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.
Heading to Trinidad - Last Country of Tour
Sunday, March 08, 2015
Port of Spain, Trinidad, Trinidad and Tobago
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