First Taste of Caribbean Life

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  Tobago, Trinidad and Tobago
Sunday, June 12, 2005

We both woke up early, but had no trouble going back to sleep till 8am - a nice 11 hour kip, just what was needed. We had breakfast at our hotel, and Simone, the owner, gave us directions to the nearest nice beach, which was "not far". After about 3km of pleasant, but very warm, walking we got to the Mount Irvine beach. It was what I would call a ´classic´Caribbean beach, palm trees, clear blue seas, beach bar - the works. We got some beach chairs and sat and read for a while, very nice indeed.

After a nice BBQ lunch at the beach bar, we lounged around a bit more, then went for a swim later in the afternoon. The walk home felt about 3 times longer than the walk there, and I was absolutely dripping by the time we got back, even Andrea was starting to glow a little.

That night we went to ´Sunday School´the islands infamous Sunday night party. We got there at 8pm, evidently very early, and with not many people around, so we had dinner while it filled up a bit, then we had a few Caribs a local beer, while watching steel band playing - very entertaining.

It soon filled up with the local youth, and the evening seemed to take on a slightly more intimidating mood. Wherever we walked, people would come up to us and start talking, asking where we´re from, where we´re staying, what have we seen on the island etc. Which was friendly in nature, but soon turned to offering to sell you a tour, or come to eat at their restaurant or "get you some ganja". As this was low season, there weren´t many other tourists around, and we got a bit tired of the constant hassling, and left about midnight.

Next day we set off pick up the car we´d decided to hire, to explore the island. Simone told us that the easiest way to get a taxi was to stand on the road and flag one down. As taxis don´t look any different to normal cars, we stood around waving at random cars for a few minutes, until a kindly looking middle aged gentleman pulled over. "We want to go to Crown Point, how much will that be?" Andrea asked him warily. Simone was insistant that we should pay no more than 20TT, any more than that would be ripping us tourists off.

"It´s ok!" said the man cheerfully, as I saw assorted books and nicknacks in the back seat, slowly realising that this wasn´t a taxi "I´ve got to go that way anyhow, I give you a lift". Raymond, our ´taxi´ driver used to work for Barclays bank, and had been to London many times, and shared with us his view on life during an entertaining 15 minute drive to the Thrifty car hire. Andrea said afterwards that it was a shame that we couldn´t hire him as our personal tour guide for the week.

We collected our car, a Suzuki Jimny jeep-type, and were independently mobile!

The drive round the island was very pleasant, full of gorgeous views of sandy coves and rocky beaches. The middle of the island is quite mountainous, and full of tropical rainforest. We stopped at a few little seaside towns, but all were virtually deserted, save for the ubiquitous handful of locals lounging around.

Being virtually the only white faces on the island, we stood out, and we couldn´t stop anywhere for long without someone coming up to us and trying to sell us some mangoes or aloe vera or other tropical staple.

We spent most of the day driving round the island, passing through countless little hamlets, and that night ate in a restaurant which had only the two of us in there - this was weird.

We had the car for 2 days, so we drove up to the capital, Scarborough, the day after, to explore. The capital was very small, probably only Aberystwyth size, but a bit warmer.

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