherwise the cigar is rubbish and has to be thrown out.

After they're labeled, the cigars still have one more step of QC. They must be matched perfectly by color. At this point, the woman working on the cigars held up two of "differing" colors to the light. I thought to myself, I'd be fired from this job, because I can't tell the difference. They all look like they're the same color to me. If you look at the picture above, can you tell the difference?

Finally, the cigars receive individual cellophane wrappings. They are boxed and ready for presentation. For more information about Royal Barbados Cigars, go here.

EarthWorks! Art Studio

When I was doing pre-trip research on Barbados, I learned that native "Barbadians" call themselves Bajan. They also speak a language by the same name, that to my American ears sounded almost completely intelligible. Basically, it's a mixture of African expressions, idioms, and syntax mixed with Scouse English of Liverpool. After talking to a few people, I learned that Bajan, is actually the accented and shortened form of the official word, Barbadians. I've read that it's comparable to Jamaican Patois, but more like Creole. I learn something new every day.

Since it was Valentine's Day, and we wanted to do something fun, Brian and I went on a tour led by Johnson's Tours of Barbados. They operate lots of tours, but this one is their "100% Bajan" tour, where we get to experience the crafts of several places close to the Bajan heart. We began our day with a long drive through endless sugar cane fields to head to a pottery and art studio called Earthworks.


We didn't have a tour of the studio, but I enjoyed that they gave us time to wander freely and watch the workers mold clay on the wheel, glaze, and fire their works, as well as having the opportunity to speak to each of the artists as they create their works.
This woman was molding a vase on the wheel. Below is an unfired clay carving of a head that I spotted on one of the many shelves of seemingly endless creations.
Outside the studio, I heard a rooster crowing, and I decided to follow my ears. Once I was outside, I saw a pretty impressive looking rooster walking around piles of broken pot shards.
I looked around outside for a while spooking and chasing the chicken in the grass. What can I say, I'm a kid at heart. I was thinking about all of that broken pottery, and what on earth they could possibly do to recycle it somehow. then I wandered around the studio some more and found this:
I thought it was pretty cool, all of the shards held together in what looked and felt like terracotta. These pieces were probably cracked, broken, or otherwise imperfect before they were put into the wall here. I think the effect is awesome. When I finally made my way into the studio-shop, I found this:



The finished products are quite pretty with swirling colors in shades of blues, greens, and yellows. Then I looked at the price tags. Each of these vases cost upwards of $60US. The smallest thing I found, and ice cream bowl that was much to tiny to serve my cravings was almost $15US (EACH!). In the end, I couldn't bring myself to buy any of it for the prices they were offering no matter how pretty or cool some of this stuff looked. Maybe someday in the future, I'll be more willing to drop hundreds of dollars on pottery like this.

For Strategic Sheep Purposes

[Journal Entry 2/13/08]:

My first impression of Barbados was that it was obvious that this place was once a British outpost. They still drive on the left of the road, and the locals have an accent that is clearly the 'Queen's Eeeeeenglish.' My first thoughts were that I would bet that they would have been as reluctant to give up Barbados was they were the Falkland Islands. However, the sad reality of being a former British Colony is the obvious divisions by race. Knowing that the British historically exploited the local people (in this case the native people of Barbados have basically been wiped out), and brought is thousands of slaves to serve their exploits.

If that doesn't make it clear enough, then this should: The moment we stepped out of the airport it became crystal clear as soon as we tried to hail a cab. When we attempted to hail the first cab (a 4 door sedan), the guy passed us off immediately hoping to get a better fare from the white family behind us with their 3 kids. It didn't seem to me that there was much room in the guy's car for the 5 of them and their stuff, versus the two of us, and our stuff. Instead, it didn't make sense that we ended up with the station wagon, and all of them ended up in the sedan. *sigh* The drivers were so much more obliging to serve the white family than us, and passed us one to the other until we could find someone who was willing to take us the 5 miles to our hotel for the night.

In the morning, we were taken by taxi to our apartment where we'll be staying for the duration. We stopped by the Silver Sands hotel/resort and ate breakfast at their buffet. While it was a pretty expensive breakfast, it was really fantastic. Not only did they have fresh watermelon, pineapple, bananas, canteloupe, and fried fried potatoes that you can see above, but they also had some pretty fantastic omelettes being prepared fresh for patrons, as well as hot tea and coffee, and some pretty awesome juices. I went with the pinapple coconut juice, and topped it off with a bit of orange juice. Talk about fantastic! You can also see from this picture that we were given an entire basket of toast. Little did they know how much Brian loves toast. Let's just say there was much more than a dent in the basket pictured above when we finished.

