Home Time!!!!

After 75 days on the road we're finally home.
Its been amazing trip, topped off with a whirlwind tour of Washington, New York and San Francisco. All amazing cities, so much to see and do. We saw the political hotbed of the Us, JFK and Jackie Kennedy's grave and eternal flame, Times Square, the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, Fifth Avenue shops, had a romantic horse carriage ride in Central Park, bought a diamond ring at Tiffany's, spent hours in the super high tech Apple computer shop, cycled over the Golden Gate Bridge on a tandem bike, walked Up and Down some massive San Francisco hills, went on an old fashioned cable car.... every tourist thing we could cram into our few days in the States.
And some things not on the usual tourist route - the B and H camera shop in New York that Simon could have stayed in for days and days. An amazing place that even this non-photog appreciated! Run by Othordox Jews with their uniform skull caps and twirly sideburns. Incredible shop.
Had a great flight home. Simon couldn't bear the grief of me sitting in the economy class and surprised me with an upgraded seat to sit by him in the swanky section of the plane. A lovely way to end a fabulous trip!!!
Had a full on day organising the house yesterday, putting up the bunks, unpacking, washing etc etc etc and seem to have conquered the jetlag so far, so good!
Hope you have all been able to enjoy our trip with us through the blog. We look forward to catching up with everyone at some stage soon. :-)

Simon's Caribbean Review

It's over and time to reflect on it all. A bucket full of fun and an amazing experience. A difficult location work in though as the majority of visitors are there to holiday and the locals operate on "island time". The heat can be stifling on match days when you sit there baking away and the sweat pours out of you. The travel between islands is difficult but the regular change of location kept it interesting. We were lucky in not having to go to Guyana and NZ's semi being in Jamaica as this is where I was always going to be for that match. The locals would either smile and engage you, totally ignore you or try to rip you off. The ICC needs to take a long hard look at itself and publicly admit they may have just got it wrong. The locals love their cricket but they were priced out of going therefore robbing the tournament of the atmosphere it was hoping for. Once they relaxed the rules and offered cheaper tickets, as in Grenada, it made for better atmosphere even when their team wasn't playing. So yes, I would come back, to either holiday or even cover a tour with test matches. The experienced I have gained of the West Indies would be a shame to waste....

Best Beach: Rockley Beach, Barbados.
It was the first and last beach we swam in. Very warm with enough surf to either body surf or boogie board in. A close second is Grand Anse beach in Grenada. No surf and not quite as warm but amazingly clear water.

Best Island: Grenada.
Although our departure was soured by the idiots at the airport (security and immigration) I'm not going to let them ruin my feelings about the place. A lovely harbour with cool old buildings, Grand Anse beach, Fish Fryday (see earlier blog), Chicken Corner and a lively city centre. Second place goes to Barbados, a lot different to Grenada but because of the beach and it is a bit more developed.

Best Meal: La Luna in Grenada.
Not just because we went on my birthday but it was sensational, nice service (not always easy to get) and a cool location. Second place goes to Pisces in Barbados, we went twice and both times it was excellent. The second visit was for the Reuters CWC crew farewell dinner, great night. Special mention for two other places, Chicken Corner in Grenada and the hot dogs at Antigua airport, yummmmmm

Best Accommodation: Accra Beach Hotel, Barbados.
Stayed here in our first week and faces straight on to Rockley Beach. Apart from the breakfast nazi (grumpy woman who supplied the bill ever morning) it has the best pool and beach, what more can you ask for. Second place goes to the Jolly Harbour in Antigua. Mainly because it was a two bedroom, two storey villa with a kitchen! A chance for home cooked meals, and this cannot be underestimated.....

Best Touristy Thing we did: A tie between The Pitons in St. Lucia and the Bob Marley Museum.
The Pitons, amazing volcanic cones poking straight out of the sea about 2km's apart. Quite spectacular, spent a day on a beach between them. A long and windy drive to get there but well worth it. The Bob Marley museum was fascinating and a highlight of Jamaica. Second place to the snorkeling trip to Great Bird Island at the top of Antigua. Not much time for much in this trip unfortunately.

Best Beer: Piton Beer from St. Lucia
Drank plenty so very qualified to comment. Fairly cheap, when not bought at our St. Lucia hotel, and went down a treat after those hot long days at training or a match. Second place to Banks beer of Barbados.

