Day 201 to 202 - From one extreme to the other

Nassau

Day 201

Are there conch that aren't conchy?

It took us most of the morning but we managed to book an airbnb with a kitchen on the other side of downtown Nassau, which turned out to be a better location as it was closer to some of the sights of the island.

We walked to an area known as the "Fish Fry" where there are lots of small seafood restaurants, with conch being the local specialty. K tried the conch fritters, but they were nothing to get excited about.

We then walked along the beach towards town. The beaches are white sand and the water is that beautiful Caribbean blue colour, though across the bay in the distance we could see the massive high rise monstrosity of the Atlantis resort and casino.

Along the beaches and in town it was very quiet, downtown Nassau was full of luxury shops and tourist stalls that were either empty or closed, we guessed that it was because there weren't any cruise ships in town.

We caught the jitney (local mini bus) to Cable Beach where there are many more massive resorts to do some grocery shopping, then returned to our unit to cok some dinner and take advantage of the reliable wifi, both novelties after two weeks in Cuba

Topless bar

Day 202

Unconcealed weapons are OK?

Today we walked back into downtown Nassau and it wasn't long before we noticed the difference from yesterday. There were people everywhere, people were swimming and sunbathing, all the beach bars along Junkanoo Beach were full, and the streets were full of families - the cruise ships were back in town. In the harbour we could see three huge ships, and as we drew closer we could see the stream of people coming from that direction. It appears that when we had landed in town yesterday it was on one of those rare days when there weren't any cruise ships in port, no wonder the locals take some time off when that happens.

We walked through town and crossed the Sidney Poitier bridge (no, we don't know any other famous Bahamans) to Paradise Island, where we checked out the Atlantis complex, well as far as we were allowed to go anyway, which was just the luxury shop and casino areas.

We caught the ferry back to Nassau where the guide had a little comedy spiel, at one point he professed his love for Mariah Carey and said he had heard her new man was mega rich so he couldn't compete, no mention of where the "new man" was from. Interestingly he presumed he was from the US, also that all of us on the ferry were from the cruise ships.

Fresh off the boat

As we walked back to our unit we could see that the crowds had thinned and the beach bars were packing up - all the cruise people were on their way back to their ships.