Plans for the Trinidad Grand Tour

My sister, Lin, arrives in Trinidad in a few days and I'm thrilled for two reasons. First, it's my sister and she's coming to visit us. Second, it's an opportunity to travel around the island exploring for a week and it will give David a break from boat projects. Yes, that's the deal. He works before she arrives and after she leaves, but no boat work while she's here. (I don't think he's upset by this deal … he agreed to it much too quickly.) While David has been pulling the prop, replacing the shaft seal and cutlass bearing (BV blogs on this to come) and grinding/repairing fiberglass for the past week, I've been generally staying out of his way … writing, making runs to the supermarket, preparing meals, cleaning, but mostly, planning. Planning an itinerary for Lin's visit has been fun, but time-consuming and a bit challenging. Many places lack websites with usable information (like hours, prices, contacts); others have no website at all. Also, most things require reservations here. Hotel and car rental reservations are a given, but many local activities require reservations as well as tour guides which is difficult to schedule when you're trying to stay loose and keep your options open. Planning your vacation down to the minute is not exactly the most relaxing holiday. Lin runs 24x7 when she's home and laid-back Trinidad should be a relaxing adventure, not a stressful one. Of course, typical one-week American vacations are not ideal for unstressing anyway.

I asked around and got several suggestions for things to see and do here. Other cruisers were a good source of information, and I also asked some local Trini friends what they'd recommend seeing. Lin has a Trinidad tour guide and had lots of input to provide. Here's what we came up with.

We figured we'd spend the first couple of days locally here in Chaguaramas. There really is quite a bit to see in the area … beaches, hikes, waterfalls, a boardwalk ... and even the boatyard is totally different for her (oh, joy!).

I've made a reservation for a night at the Asa Wright Nature Centre (AWNC). David and I visited AWNC, an old cacao plantation now nature reserve, on our last visit to Trinidad back in 2002 and it was outstanding. We're hoping it's every bit as enjoyable this time around.

We've rented a car and we plan to head to Trinidad's north and east coasts. We've reserved rooms for a couple of nights near the beach. It's leatherback turtle season and Lin has never seen sea turtles. We've seen green turtles laying at Ascension Island and at Chesterfield Reef, but we've never seen leatherbacks and we never tire of seeing sea critters do their thing.

We also plan to make a stop in the tiny town of Redhead, just because ..

A high priority is watching flocks of Trinidad's national bird, the scarlet ibis, return at dusk to roost in the mangroves at Caroni Swamp. Pitch Lake is down south and might be a possibility … you can never get too much pitch. The Devil's Woodyard is down south, too … bubbling mud volcanoes. Very appealing!

We'll spend a couple of nights in downtown Port of Spain, Trinidad's capital city too. Lin has free Marriott points and it'll be a fun splurge. I've found several self-guided tours of the city which we'd like to do which include the botanical gardens, maybe the zoo, plus the Red House (Trinidad's seat of Parliament) and other points of interest. We're hoping to take in high tea at the Mount St. Benedict Monastery, maybe a tour of the Angostura Rum/Bitters Factory and perhaps see the Hindu Temple in the Sea. The list of possible to-do's seems endless.

In between, we'll hang out, play gin and cribbage and speed scrabble, drink, eat, laugh, read and just be …

Sounds like a fine holiday and of course, you're most cordially invited to come along … and you don't even need to pack.

Trini Trivia

Every place we visit has some unique superlative to tout and surprisingly, Trinidad has more than most. I enjoy discovering these unique aspects, as well as the obscure trivia. They're always eye-openers. First of all, this two-island country is formally named the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago (T&T). In a nutshell, Christoper Columbus was the first European to discover the island in 1498 and named it "La Isla de la Trinidad" ("The Island of the Trinity"). It was ruled by the Spanish till the Brits took over in 1797. Tobago, Trinidad's laid-back sister island, was ceded to the Brits in 1802. T & T became independent in 1962 and a republic in 1976.

An interesting tidbit … T&T is the third richest country by GDP per capita in all the Americas, second only to the USA and Canada. Its wealth is primarily attributed to their petroleum/petrochemical industry and their large reserves of oil and natural gas.

Now for some trivia and uniquities. Both the calypso and the limbo are dances native to Trinidad. Calypso “traces its rhythms to West African Kaiso and the arrival of French planters and their slaves from the the French Antilles in the 18th century.” Limbo, on the other hand, originated as an event that took place at wakes in T & T, signifying a soul passing into the spirit world. Though it's been around since the 1800's, it only gained popularity in the 1950s. “The world record for lowest limbo dance is held by Shemika Charles, an 18-year-old Trinidadian woman who lived in New York. On 16 September 2010 she successfully danced under a bar only 8.5 inches (21.5 cm) above the ground.

The current dance trend in T&T is soca, considered “the heart of calypso”, but still a different dance/music genre and originating right here.