Best Rum: Mount Gay, Barbados
No contest here I'm afraid, and even cheaper than beer. A 750ml bottle cost approx $10! And because it is so cheap the bars use "plenty" when they pour you one, I'm sure the coke is only used for colouring!

Best Local I Met: Al, the taxi driver
As mentioned in an earlier blog, he saw me as a way to make money, which is fine as he didn't blatantly rip me off, and took me for a beer and a tour of the red light district. Unfortunately the majority of the locals saw the World Cup as a way to up the prices and rip everyone off. This caused frustration and a bit of aggro at times. Even though it isn't my own money I'm spending on taxi's etc, I still don't like being ripped off. Second place to the guy on the side of the road who made us stop to view the Pitons. He was selling jewelery but didn't force it on to us and was entertaining

Worst Airline: LIAT
This is a clear winner, just amazing how bad they can be. Everyone had a bad experience and the worst part is they don't give a shit. No apologies or even explanations when the flight they have given you a boarding pass for doesn't even exist. Travel between the islands is a major hassle. Because every flight is an international one, you have to check in at least 2 1/2 hours early, check in takes forever because even if you have a ticket, it by no way means you exist in their system and invariably the flight will be late. A 40min flight generally takes 4 hours on average. Then it is through immigration and customs again when you finally make it to your destination. I will say, however, Caribbean Airlines, which we used to fly to Jamaica and back, was a lot better and the trip there actually arrived early.

Best Stadium: Grenada National Stadium
Amazing to think it was rebuilt after Hurricane Ivan in late 2004. Good facilities and the best photo manager. The security was a joke but this actually made life for us so much easier. The media are supposed to be searched when they arrive on game day at every stadium but in Grenada the entry to the ground via car bypassed the search area so managed to avoid this, saving up to 15mins and the hassle of unpacking everything (even tho they had no idea what they were looking at in our camera bags). The crazy part was there was no search on non match days so if anyone wanted to take a bomb into the stadium, that was the day to do it and leave it anywhere you wanted......

Best Training Ground: Stanford Cricket Club, Antigua
An absolute contrast to the rest of the Caribbean. This place was built by a super rich Texan so no expense was spared. The grass was like carpet, the facilities lovely and the scope for photos was ideal. Second place goes to the Antigua Recreation Ground. This is a total contrast to Stanford, old and rickety stands but with so much character, and its where Brian Lara scored his world record tests runs, I would love to do a test match there.

Best Match (I covered): England v Sri Lanka, Antigua
A thriller, unusual for this tournament unfortunately. It came down to the last ball with 3 runs needed but Bopara was bowled. The final should have been a highlight but as we know it was a farce. But it was still very memorable, only just for the wrong reasons.

Best of the Rest:
Hobie cat sailing in St. Lucia, the banana dacquiri in St. Lucia, windmills in Antigua, Animal Flower cave in Barbados, the pool bar at the Accra, the pool at the Windjammer (not an ideal hotel to work from though), the nachos at Bubbas in Barbados, cheap shopping in Jamaica, Montserat Island with smoking volcano, Long Bay in Antigua, my birthday at Chicken Corner in Grenada.

Well that was hardly cricket

I wonder how many newspapers/websites used that headline. EH???
Strange ending but quite fitting as the whole tournament has been plagued with shambolic activity. Never mind, its all over now.
Almost all of the other Reuters crew go home tomorrow. Tonight we're all going out for dinner as a team farewell thing and I'm a legitimate participant as I has four stories published around the world for Reuters (although the first one said by Simon Baker...) and two Reuters TV pieces.
I am multimedia. Hear me roar.
Tomorrow Simon and I intend to find a post office and post a big bunch of summer clothes home to make room in the suitcases for all the groovy way cool far out stuff we're going to buy in the States. I've already got an entire little backpack full of presents, mostly for Simon's kids, so we'll have to try to restrain ourselves!
We fly out of Barbados on Tuesday afternoon our time which is Wednesday breakfast time or a little earlier. Miami then Washington for one whole day then a train trip up to New York.
Planning to check out all the usual touristy things, see a Yankee game, and SHOP. Oh and eat, Chantelle can you please email me the name of that Italian restaurant cos I've forgotten.
Went for a wee drive today to the most northern point on this island and saw a very dramatic landscape of rocks and sheer cliffs. The water is the Atlantic and its so wild compared to the Caribbean sea which is what we've been swimming in.
After our day of administration and packing tomorrow, we will return to the first beach we stayed at when we arrived in Barbados all those weeks ago, the one with lots of great surf action but its just sand and clear, warm water.
It remains our favourite so it will be nice to end this amazing trip in a beautiful place that we enjoyed so much.
Simon is really really looking forward to getting home to see the kids and get back to normal life. I could probably cope with another 8 weeks here..... but without the cricket. Must say though, I've learned an awful lot and I'm even quite fond of the game. We'll see how long that lasts, being rugby season and all.
I see I've regained a bit of my lead in the Virtual Super 14 apart from Clare's pesky brother getting in the way. He'd better watch it.....

