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Gran Tacarib Hike

 

Gran Tacarib Hike

 

gran tacarib hike

 

full moon and turtles

on easter weekend i decided to do an overnight hike with my friends françois and domingo from Blanchisseusse to Gran Tacarib beach and back.

the trail follows the north coast of Trinidad and connects the village of blanchisseusse to matelot, over 30km away. there has been some discussion of linking the villages with a road which would complete the country's road network, however other projects and perhaps the voices of opponents have for now kept the project at bay. what thankfully remains is an amazing trail which weaves along the coastline.

typically the trail follows the forest for a while and then suddenly pops out onto yet another idyllic and (sometimes) deserted sandy beach. we of course took our time to enjoy these areas, stopping to take off our shoes and crack open a coconut or two.

we stopped for lunch and a swim at paria bay where numerous families had come by boat and set up tents for the holiday weekend. after lunch we continued up to paria falls, a gorgeous area for swimming.

after another two hours of walking we reached our final destination, a long sand beach named Gran Tacarib. We set up our camp on the beach, ate dinner, drank some rum and waited for night to fall. i was certainly enjoying the hiking - it was great to cover a longer distance and it felt good to carry a pack, even if it was the lightest overnight pack i have every carried!

Around 10PM the moon was coming up when François and i spotted the first leatherback turtle. it is now nesting season for the turtles and they drag their cumbersome bodies onto the beach where they search for a suitable place to bury their eggs in the sand. once the turtle had begun laying eggs we were able to approach her - almost 2m long and quite impressive, especially by moonlight!

the next day we returned the same way we had come - in order to continue to matelot we would have had to arrange return transportation. perhaps next time.

driving back to port of spain on easter sunday we stopped for a quick bake and shark at maracas bay and were astonished to see the beach soooo busy.

Chacachacare Photos

 

Chacachacare Photos

 

Chacachacare Photos

 

spooky chacachacare

the idea to visit the island first popped into my head while flying to tobago - the inflight BWIA magazine featured an article about an installation piece by a T&T artist which takes place in a building on chacachacare. it is the furthest west of the islands that form the northwestern limit of Trinidad and the last point of land before Venezuela; the building is part of an abandoned leper colony.

it wasn't until the following weekend that the idea came back to me as i enjoyed a 'mousse' with my friend françois after having completed a hash (a sort of racehikescavengerhuntexcusetodrinkbeer) in a forest reserve near cumuto. françois is a specialist in carbon fibre and fibreglass and he works in one of the marinas repairing hugely expensive luxury catamarans and the like. he also lives in a great old boat where he has great views of the sunset and sleeps in the control room (is there a real name for that?). and of course, he uses a little zodiac to get to and from the boat that he lives on.

françois suggested that we might sometime embark upon a little zodiac excursion to the bocas (the 'mouths') - at this i immediately suggested that we visit chacachacare. i wasn't quite sure if his little craft could negotiate the somewhat notorious seas of the bocas - after all the aren't named the dragon's mouth for nothing - but he assured me that an early start would ensure a smooth ride (at least the way there...)

so we set off early on sunday morning on waters smooth as promised. we zipped around the islands and in no time (well, 45 minutes really) we arrived at chacachacare. we weren't too sure where exactly we needed to go to see the old colony and were turned back from our first landing by a locked gate. we then made our way across the bay to another cove where we spotted a few buildings. after tying off the zodiac we walked up to the first building that we spotted - the main hospital area complete with decaying beds and medical instruments.

thinking light thoughts, we delicately mounted the rotting stairs to the second level of the building which once housed the laboratory and pharmacy. the place has obviously and unfortunately seen a considerable amount of vandalism and looting - broken and unopened bottles of medications were strewn about with old scripts and diagnostic charts dating anywhere from 1941 to 1978. the mood was somber to say the least.

we carried on to explore numerous other buildings, probably close to twenty in all. as far as we could ascertain these included a church, a chapel, an eating/cooking area, the laundry (you be the judge - françois thought it was an incinerator, i say an industrial washing machine), nurse's (nuns?) quarters and numerous private cabins. it was an extensive facility and it seemed that each time we decided that we had seen the last building and should turn back we would spot another. better yet to let the photos speak for themselves...

after our explorations we ate what little food we had and swam in the sea. we then began our 'degustation de plages' (beach tasting ?) as we visited the salt lake and la tinta bay. on our way back to POS we stopped at a small beach to switch gas tanks and fed/amused ourselves by hacking open coconuts with françois' machete - have to love the tropics.

of course our ride back to the marina was choppy and i did my best impression of a rugged cowboy on a buckin' bronco as i held on in the bow of the tiny boat. my legs and back would remind me of our escapades for a couple of days afterwards...

somewhat related to this story is one of those funny twist-of-fate type tales. while back at work that week i discovered a weekly film screening that occurs at an art studio facility. i really had no idea where to find the place yet luck guided my there and i was treated to a screening of dig!, a film about the rock bands the dandy warhols and the brian jonestown massacre.

after the screening i limed for a bit with some of the other attendees, many of whom were artists with studios of the building. and of course, who did i meet but the artist who was featured in the BWIA mag...

