Catching the Bus in Grand Cayman

I caught the bus from Heroes Square heading to the East End of the island as I wanted to visit the Queen Elizabeth Botanical Park. I asked the lady bus driver when the buses came back to Georgetown from the Botanical Park.

“It’s not a designated stop so when you are ready to leave the gardens ask the people at the reception to phone the driver and they will come and pick you up.”

I liked the sound of that idea so I sat back and enjoyed the journey through the flat, scrubby landscape. When we arrived at Bodden Town the road hugged the southern coast of the island for the next five miles until the turning for the gardens. I was delivered to the entrance door and wished a pleasant visit.

The Park was opened in 1994 with just the Woodland Trail open to visitors. Since then more features have been added including a colour garden and a large pond where many native bird species can be seen. Also roaming the grounds are a good number of blue iguanas. Some lie on the path and watch visitors walk by them, others sunbathe on seats, while others run away surprisingly quickly should you happen to take them by surprise. The iguanas are usually about a metre long including the tail and on no account should they be fed.The Xeriphytic Garden uses local drought tolerant plants that can grow and sustain themselves with low water requirements and tolerate heat and drought conditions. Not only  cacti and thorny succulents grow here but also ornamental grasses, flowering perennials, and also trees such as the mango. There’s also a traditional Cayman Islands house in this garden with the kitchen located outside in case of fire. The verandah is an excellent place to take a break from the sun or to shelter when a heavy rain shower hits the gardens. These deluges don’t last long but I was soaked even though I found cover within thirty seconds.

The Botanic Park is home to ten of the twenty-eight orchid species recorded from the Cayman Islands, and four of these orchids are found nowhere else on earth including the Cayman’s National Flower, the Wild Banana Orchid, the Ghost Orchid found only on Grand Cayman, and Encyclia kingsi which is found only on Little Cayman.

The Cayman Islands are also home to 57 species of butterfly and I saw many colourful examples as I admired the flora of the park.

After 3 hours I notified the lady working in the shop that I would like to leave, so she phoned the bus driver, who would be there in 20 minutes. She then spent that time helping me identify a particular flower that I hadn’t seen a label for in the garden. We looked amongst the garden’s book collection and eventually found the correct flower.

The bus arrived on time and I was whisked back to Georgetown. On the way back I noticed a wellness centre and on the opposite side of the road a cemetery.