Game On!

Not sure if anyone is watching the cricket final but the game is starting to get exciting. Sri Lanka are just hitting the balls all over the field and the crowd is SO hyped up.
There are thousands and thousands of Sri Lankans here, many more than the bunches of Aussies who are sitting absolutely still in their little yellow outfits. Like bananas and just as quiet!
This is the most amazing atmosphere of the tournament - and Sri Lanka still need 189 runs to win. There's a long way to go.
I can't imagine how pumped the crowd will be if they get closer to the total. I hope they hang in there!!! The psychological trauma the Aussies must be suffering now - having missed a couple of catches and let some 4s slip through their fingers!!!!

And back to Barbados

Jamaica wasn't as bad as I had imagined. We didn't venture far, we really didn't have time, but after our shopping expedition and two meals out at a nearby restaurant it was time to board the plane again.
Of course the plane was delayed and we went to a completely different island than what we expected on the way, but this is of course second nature to us now so we really can't be suprised.
I just wish we'd had the room in our bags to buy lots of stuff in Jamaica because EVERYTHING was so cheap. Must be one of the few currencies around the world that make the NZ dollar look fantasticly strong.
So here we are back in Barbados. Our accommodation is a little disappointing, a little like the Penitentiary in Grenada. We're in a cell with air conditioning that you have to pay per hour for, and lumpy old single beds. But at least there is a pool (admittedly with old cigarette butts floating in it) and the wireless internet is free, and the shower has good pressure.
I fear, however, that the laundry we sent off the other day is gone for good. But I'll be happy to stand corrected.
Never mind, we only have three nights left to enjoy in the Caribbean and I doubt we'll ever get back without having a substantial financial windfall.
It is very interesting to be staying in a different part of Barbados to our first time here. We are north of the cricket stadium this time, where there are a lot of resort type hotels and a very swanky golf course. Lots of construction too, so it will probably look very different in five years. Hardly any of the poverty or unfinished buildings we saw in the south of the island.
We will have the car Reuters booked until we leave the country which is a bonus, so we'll actually be able to spend a bit of Monday and maybe tomorrow seeing more of the island.
The forecast isn't that flash though, rain is predicted for the next week!!!
The big cricket finale has finally got underway after some pretty torrential rain, but the sky doesn't look very promising so there could be more delays to come.
I just checked out the relevant website to see I didn't win Radio Journalist of the Year, so won't be celebrating that tonight!!! However its pretty cool to be a finalist after only 10 months in radio.
Would be a bit much of an ego clash to have the Photographer of the Year and the Radio Journalist of the Year living in the same house I suppose :-)

Tony Wall, you'll be SOOOOOO jealous!