A weekend in Tobago

March 30th was 'Shouter Baptist Liberation Day' here in Trinidad, a holiday which commemorates the day when the British allowed Shouter Baptists to freely practice their religion.

To make the most of the occasion i also took the 31st (a Friday) as a holiday and booked a flight over to Tobago.

My flight arrived early in the morning on Thursday and I ended up catching a swim and a snooze on Store Bay near the airport before heading further east on the island. I grabbed a car to Scarborough, where i bought a bus ticket to Charlotteville.

At the terminal, I asked the driver if the bus waiting there was in fact the bus to Charolotteville, to which he growled 'I told you dat already!'. Somewhat bewildered, I hopped on the bus and met Max and Kyla from California who were heading to Argyle Falls for a cooldown fête. As the bus rattled down the windward coast road we chatted and generally hit it off. they invited me to the fete and i figured why not and hopped off the bus with them at Roxborough.

We arrived in the mid-afternoon and the sound system was already thumping at maximum volume despite the lack of audience. We carried on past the stage to the falls themselves - a beautiful tropical waterfall consisting of three distinct ledges with various pools for wading.

Afterwards we joined in the festivities and were treated to performances by various calypso artists, including Squeezy (sp?) whose photo you can see below. (btw, is it possible that he named himself after the liquid dish soap of the same name that is so popular in T&T?) We decided that we would return to Max and Kyla's guesthouse to clean up, have a rest and return, however we were held captive by the promise of a wet t-shirt contest. Of course Max and I thought that this would be an event not to be missed due to the profound insight it would provide into the Trinibagonian collective psyche, but much to our dismay a lack of willing competitors precluded the much anticipated event. instead we were treated to another cultural institution - five men competing to be the first to drink two beers with a straw. As you might imagine, much quarelling ensued with allegations that the winner had in fact left a considerable amount of foam in his last bottle...

We managed to stay long enough to get down to the great tunes being spun by the attention deficit affected DJ (30 seconds per track is really all you need to hear, isn't it?) before we dragged our tired bodies back to Roxborough. Max and Kyla very kindly offered me the spare bed for the night as I was a bit uncertain about how easy it would be to continue on to Charlotteville that night.

the next morning i said goodbye to max and kyla and made my way to charlotteville where I checked into Moore's. after a quick dip in the sea i was settling into a book on my balcony when to my surprise max and kyla showed up. they had decided to check out things in charlotteville and would end up spending the next couple of nights there. of course i was happy to see them because not only were they fun to hang out with, i also had someone to put sunscreen on my back...

we spent the next couple of days goofing around on the beach and snorkelling in the day and liming by night. a deep sea fishing competition was happening in town, which meant plenty of beer-bellied american (sorry...) fisher-types wandering about drunk at night bragging about the fish they had caught and their position in the contest. perhaps even more amusing was the continuous sound-system blasting the oft empty center square from 9 in the morning until late at night.

upon my return to port-of-spain, max and kyla joined me for a couple of great evenings before they returned to venezuela. they introduced me to harry's punch stand and i introduced them to the music of my friend mark. it was great to have met such kind and generous people - perhaps our paths will cross at some point in the future...

Max and Kyla at Argyle Falls

Squezy in action


All your hardware needs... and the view from pirate bay


the view from my hotel balcony.



a pretty flower

Start it up

I think it is a bit sad that I haven't documented my time here in T&T more so I will make an attempt to be more proactive in that regard. So many great and amazing things have happened during my stay(s) that I feel I should be writing them down, for my own benefit if not for the entertainment of others. I returned here on March 20th, armed this time with a great little digital camera; yes I have made the leap to the modern age and am luvin' it so for. So, it will be that much easier for me to post all those lucious images that you all love so much...


The trip started off in usual fashion by meeting an interesting character on the plane. A Trini living now in Vancouver for over twenty years, who has not slept more than three hours per night for the last thirty or so years! He claims that the first month was difficult but that it became much easier after that - for now i will have to take his word on it, but i must admit that it is intriguing.

Below are a couple of photos of two adjacent lanes in my neighbourhood. Their names are testimony to an interesting story for sure!



Highlights since my arrival include a four day trip to Tobago and a visit to a former leper colony on the furthest island from the western shore of mainland Trinidad. I will endeavour to write individual posts for these, complete with photos.