Thursday, April 23, 2009

Road Trip: Queen Elizabeths Botanical Gardens



Road Trip....is a "trip" Cayman Style.
And then we add Brian.

First of all, no stop lights,
no stop signs...only stop for pictures...
Second, DRIVE LEFT.
Notice Brian is on the right side of the car.
And from the WRONG side of the car
you drive on the WRONG side of the street.

Brian is ALWAYS looking for trouble,
most of you probably don't know this about him.

We are in the Cayman,
at a resort,
snorkeling and beaches at our fingertips.
He decides we should go history hunting,
meets some real locals,
out in the country...you say...
Rent a car,
a bit of lessons in the parking lot,
unofficial lessons,
smiling hostess saying, you'll be okay...
no worries.

Mind you, this is AFTER taking busses
all over town the day before,

"no bus stops, just walk along,
people will honk and you wave and they will pick you up,
take you anywhere"
No Problem...

Oh...and a bus looks like a FUN BUS,
Scooby Bus style....pile in.
like the one in the picture wizzing past Brian below...
we hadn't figured out the speed limits yet.


Notice the white knuckles [below]...
no problem...
no one told us that you convert to kilometers
so we are driving really slow.

when it says 50...you go 100
no wonder many locals were passing us.

if you have a yellow license plate you are a local
a white license plate you are a tourist...

they really have some things figured out.




Cute little car...











Many butterflies. Very colorful.
They have a butterfly garden in Cayman.
We didn't make it there. But I imagine....ahhhh.

Yikes...snakes. Lots of them.



There is a lot of wreckage from Hurricane Ivan in 2004.
Some of these old trees are down, yet growing...
you can see the roots completely out below.

p



above, Konch [konk] Shell,
these are so beautiful. many many on the island.
people line their walks with them,
along with crushed shells,
which make a sound to walk along,
like a doorbell.

yep, didn't see many doorbells,
no stoplights,
no stopsigns,
just Giveways...
which means to give way to the person coming your way

Brian and I ate some Konch at a small diner
overlooking the ocean
during our road trip.
It is very yummy.

those pictures later...sunset dinner, very nice!


to be continued...

7 comments:

suzie said...

WHAT A TRIP!!!

Femin Susan said...

Hope you enjoyed your trip. great shots of those flowers. They look very pretty.

Shawn said...

More beautiful pictures! Thanks for sharing them....

Shadow said...

great story and pics! that grin on the very first picture says it all!

colleen said...

Just beautiful photos. I will be hitting a garden somewhere when i get my new camera...

wisthrop said...

So I'm not the slightest bit jealous of this trip. Actually, I'm wondering why you didn't invite me as your tour guide?? I could have faked my way through it. I'm glad you had such a fun time! By the way, do you have two blogs??

Heatherlyn said...

so beautiful. My husband and I were thinking about going to Aruba next year but now I'm thinking maybe the cayman islands.

on marriage

'Will you, um, marry me?' I haven't seen you in weeks! You don't look happy or excited about the prospect of our marriage! You're asking me to give up my - my freedom, my joie de vivre for an institution that fails as often as it succeeds? And why should I marry you anyway? I mean, why do you wanna marry me? Besides some bourgeois desire to fulfill an ideal that society embeds in us from an early age to promote a consumer capitalist agenda?
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