Neither of us have much interest in Reggae or Bob Marley, but the tour of his house/museum that we took this morning was fascinating. A must-do thing while in Jamaica.
For the even-less-uninitiated than us, Marley died in 1981 of a brain tumour and is easily the famous most Jamaican of all time. And possibly the richest, although he’s worth more dead because his albums keep selling, so really his kids are doing the best out of his work!
Son of a white English army captain and a woman from the Kingston suburb of Trench Town, but there wasn’t much more about his parentage. Apparently he didn’t grow up knowing his Dad yet his mother had Marley in her name so maybe they were briefly married, not sure.
His house here in Kingston has been turned into a shrine and we took the hour-long tour of it, seeing all his awards, rooms wallpapered with newspaper clippings, his favourite clothes, his bedroom, his kitchen etc etc
And in the audio/visual part of the tour they showed parts of his various concerts and interviews with him in the later years of his life.
Being spring chickens that Simon and I are, we didn’t realise that one of the last concerts he did was at Western Springs in Auckland in 1980 – the footage of it is hilarious with the clothes/hairstyles of the hip young Kiwis smoking huge joints in the crowd.
The other thing we knew nothing about was the assassination attempt on Marley’s life, at his house while he and Wailers were jammin. We stood in the room where it happened and put our fingers in the bullet holes left in the wall.
Marley went into exile in London for 18 months after that. The tour guide said the masked gunmen were thought to have mistaken Marley’s Rastafarian message for political statements, when Marley was supposedly just a spiritual believer.
He got grazed by the bullets on his chest and one bullet lodged in his left arm. He didn’t get it removed because the doctors said it might paralyse his arm which he kinda needed for the guitar!
So sad that he died so young, aged 36. He got this nasty brain tumour despite living a relatively healthy life, he never touched alcohol, ate no meat, no dairy. Strict vegetarian plus a large consumption of ganga.
His influence and success seems to be something most Jamaicans are proud of. Especially the tour guide that we had. She peppered her talk by singing snippets of Marley songs and explained the meaning to them.
“Three little birds, sitting my the doorstep, singing sweet songs …. Saying, this is my message to you you you. Don’t worry, bout a thing, cos every little thing is gonna be alright…”
This is reference to the three backing vocalists Marley had, one of which was his wife. Apparently they used to sit on the doorstep at this house we were at and all tell him not to worry about anything cos every little thing was going to be ok. Reverse nagging by the sounds of it.
There is a famous photo that I’ve seen of him sitting on this doorstep so they obviously spent a lot of time there, telling him “sweet songs”.
In the little documentary we saw, it ends with Marley speaking and he said the world should not care about skin colour – “Black, white or shiny, colour doesn’t matter. We should live in peace together.”
Hear hear!
One Love.

Goodbye Grenada, Hello Jamaica

After being so impressed with Grenada we got a healthy dose of reality at the airport as we tried to leave, which has soured our experience somewhat.
The security guard refused to allow us to take the two big cricket promotion bottles of 12 year old scotch whiskey Viv Richards gave us in Antigua, through into the departure area. He didn't care that we'd carried them into his country. So we had to tip them out.
We both hate whiskey but to all those future guests at Berry St who would have enjoyed a glass, sorry. Blame Mr Officious Grenada.
It got worse for me. The stupid old immigration officer man refused to accept my departure card claiming he couldn't read my last name. He sent me all the way back to the check in to get a new card and fill it out. Then he claimed he couldn't understand that either but a young immigration officer was able to read it (it was crystal clear, neat writing) so I was ALMOST allowed through - except the original officer man had kept my boarding pass and claimed he gave it back to me, saying I'd lost it.
Eventually he got another security guard to walk around the departures lounge and ask to see every single boarding pass to find mine. Which he did eventually. The stupid angry old man had given it to some dodgy Aussie bloke.
Obviously we all look the same.
Not the end of our Grenadian drama though... our flight didn't actually exist and they had to fly in an empty plane a few hours later to take us all to Barbados. And even then the pilot changed his mind and went to St Lucia first!!!!
SOOOOO FRUSTRATING!!!!
Anyway, a night in Barbados and then an early start this morning to catch the flight to Jamaica.
There was just one seat between me and Sir Viv Richards so I had a wee chat about the upcoming game. I think he's following us because he was sitting on his luggage outside our hotel when we got here to!!!
Funny place, Kingston. On our drive from the airport we could see that poverty is extreme but the city is the biggest with lots of high rises. Went past the infamous Pegasus Hotel where Bob Woolmer was murdered, (there are still two ambulances in the carpark so maybe the Kiwi/Sri Lankan teams are staying there......) and we're staying round the corner at the Knutsford.
Only here tonight, tomorrow is training/work half a day, then the next day is all day at the game, then we're gone again.
So tomorrow is our only chance to see the Bob Marley statue/museum etc and not much else.
Its really really cheap though. We had a late lunch and it was bizarre to see the price list in a strange currency.... $390.00 for a sandwich, $400 for a burger.
But it works out that $100 Jamaican dollars is $2 NZ. So lunch was very cheap, $26 for the two of us to have a big feed. Pity we're not here for a holiday!!!!!!!! See photo above, also the price for a car...! Converts to approx $76,000 NZD.
We also spent $8000 on shoes!
On the downside, there are warnings everywhere about being careful and the statistics say there are 3 murders a day in this city. Mostly gang stuff but we're not going to roam free around the streets, even in the touristy areas. We'll taxi around to the sights tomorrow (its cheap enough to do so!) but won't be being very adventurous.