HEADING TO TRINIDAD - SUNDAY MARCH 8
Today we
are heading to Trinidad, our last country on this tour. While I have always thought of it as a
Caribbean Island, it’s more in the Atlantic than the Caribbean and it’s so very
close to South America – only 8 miles from Venezuela while it is further from
Tobago, it’s sister island. And while it is also the “home of the Steel Band”
with the lovely melodies played on the steel drums, we never heard a single one
during our stay. That was a bit
disappointing.
As we are
waiting for our flight at the Suriname airport, several of us are using the
last bit of time here to go shopping.
There weren’t a lot of choices in shops at the airports but a bit of
souvenirs and some of the hot sauce available, honey, and a few other items
that are very Surinamese. I managed to
scoop up a small bottle of the hot sauce, a wooden turtle, a wooden toucan, and
some of the plantain chips.
So into
Trinidad and Tobago. No problem for any
of us clearing immigration and customs and we are met by Vanessa, who will be
our guide for today only. As certain
things happen at certain times, our itinerary is being changed up by the
company and Chris to give us the best possible experience while here. We drive into Port of Spain and through the
city while Vanessa points out many of the important buildings. Problem with that is, we can’t get photos and
a good many of the buildings are behind construction walls or behind
fences. Then we climb up the hill to
the lookout. This is the Lady Young
Lookout and there are a few sales shop kiosks here with drinks and such as well
as some tacky souvenir stalls. Also it
is a popular spot so rather crowded up here.
Seems like most of the cars climbing the hill pull into this turnout for
a look. It is a bit hazy over Port of
Spain, the capital city, but we can see the landmass of Venezuela in the
distance. Vanessa regales us with tales
of the border and boundary disputes between the two countries. Seems like both countries like their national
waters to be a bit closer to the other country than said country would approve
so mishaps do happen.
We show up
at our hotel, Hotel Kapok, about 3 p.m.
We have to fill in a form with our passport numbers and such and give it
to the desk clerk to get our room key. I
have no clue what they were doing but a good many of the rooms were not ready
and we were all tired and needing showers and such. Some people got their rooms immediately but
of course my husband and I weren’t in that group. The desk clerks were so confused that they
were asking who was together and who was in separate rooms. When I’m tired, I almost turn into an ugly
traveler and I was close here, especially when other couples were getting rooms
before we did as we had been the first couple to turn in our paperwork. Didn’t seem fair. While we were not the last people to get a
room, we were close to the last people.
To keep from being totally nasty, I started helping a young woman who
came in to get her room. She already had
a room as she was with a group that had arrived yesterday and she had a
roommate so all she needed was her room number but it also took them forever to
realize this and help her. She finally
got her room and about 10 minutes later, we got ours.
Chris was
doing his “let’s order our dinner now so that it will be ready when we want it”
routine. This so confuses the
kitchen. He’d decided we would eat in
the hotel tonight in their Chinese restaurant which was on the 8th floor. So as soon as we dropped our bags, we went up
to the 8th floor to order our meal. How
funny, we were almost the last getting our room but we were the first to arrive
to order our meal. Only one lady knew
that our group was coming up to do that and of course she wasn’t at the station
when we started showing up. Trying to
explain this to a wait staff that has no clue that this can even be done was
really frustrating. And or course while
we are trying to explain, more group members come in to order their meals as
well. But it finally was accomplished
and we went back to our room to get ready for the afternoon/evening
entertainment and to meet downstairs to leave on the bus.
We are
heading to Caroni Nature Sanctuary. This
is a boat ride through the mangrove swamps where we will finally end up in a
lake like area where thousands of the scarlet ibis return to a single island
for the night. We are all hoping it will
be much more productive than the parrot island was at Baganara in Guyana.
When we
arrive, the dock is full of tourists going on the same boat ride. A boat leaves the dock that is chock full of
people and I’m hoping that we don’t end up as packed. Luckily we got our own boat and a good guide
except I ended up in the front of the boat and sometimes could not see what he
was pointing out because he had gotten the boat close to the animal so that he
could see it and he was in the stern of the boat. Still, I did see everything he showed us.
We push
away from the dock and he stops about 10 feet from the dock and points out
these “4 eyed fish”. Not sure it really
had 4 eyes but it was a fish with two eyes that are above water! So you see these tiny eyes that are moving
through the water, sometimes really fast.
