Hotel Normandie 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. <br><br> <br>

... that hosts the heaviest tourist traffic. We found her in the dark, at the end of the obvious path where she'd dragged herself from the sea, across the sand, to where she now had begun to dig a hole with her rear flippers. The flippers are the craziest things, and something about them was....I'm at a loss for descriptors....something about them was dear. Like the way a dog twitches his leg when you rub his stomach. Something about the flippers reminded me of dear little dog legs ...

... like the movie "Weekend at Bernie's" and she was Bernie. Dressed in sandals, shorts, a lovely little red life vest, giant sunglasses, and a floppy wide-brimmed hat. The brim of the hat played around on the surface of the water, much like an octopus, but, for reasons unknown, Lee was still floating face down. I reached in to grab her vest, and at that moment, she regained her composure, became upright in the water and looked in my direction through wet sunglasses ...

... 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 ...

... et on conduit a gauche, en plus il y a plein de rond- points, c'est drole. La pluie semble avoir cesse un peu, je crois qu'on verra bientot la saison seche. A part ca tout va bien, je n'ai pas trop de voyage de prevu prochainement, le Sommet approche rapidement et j'ai moins de temps. Au mois de mai je vais sans doute jouer plus a la touriste. Je vous donne des nouvelles bientot Annabelle xxo

Mas bands (themed costumes) compete for "band of the year" on Carnival Tuesday. All these bands (who have spent the entire last 12 months working on their costumes) proudly march down the streets of Port of Spain all day in the relentless sun with the biggest smiles in the most exhuberant, excited, and involved crowd of masqueraders, tourists, and Trinidadians. It was the most fun I've had in a long time. The music is just infectious, everyone dancing and ...

... imagine...all continuing up until exactly Midnight, when everything shuts down because of Ash Wednesday. The cleaning crews start cleaning the roads and everyone goes home to sleep off the days of chaos. The next few days we spent relaxing, sight-seeing in the area, visiting with ...

Arrived trinidad after an interseting sail. We made it past TRS Claudette before it was classified as a TRS but the weather was interesting, sailing in 15ft waves which were breaking into the cockpit. wind inexcess of 45 Kts :-0 but we made it here at the end of our second "ocean Passage" and are now looking ...

... 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 ...

... and friends went clubbing to a place called Coconuts. The percussive, energetic soca music of the Caribbean got you moving. The "wining," a dance in which girls wind their butts in other guys' laps, was prolific. And the rum and Cokes - free all night with US$12 entry - tasted like candy. Wining, rum, and soda are the perfect equation for a good time. Five hours and a dozen rums each later, we left the club. "Well, Dexter," I said, "I've been in Trinidad three days now, and you've ...