Lopinot & Guanapo Gorge

April 30

Our friend Jean-Stéphane was down for the weekend from Montréal and had said that he would like to do a hike. I had read a brief paragraph in my guidebook about the Guanapo Gorge and decided that it could be an interesting 'hike'.

We drove up the narrow gravel road towards Guanapo and came across three men from the Forestry service standing at the side of the road. We stopped and took advantage of the coincidence to obtain some more precise directions than those contained in the paragraph I had read.

We stopped at the bridge where the road crosses the Guanapo River and decided to walk directly up the river bed. At first we hopped from rock to rock to keep our feet dry, but it wasn't long before we were wading chest deep and swimming in the water to make our progress up river.

I was thankful to have a waterproof camera case as we swam/waded/walked up the river until we reached the deepest and narrowest section of the gorge. After about an hour of progress in the gorge itself we were turned back by an insurmountable barrage of giant tree trunks. Floating downstream with the weather-worn limestone walls towering above was quite an experience.

Upon exiting the gorge itself we were all quite happy to spend some time in the sun, having become quite cold from soaking in the water for so long. This would be the second time that I was cold in Trinidad (the first was standing atop Mt. Chaguramal in a soaking wet cotton t-shirt).

On our way back down the road we met some locals who were collecting Tonka (spelling?) nuts - they gave us some of the aromatic fruit. The scent reminds me of brown sugar.

From Guanapo we drove to Lopinot, a village tucked high in the mountains west of Arima. We arrived as the sun was going down and were treated to the sight of a cricket match taking place in front of giant (banyan?) trees, all basked in the golden light of the sunset.

Lopinot was celebrating its' 200th anniversary - it was formed as a cocoa plantation by a French Loyalist Count who was granted the lands by France. The village has a reputation as the true home of parang in Trinidad - parang is a style of christmas music played in T&T which is sung in French and Spanish and has its' origins in South America (I believe). A typical parang group consists of cuatro (think ukelele), guitar, shakers, percussion and box bass (think broom handle, one wire and a wooden box).

We treated ourselves to pastels (curried meat wrapped in a pastry which is steamed inside banana leaves) and geera gizzard (cumin spiced chicken gizzard - well actually, this was only Michel and Jean-Stéphane). Liming and conversing ensued, as usual. I spoke at length with Joe, a man from Barbados who lived for many years in Montréal. After much philosophising with him I joined the rest of the group in watching a local parang troupe ply their trade on the front veranda of someone's home.

Later on, François and I would meet Martin Gomez, whose name I recognized from my guidebook as being the local 'guide' and historian. He treated us to a great solo cuatro performance which I was happy to catch on video. We also met a local man who explained the history of the region and the music in near-perfect European accented French.

After things wound down we headed back to POS where we introduced Jean-Stéphane to the tradition of rotis and beer in St-James. He was even lucky enough to be treated to the bottle balancing prowess of one of the local entertainers...