Steel pan drums, the only new acoustic instrument to be invented and accepted worldwide in the 20th century, originated in Trinidad and Tobago. Want to listen to a little pan music?

Janelle "Penny" Commissiong, Miss Trinidad in 1977, was the first black Miss Universe.

The Pitch Lake in South Trinidad is the largest natural deposit of asphalt in the world.

Queen's Park Savannah, a park in Trinidad's capital city, Port of Spain, is the city's largest open space and also the world's largest traffic rotary/roundabout and we've driven around it. There is some competition, however, by the folks of Putrajaya, Malaysia who claim the same superlative.

Trinidad and Tobago Carnival is internationally ranked as one of the top ten Carnival celebrations in the world.

According to a CNN report, Trinidadians are among the happiest people in the world AND have one of the sexiest accents. You've gotta be here to appreciate how true this is.

Trinidad's beaches are considered the world's densest nesting area for the biggest of all living sea turtles, the leatherback.

The Guinness Book of Records ranked Moruga ‘Scorpion’ Pepper as the world's hottest pepper in 2012. A single scorpion pepper packs the heat of 400 jalapeños. The Scorpion was dethroned in 2013, however, by the Carolina Reaper. Hot stuff!

Folks from T&T sometimes refer to themselves as Trinbagonians!

Lepers and Lighthouses - Pt. 2

Exploring Chacachacare Island, Trinidad

We had a hard time figuring out where to find the path to the lighthouse. We had climbed it once before, but access had seemed more evident. During the week, men had been working, in a rather desultory manner, on an old, decrepit public wharf which proved to be inaccessible by the dinghy. The wharf area was all fenced in. Behind it, we could see a sign welcoming us to Chacachacare Island. Dozens of vultures stood sentry, not bothered in the least by our presence, just daring us to come ashore. We had found a hiking map for Chacachacare on line, but the shore road delineated on the map had collapsed. It appeared however, that the road to the lighthouse led from the wharf. We beached the dinghy nearby.

On shore, empty oil drums were everywhere...some overflowing with trash, others knocked over with trash spilling out of them. Tens of torn, black plastic trash bags disgorged their contents. Plastic bottles, beer bottles and rubbish was thick on the shore. A No Littering sign stood firmly in the midst of the junk and debris.

We carefully picked our way through the rubbish and found the asphalt road leading up to the lighthouse. The first few hundred feet were covered in trash, but soon the trash was left behind (obviously it's inconvenient to litter further up a steep hill) and we were climbing the pleasant, albeit steep, switch-backed road to the summit of the hill (825'/251.5m) where the lighthouse stood. The Brits built the lighthouse in 1876 and cut the road to the top. Hardy weeds poked through the crumbling asphalt and remnants of a sturdy, retaining wall could be glimpsed midst the heavy jungle foliage.

We climbed and climbed, stopping for brief respites in shady spots. Cotton plants bloomed and rotten bolls hung from the blossoms. Colorful butterflies and dragonflies flitted past. Birds sang in the trees. And, as always, vultures circled overhead.

We remembered reaching the top on our last visit. The lighthouse was still tended then and we chatted with the lighthouse keeper. The area was kept fairly neat and tidy. We took turns swinging on an old swing suspended from a sturdy branch. What a change! Old diesel oil drums were haphazardly lined up like undisciplined soldiers...some in the bush, rolled half way down the hill. Trash and debris was scattered all over. The old swing hung limply, the thick weed patch below it testifying to its disuse.

The once stately Bocas Lighthouse was faded and in sad shape. Solar panels had been added. No lighthouse keeper was needed any longer. The area was all fenced in and an unsightly, erector-set communications tower stood beside it. A committee of vultures had established their territorial presence on both structures and had no intention of moving away.

We ambled back down the path, much faster on the descent than the ascent had been. We always see new sights when the path is viewed from a new perspective. An abandoned oropendula nest suspended from a bamboo tree, swayed in the breeze. Several different species of butterflies fluttered past. Birds twittered away in the dense foliage, keeping themselves well hidden.

We returned to the dinghy and headed back to Cups. We weren't really disappointed, as much as dismayed by the volume of trash and garbage that had accumulated and remained in such a beautiful place. We remembered a sign in a bus in Ecuador years ago which read “Keep this bus clean. Throw trash out the window.” Chacachacare Island remains under the auspices of Trinidad's national parks system, but it appears it's an orphaned child. It would take an army to clean it up and haul all the refuse away. We postulated that a prison work detail would make a good dent in it, but then who would continue to keep it up? We're hopeful that the workers we saw on the wharf are the beginning of a solid reclamation project.

After five days in our blessedly peaceful Chacachacare anchorage, it was time to face the congestion and frenzy of Chaguaramas. Sigh! We waited till the very last minute and sailed across the bay just a couple of hours before our scheduled haul-out time. No more tranquil anchorage. No refreshing evening dips. Back to reality.