Rather eerie and crazy looking but a cool animal. Also very hard to take a photo of eyes on the
surface of the water.
The guide
points out the banks of the canal which are full of holes where crabs live and
also some birds. But we see no crabs
because the herons have eaten most of them on this part of the canal since it
is so cleared. And as we move up the
canal, there are a few herons here and there and a kingfisher. Then we move into the mangroves and under the
trees.
We are
motoring slowing up the canal under the canopy of trees with the mangrove roots
along both sides. I think it’s going to
be difficult to see anything when suddenly the boatman stops and backs up the
boat and says “You’re lucky because this one is hard to see. It’s a silky anteater”. I’m busy looking in among the roots trying to
find what I know as an anteater which is an animal with a long snout for
getting into ant homes. Everyone is
looking everywhere and not finding it.
He tells people in the back where to look and slowly there are cries of
OH, I see it which slowly moves to the front of the boat where I am as people
tell each other where to look and point, etc.
Finally I ask, “Is it the brown ball like knot in the tree”? Why, yes it is!!! So what we are seeing is the lovely brown
butt of a silky anteater that is curled up in a tree fast asleep. And that’s the only view we ever got. The boatman/guide did pass around his cell
phone with a photo so we knew what we were supposed to see but I just got nice
photos of silky anteater rear-end.
Continuing
on, he stops the boat again shortly and says “There’s a mangrove tree
boa”. I don’t really like snakes
much. No, that’s wrong, really dislike
snakes a whole lot and don’t want to see them out in the wild and can barely go
into a snake exhibit. In fact, I could
not become a docent for the zoo where I lived because we had to handle a
snake. No thank you. Oddly enough, if someone else is holding it,
I can touch it but I couldn’t pick one up and I definitely wasn’t very happy
about being in the boat directly underneath this boa – which was also fast
asleep. But we stopped and took photos. Usually I am so snake-phobic that I won’t
even have any snake photos in my collection but I kept this one. I could see the head if I zoomed in and it
didn’t look asleep to me but it never moved.
We saw another one in a tree a bit later. Same circumstances and it never moved
either. Guess the day is too hot for the
snakes as well.
We are
moving around the mangroves and he is pointing out plants and trees and birds
when we can see them through the trees.
It is all interesting and fun but all seems like a maze. Wonder how long it took him to learn the
routes in and out of the swamp.
There are a
lot of boats gathered at one side of an island and we join them. This is where the scarlet ibis fly past to
get to the island in the middle. As you
look at the island, it is all green with a few spots of white and a few spots
of red on it already. As we wait, we
see the first group of about 20 ibis fly past, low and close to the water, and
rise up into the trees of their island and settle down for the night. So now there are more spots of red on the
island. Wow, already better than the
parrot island.
As we sit
there, more and more flocks/groups of scarlet ibis come winging overhead and by
us at water level to get to the island.
They are coming from all directions, from other forests, from
plantations where there is sugar cane, from marshes and fields where there is
other agriculture. They spread out
during the day to find food and then come home at night. We must have seen 30 or 40 groups fly by us
and settle. Boats finally started
leaving. We were one of the last boats
to leave. By the time we left, the
island was a brilliant Christmas tree with the red ibis just everywhere on it
and also quite a few white herons who were not noticed as much when they flew
in because the ibis was so spectacular.
The Scarlett ibis is Trinidad and Tobago’s national bird.
Back to the
hotel for our Chinese dinner which we had pre-ordered. Up to the 8th floor but our group straggled
up there as many stopped in their rooms first to drop off cameras or even
change clothes and take a shower so the poor kitchen came out a couple of times
with plates for people who hadn’t quite arrived yet. Luckily though, the kitchen had marked the
dishes with people’s names! How ironic
and obscenely comical that, just like getting our room when we arrived – hubby
and me being almost last to get our room when we were first to turn in our
paperwork – the same happened at dinner.
We had been the first to turn in our order and we were almost the last
to get our dinner. Hmmm. First in – Last out. An inventory technique and one I hope will
not continue to plague us on the trip.
Dinner was
quite tasty though. And again, there
were a number of people in the group that weren’t up to sharing their Chinese
dishes until they saw how much food they had, and then they were happy to take
some and pass it down the table to others.
So much food though! I think we
will avoid Chinese restaurants though unless we have a way to take home the
leftovers!
A good first day in Trinidad.
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