Hello everyone, hope everything is well at home. Welcome to the penultimate blog of our trip.

We left Belize City a week ago with more than just our luggage (see below!). It was a 2 hour flight to Miami and then another 45 minutes on our connection to Nassau, the capital of The Bahamas. Named Baha Mar (shallow seas) by the Spanish who discovered them in 1492, The Bahamas are a chain of islands in the Atlantic Ocean starting just 60 miles directly east of Miami in Florida and running about 600 miles from north to south. They became an independent state in 1973 after 325 years of British rule but remain part of the Commonwealth and, despite the strong influences from the US, remain proud of their British past. They also drive on the correct side of the road!

Nassau is on New Providence island which is 21 miles long and 7 miles wide. New Providence was once home of Blackbeard the pirate but nowadays, with the threat of plundering greatly reduced, many celebrities have their holiday homes here. We stayed on the north coast about 8 miles from Nassau at a very nice timeshare set up with its own marina and beach. Facilities also included several swimming pools and water slides, although the latter were mainly intended for children as we discovered when we got stuck on the way down!

One of the first things we appreciated was the change in climate; because we'd travelled north from Belize we'd left the hot and humid weather behind us and were now in a drier and slightly cooler climate, with typical daytime temperatures of 26oC so still warm enough but without being too sticky.

The whole island has a lot of picture perfect, long stretches of powdery white or pink coral sand beaches; the further you travel from Nassau, the more deserted they become. The sea is unbelievably clear everywhere but quite a bit cooler than the other countries we've been to earlier in the trip.

Nassau is a popular stop on the Caribbean cruise ship itinerary and so it was no surprise to see lots of cruise ship passengers; on the days we were in Nassau we saw an average of 3 or 4 huge liners in the docks, the biggest, called Oasis, carrying 6500 passengers.

Partly due to this, The Bahamas are an expensive destination; the one week here has cost more than the 2 weeks in Belize, which in turn was more expensive than Mexico. There always seemed to be add-ons, for example when we chose our hotel the price wasn't too bad and it was in a nice area. However, when we checked in there were extra charges like 20% sales tax, £7 per day service charge and £16 per day city tax (even though we're not in the city!) which increased the starting price by 50%; Ryanair would love it here! There was no real choice either as there are no hostels in The Bahamas and all of the cheaper rooms we looked at had terrible reviews and looked to be in very run down hotels. At check-in we were upgraded to an apartment that had a small kitchen so made breakfast there and ate in most nights to keep costs down.

During the first night I started itching like mad and in the morning found more than 80 insect bites on my sides (Linda had about 20 as well). Our first thoughts were that we'd been bitten in our room but we'd seen no insects and the room was very clean so came to the conclusion that these were bed bug bites, almost certainly picked up on our last night in Belize City, which had taken a day to reveal themselves. They may sound horrible but apart from the irritation they're quite harmless and start to fade after a couple of days.

We made our own excursions to explore the island and travelled around by jitney, small local buses very similar in style and operation to the colectivos we'd used in Mexico. We noticed the difference in these as well; they're air conditioned and play music according to the driver's choice, usually either thumping reggae or gospel.

There's an area called Arawak Cay which is famous for its Fish Fry, shacks selling all sorts of fish and especially conch (pronounced conk) which can be served as fritters, cracked (with corn and oats) in a chowder or as a salad. It's a shellfish similar in texture to squid or octopus.

We took a bus out to the westernmost point of the island and a small heritage park containing remains of slave huts and a couple of walking trails. We followed one of these trails to Lyford Cay, an exclusive area with private beaches where the rich and famous, including Sean Connery, have houses. We also passed Flipper Beach and Jaws Beach where filming was carried out for both; we assume that Flipper never met Jaws or there would have been a bloody end to the children's TV programme!

The next day started well for us; we had to complain about the hot water supply a couple of times so we were referred to the hotel manager who, liking our British accents, offered us a further upgrade to a suite for the remaining days of our stay as well as an 'adjustment' to our bill. Later we took the ferry to Paradise Island, a 30 minute ride away. The island used to be called Hog Island as it was where pigs were bred, how things change! Nowadays, yet more celebrities, including Mick Jagger, Beyoncé and Nicolas Cage apparently have houses here. The one where Charlie Chaplin had a summer home is now for sale and the home of Sir Richard Harris is now occupied by his son. Eddie Murphy even has a whole island to himself. However, 75% of Paradise Island is now owned by the Atlantis resort which operates several hotels, casinos, shopping malls etc as well as fenced off beaches and an Aquaventure water park which we'd wanted to go to but changed our minds when we found out that it would cost £70 each to get in. Instead we found our way onto the beautiful Cabbage Beach via one of only two public access routes and walked along the sand for a couple of miles into Atlantis territory until we could go no further.

Waiting for the return ferry we were tempted by an offer of a free breakfast and $100 to attend what was effectively a timeshare presentation, although they're called 'vacation clubs' now. We've been to a few of these in the past when we've got time to spare, always happy to get something for nothing in the safe knowledge that there's no way we're going to commit to anything regardless of how forcefully the sales pitch is presented. We survived the presentation, got a free bacon sandwich and left a couple of hours later with the $100 dollars in our pocket, a good morning's work!

It's been nice to have been able to stay in the same place for a whole week and we've had a very relaxed time while we've been here. We're off now to our last destination, Saint Martin, and will send a final update from there next week.

Love from Tony and Linda xx

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Comments

Chris and Anne Glad all going well on your trip. Well now our turn to get our own back. Currently on the M6, flying out to Lauterbrunnen on Saturday with Ski Miguel. Sorry couldn't think how to break it to you gently Xx Feb 27, 2014