While enjoying our food, we even had a little friend join us in the open-air restaurant

One of the best things that we got to eat was Bajan Sweet Bread. At first, I only grabbed one slice, judging it only by how it looked, and it did look pretty dubious. It looked kind of like thickly sliced, stale toast bread. Hmmm...I almost didn't taste it at all. I couldn't have been more wrong. At the end of our meal, Brian asked me if I had tasted it it, and I offered him 2/3 of my slice. Once I tasted it, however, I wished that I'd kept it all to myself. I went in search of more, but by the time we were finishing up, the buffet was closed, and they'd taken it away. I savored the small bit with my hot tea (thankfully ours didn't have any raisins or other fruit). Perfection!

Takeoff to Barbados

[this is an excerpt from my travel journal, dated 2/12/08]:

We just sat down on our flight from Miami to Bridetown. On the plane, they're playing a jazzed-up version of the song, "Me & Mrs. Jones" with paradise landscape photos scrolling across all the TVs. I hope that I am able to take some fantastic photos just like that on this trip. Just before takeoff, Brian and I had a brief conversation about passports, and how we'd both like to go to Cuba someday in the near future. [since this conversation, Fidel has resigned (but he's not dead); this could very well become a reality in the not-so-distant future.] It's hilarious, and amazing to me though that this trip has hardly gotten off the ground, and I"m already dreaming about where my next adventure will take me. I believe that this is the mark of bug-bitten traveler-- always seeking the next great trip, adventure, or destination.

I'm so glad that we're finally up in the air. At the Miami airport, I felt like we were never going to make our connection. In my brilliant planning, I only gave us 45 minutes to make the connection, and we had to go from one end of the terminal where we landed, to the transfer pods to make it to the opposite end of the furthest detached terminal. With the time crunch and the distance we had to go to get to our next gate, it was the sort of experience that would have likely given Andrea a panic attack. She hates airports, and after this experience, I can really relate to how and why she feels that way.

Needless to say, however, we made it with no problems, other than getting lost and turned around on the way, being greeted with a DC Metro-esque escalator situation (the down works fine, but the up is not functioning at all), and were literally running up the stairs (that IS what non-moving escalators are, after all), with our heavy coats, carry-on luggage, and the three shirts including thermals that I was wearing.

By the time we got there, I was practically wheezing, I was sweating myself half to death, and the burning in my thighs was really intense. Of course, we were greeted with a 15 minute delay once we got to our gate. "Whew." I almost thought that was going to be close. I was starved, so I took the time to get a cheese pizza for Brian and I to share. When I got back to our seats at the gate, I was incredibly aware of how warm I felt. I looked around and saw nearly everyone wearing sandals or flip flops.

I am inspired!

I have a fresh pedicure!

My feet are burning!

I stripped off my sneakers and socks and was elated by my foresight to pack some sandals in my carry on suitcase. Once I had those sandals on, my entire body temperature went down to "Aaaahhhhh."

We boarded the flight, I tapped my iPod, and was quickly entertained by my audiobook, Shantaram. I sat back, relaxed an enjoyed the excitement of what the next 5 days would bring.

Heading Out

My bags are packed, and my passport is burning in my purse ready to be used. I'll be walking out the door in 45 minutes for the airport in Baltimore to catch my flight to Miami, and then connecting through to Barbados. I've decided not to take my laptop with me, so that I can can concentrate fully on enjoying my vacation. I'll be able to write freely in my journal, and then share pictures and thoughts once I return. But just in case I find a savvy internet cafe, I'm taking my camera cord so I can share some shots and stories on the fly if there's time.

In the meantime, here are some pictures of where we're staying:

Did I mention there will be rum?

While Andrea's in Serbia, I've been planning a trip of my own. Although she's away for business, my trip is nothing but a holiday in paradise. I'm headed to Barbados for 5 days of rest, relaxation, and rum on Little England's white sandy beaches. I haven't decided yet whether or not I want to take my laptop and post live, or if I'd rather wait until I get back and post over time. Just know this: whatever I decide, you'll get to share some fun in the sun with me as I tour rum factories, work on my tan, snorkel, windsurf, and dance the night away!

I'm heading out next week, and I can't wait to share the trip with you!