Dan & Duffy's Blog: 2009

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Weekend in Tobago

The first week in December we had our first houseguest. He arrived just one day after our car cleared customs. Optimistic planners, we already had made hotel reservations on Tobago on the opposite end of the island from the ferry port.

Tobago is a very short flight (maybe 20 minutes) or a three hour ferry ride away. We had been warned that it could be a rough trip and came prepared with Dramamine and ginger ale. 90 minutes into the journey saw the roughest seas, and ferry employees started laying out barf bags on the bar and indeed several fellow travelers spent a lot of the trip with their heads on the table looking miserable, but that may have been a result of the in-flight entertainment: six consecutive episodes of the 90s sitcom "Martin". The great thing about the ferry was that we got to see a lot of Trinidad's coast - including our apartment as well as get a close look at the oil platform and tiny islands that we can see from our balcony.

The ferry arrived in Scarborough - the capital of Tobago - I think Tobago has just 60,000 people total so being the capital means that Scarborough is a town while everyplace else is a village with a small grocery and maybe a mobile phone store.

We headed first to Tobago's (only??) historic site - Fort Milford. Here's me with a cannon. The fort was made of rock and coral and had six cannons - most English but also one that is French - because the French very briefly occupied Tobago in the late 1700s.

Here's a view of Store Bay where we had lunch. Beach food in Trinidad is usually a fried fish sandwich called Shark 'n Bake and the one at Store Bay was outstanding. We learned that the secret to a Shark 'n Bake is the condiments - options include garlic sauce, chadon beni sauce (a Spanish sauce with cilantro and sounds like "shadow benny"), tamarind sauce, lettuce, tomatoes and many, many types and potencies of hot sauce.

Our hotel was in the town of Speyside - a town we chose because we met a Trini guy at a reception at the German Embassy and he said it was his favorite town. We decided to take the long way to Speyside following the western shore which is the Caribbean Sea - not realizing that the long way would be very long indeed because the roads were very windy following the coast. We did drive by this mural which we admired...

After many hours of driving, we had some conflicting information about whether the last 10 miles (or last 2 coves) were paved or not so we decided to cross the island by going through the National Forest. There were multiple signs about not grazing your animals there but we saw plenty of cows including this one which was topped with an egret.

Finally we made it to Speyside which is on the Atlantic side of Tobago. On Saturday we had the beach to ourselves and collected literally handfulls of beach glass - quadrupling my lifetime of collecting. I think beach glass is hard to find in the states because littering isn't as common as it once was - but in Tobago there was plenty of glass mostly in the colors of the two local beers - Stag (brown glass) and Carib (white glass)

On Sunday, we went to Argyle Falls which is a park on the site of a former cocoa plantation. Our tour guide pointed out birds including this jacamar - which is much prettier than our picture suggests.

We ended our weekend back in Scarborough and spent most of the time in the botanical gardens where they had some terrific Christmas decorations but also these very odd angels.

Monday, November 30, 2009

What's Suriname? Who's your daddy?

Thanksgiving weekend saw Queen Elizabeth II visiting Trinidad for the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting, which promised to have the city on total lockdown. It was her third visit as Queen, but it marked the first time she had ever slept on land here. Without sufficient hotel capacity for the conference, two cruise ships were docked at Port of Spain to make up the difference. We thought it was the perfect opportunity to hop a direct flight to Paramaribo, capital of Suriname.

Our friends Frank and Kim (we worked together in Jordan) are assigned to Suriname. They showed us around Paramaribo, a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its downtown full of well-preserved colonial Dutch architecture. (Suriname gained its independence in 1975). Here we are outside 17th-century Fort Zeelandia.

More of the Dutch colonial style. In addition to its striking architecture, the most surprising feature of Suriname is the abundance of exclusively Dutch visitors, thanks to a common language and a tradition of Peace Corps-style volunteerism. There are even direct flights from Amsterdam. Meanwhile, the country appears indifferent to attracting visitors from the U.S., who are required to get a visa in advance.

We were generously invited to Thanksgiving dinner at the Ambassador's residence on the river's edge. Dozens of Peace Corps volunteers were also in attendance, and they appeared especially excited to have a taste of American food, taking a much-welcome break from a steady diet of "all things cassava". Many of the volunteers took six-hour boat journeys down the river to be there.

We drove into the interior to visit the Brownsberg Nature Park, lured by the promise of monkey sightings. Unpaved sections of the road were so deeply rutted by water flow, the last 30 km of the journey took more than two hours.

This is the registration office for the guest lodges at the park. Behind me are jarred specimens of some of the wildlife.

Several of these large (cat-sized) rodents were brazenly feasting near the park's restaurant, apparently unconcerned about their proximity to humans.

And here he is. Our first wild monkey sighting! Three of these monkeys were playing in the trees near our guest house.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

This is not news but the pace of life here is slow.

We admit we haven’t been writing much.

I think when we arrived in Jordan everything seemed very exotic – camels! Arabic! The call to prayer! And life in Trinidad seems much more normal and certainly easier. The grocery stores carry American foods. The movie theater shows American and Bollywood films. Driving on the left and the ocean views are the biggest changes.

We are getting impatient waiting for our car but in the interim – we’ve been swimming in the pool every other day; we’ve made it to our tennis court; headed to the beach; been to the terrific multiplex; and headed out to dinner.

The best decision we made was hiring a local cook. Our kitchen now always smells deliciously of curry. For Thanksgiving, the Americans at the Embassy host a lunch for our Trinidadian colleagues. I made my favorite pumpkin cake but heard that the buffet table was light on food. Our cook Fatima has just made us a large pot of callalloo the national dish (an okra-pumpkin-greens stew) so I brought that in too. After the lunch I had a lot of confused Trini co-workers asking me how I had already learned how to make callalloo and complimenting the good seasoning. I quickly admitted that I was not the cook.

Life here is slow. I have been reading a lot and have a lot of book recommendations. Highest on the list is “Selected Works of TS Spivet” followed by “Superfreakanomics” and the “The Worst Hard Time.”

We spend a lot of time on our balcony watching the sunset over the ocean and watching the boats. Recently we've been watching the progress on the second oil rig in our view. We'll send pictures when it is done.

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Asa Wright Nature Center

While Duffy went off with the ladies to see Fame, a coworker took me to the Asa Wright Nature Center, about an hour drive northeast from Port of Spain.

With the heliconia "sexy pink" flower

Dried fruit and bread is laid out for the birds to snack on. The food is secured under chicken wire so the birds have to come out where we can see them.

This hummingbird came up much closer to us.

This very large tiger lizard was ambling along the nature path. Self-guided hikes are not permitted in the park, unless you've booked a room for the night. We asked why we couldn't walk unescorted.

"Is that because of the great big lizards?"

"No, the lizards are harmless," the guide replied. "We need you to stay in groups because otherwise there's wayyy too much bacchanal takin' place up in 'ere!"