Trinidad

It's election time in Trinidad and Tobago and I now realise why they call them political parties. There are rallies, street parades, blaring music, constant propaganda on loud speakers... but then maybe Port of Spain is always loud and jumping like this. There seem to be two parties vying for election, one to represent those of African descent and one of Indian descent. The population here seems about half and half with a smattering of Chinese. Needless to say, my white skin and red hair attract a lot of attention. It's pretty harmless but takes a while to get used to the loud squelching sounds (presumably representing kissing though if anyone actually kissed me and made that sound I'd run for the hills!) that follow me everywhere.

Port of Spain is an interesting mix of rich and poor. There are shiny state of the art skyscrapers (although the rents are so high they have noone using the office space) alongside slum-like shanties. There are men and women scurring to work in business suits passing dirty, deformed beggars. However there is an air of contentment around. People seem happy with their lot in life and no-one seems to work too hard. Sitting around, drinking beer at a bar or playing chess in the park is an essential part of the daily routine - for men anyway. I assume the women are at home rearing families or keeping the economy running like in most countries!

Trinidad has a couple of nice beaches in the north and east. These are an hour or two on the bus from Port of Spain. One of the tourist attractions up this way is a meal called bake'n'shark. This is battered, deep-fried shark surrounded by battered, deep-fried dough. I'm not in the USA but I haven't escaped good ol' deep-fried goodness!

One of my day trips up to the beaches was interrupted one day as the bus had broken down. After waiting almost 2 hours, we were informed that a replacement would not be forthcoming. There were a couple of other locals also waiting for this bus where were on an outing to the jungle to visit a waterfall called tree pools. After the non-appearance of the bus they asked me to join them in a taxi instead. As were were heading up to the taxi stand, one of girls, who was taking a sickie, ran into her boss and was mortified until he decided that the outing sounded fun and opted to join us. He also provided his car for the venture. So off we went and on arrival at the pristine series of three pools linked by small cascades I realised I'd have to work on my trinibagonian accent. There were tree/three local fishermen there also cooking up their catch of the day so we were treated to some local hospitality and a wonderful lunch.

Another highlight of Trinidad is the amazing bird life on the island. There is a mangrove swamp just south of Port of Spain which is the nesting ground for the national bird, the Scarlet Ibis. Interestingly this bird does not maintain it's brilliant colour in captivity. The colour is caused by keratin which the birds get from a natural diet of crustaceans and without it they lose their redness. Anyway, it is spectacular to watch the birds returning to their nests at sunset. They paint the sky scarlet as they fly overhead.