Fort Winks Inn 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.

... hatchlings in his hand and presented me with one. "Q, for your last night, we're going to have a turtle race." We kneeled down in the sand, set out our two mini-Leatherbacks, and watched them twiddle across the sand, looping this way and that, catching their teeny flippers in bits of seaweed, and finally getting swept away by the incoming tide. My hatchling kicked ass.

My last nesting leatherback was in an area called "Paradise," which is a misnomer because Paradise is the ...

... the seven of us that set out to sea that day, only two of us had ever actually kayaked in the ocean...I was one of the two. So we set sail from the safety of the Salybia River, paddling calmly as the river met the sea. Things looked good. Things looked great, in fact, and Ronald and I, being in single kayaks, shot ahead of the group and up and over the swells. And there were great big swells, several of which I hit just as they were breaking. Foam and white water ...

... scenario extended for long enough, where I felt that these four houligans were left with only two potential outcomes; the first being that they would leave, and the second being that an assault was imminent. I watched them clustered in the dark, halfway down the road to the beach where they had stopped short. They finally, egos swollen, pride pounded, beer metabolized....rolled back up to their car where they stood and yelled in words I could finally understand like ...

During the daytime hours, we have the option of hanging out at our accommodations at Susan's Guesthouse in Matura village, maybe toodling over to the Dis-and-Dat Shoppe to pick up a bottle of pop, roaming the village streets and fending off crazed looking island dogs that are a cross between Corgies and Beagles, or venturing out onto a planned excursion. Yesterday, the planned excursion was a kayaking adventure on the Salybia River. Now, I was a little leery ...

... jours. A la fin des 2 jours les participants sont juges sur la danse et leur costume. Des 8am les gens enfilent leur costume se preparent un bon verre de rhum et d'autres boissons tres fortes et se mettent a danser au rythme d'une musique, qu'apres une journee je qualifie d'infarnale. Bien que cette musique qui etait 20 fois trop forte me tombait un peu sur les nerfs, je me suis surprise ...

... sections (some consisting of thousands of revelers) which reflect these themes. After following a route where various judging points are located, the mas bands eventually converge on the Queen's Park Savannah to pass "on the stage" to be judged once and for all. We got to see all ...

Today I went down to the Yacht Club to go to the islands on a friend's boat. There were eleven of us that went out to Scotland Bay. The ride out there was beautiful. The bay itself wasn't spectacular - there was no beach. But what was cool is that all the boats seem to go to the same area. People just go from boat to boat partying.

... Being a person who respects himself, I look back on some of the ways people treated me while in Trinidad and can hardly believe it. If I were to make a list of the worst people I've met during my 22 years, the top of the list would feature many from this country. In less than three months, I encountered the following forgettable moments: I'll begin with the five Trinis I spent a great deal of time with and who I collectively refer to as "The Five Miserables ...

... and burnt; bored enough perhaps to consider Trinidadian talk-radio worthwhile entertainment - only to see his team lose? I could've learned some new heckles from that guy. "What da' muhda-a*s ya doin', Cuffy!? You muhda-'s couldn't knuckle-bowl a muhda-slipper in de gully if yuh'z wuz bowlin' to my grand-muhda! And why is this game called "cricket," anyway? It makes no sense ... Youshtupido'suh-im? Cream in de Cuffy! Yu muhda-'s!" To be continued. Modern Oddyseus.