Crowne Plaza Trinidad Port of Spain

I decided to take advantage of my paid vacation and spend two weeks in Trinidad and Tobago. My good friend Kevin Fortune, who I met in college, is from Trinidad and was a phenomenal tour guide. I stayed away from computers, cell phones and any reading materials related to the economy and/or the environment.

... meal times, and the crazy Caribbean humidity.

The night was slow with turtles, and much of it was spent watching groups of tourists slowly appear in the darkness, stumble past with shoes and flip-flops in hand, laughing and drinking, sometimes seeing us and stopping to ask us strange drunken questions. The tourists were streaming all through Zone 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15 to see the turtles that had been slow to arrive for the past several days. But Peter, Chris and ...

... the dog." I skinned my knee.


We learned later at our team dinner, that Rodger and the guide had actually made it to the uninhabited island. But when the guide saw that we were in need of assistance, he took Rodger's life vest and kayak and attempted to reach us on his own. Somehow, he capsized as well, let the kayak drift away, and swam into the shore. Meanwhile, he had abandoned Rodger on the uninhabited island to fend for himself.

love,Q

... been denied entry to the beach due to the late hour, the fact that we all had been subjected to a white squall-like storm an hour earlier, and because they did not have the proper permits. Suzan Lakhan, an imposingly tall and substantial Trini woman, went toe-to-toe with the drunk houligans and ordered them to leave. But they wouldn't leave, and instead they began posturing, beer bottles swinging against the black sky, looking us all in the eyes...one by one...And they ...

... of the tagging, and bucked her head and front flippers upward...I barely missed getting clocked. And in the funniest execution of turtle-science yet, one girl finished laying and covering her nest, and by the time we reached her, she was starting to drag herself down the beach to re-enter the ocean. We saw that she had been previously tagged and we decided to try to record her tag numbers. Now, it's dark, the tags are small and shiny, and they're ...

... there what was in a "Bake and Shark". She looked at me as if I was from another planet and said, "Well, there's "Bake"...and "Shark". Well, that certainly cleared things up. And she was right: the Bake part was a lump of fry bread and the Shark part was, um, Shark. It was a tasty sandwich topped with lettuce and tomato. As far as the Corn Soup, we'd read something in one of our tourist books that we needed to heed. It said, "DO NOT buy corn soup from ah Rastaman name "Dutty".

... also come to Trinidad from Guyana--mainly other volunteers with PeaceCorps, WorldTeach, or organizations through the UK and Canada. We ended up just hanging out in front of a little shop on the side of the main road just talking, dancing, and just having a low-key good time. So the ...

At lunch today I went to the bank - yet again (third time so far) to try to open a new account. I had heard so many negative things about the Royal Bank so I decided to try Scotia. Mistake #1. The day before, the Royal Bank said that I needed ID and a letter from my employer. At Scotia, it's a whole other story. They want more photo ID - I can't imagine what else they would need since I presented them with my passport, birth certificate ...

... with cute, brace-faced Venezuelan Gabriella. But, the Trinidadians, too, who came to this magical place were friendly. And the friends who came left drunkly. David drank so many Stag and Carib beers he liked to fret, "I can't find my brain." On another occasion, I was discovered one Friday morning by David. Following a rum-and-merengue filled night, I oddly lay asleep on the living room sofa. A roll of toilet paper sat beneath the tv, and a dry goldfish from ...

... from the boring cricket, but the music was the highlight. The twelve-member band featured several "steel pans." The steel pan was born in Trinidad and is a thick, circular slab of metal that makes tropical sounds when beat similar to how a conch shell half-filled with water would sound if struck. Six steel pans contrasted with low-pitched African drums and a hollow ridged girder that a smiling Trini raked a brush up and down. The continuous rhythm created got the crowd ...