Venturing forth on a blustery day in Nassau 2/2/13

Today was another blustery, cool day by Bahamanian standards. We decided after coffee and Wi-fi at Starbucks to venture forth using the bus system and find Fort Charlotte and the zoo. The bus system is very good if and there are a lot of ifs. If you already know what bus to take and exactly where to get on it. Most of the time you can flag them down, but some times not. They only cost $1.25 per person per ride compare to the average taxi ride of 15.00 for maybe a 10 minute ride.  The Bus had a predetermined route, which is not printed anywhere.  As you can see we had quite a tour of "regular Nassau before we got to the Downtown area. They a considerable walk to the fort. 

Fort Charlotte was build to defend the island from a french invasion. Before it was completed the French were defeated so the forts on this island never saw action. Lives were lost because of decease namely Yellow Fever.

this has to be the  perfect "Island" Picture

This is the first building you see when arriving at Fort Charlotte-
The Advance Guard house

For a while it was used as a Boy Scout house

This raised section is actually another fort,
Fort Stanley. It was suppose to control the western end of the ridge and add more firepower toward the sea

this  is an example of early graffiti - soldiers would get board and
carve drawing in the wall

thought it interesting that the barrels were lined on the inside with Paraffin

this  Fort was carved into a limestone hill by hundreds of
slaves working 18 hour days. This was one of the ventilating
holes they build to bring fresh air in 

A storage room

The land you see was not there when the fort was built