Asa Wright Nature Centre

My original plan had been to continue around the Queen's Park Savannah but I've changed my mind and decided to talk about my Sunday afternoon outing instead.

One of the national highlights that is listed in every tourism guide on Trinidad is the Asa Wright Nature Centre. Named after the lady who donated it to the country after she outlived her husband and children, the center is one of the premier bird watching locations in the Caribbean if not the world. The center is located in the mountains in the northern middle of the island and you are well away from the hustle and bustle of the urban areas here.

The center is geared toward overnight visitors and most of the buildings there are small cabana style housing for the guests. It is an eco-resort with little to do but commune with nature and hike through the jungle.I made a day trip of it and in addition to simply wandering around took one of their nature walks.

Of course I saw birds. The guide pointed out several that I wasn't able to get a decent photo of including one of the loudest little birds I've encountered, the Bell Bird.

And several exotic flowers and strange plants.

This one happens to be called "Monkey Ladder" and it sends its large vines up and down and all over the place. This particular one happens to be draped over what had been the old road. Which brings me to the real reason this outing jumps up the queue. The most exciting part of the trip was getting there. You know what they say. "Getting there is half the fun."

After several miles of highway, and a section of "decent" back roads (decent referring to the fact there are only a few pot-holes that span the entire road) you come the last several miles of a twisty single lane road with precipitous drops into the valley below. Here's a small section of the road where I wasn't worried about driving off the edge to actually take a picture. At this point the road is slightly wider than your driveway.

The real excitement comes when you encounter someone coming the other way. Here we demonstrate what seems to be the preferred technique. One driver, in this case the one going my direction, pulls as far as he can to the side and stops. My left wheels are off the road. That driver then waits while the other driving moving at about 2 mph attempts to get around without a) destroying the side of either vehicle or b) falling off the cliff into the road below. In this spot there was little danger of careening hundreds of feet to your certain death.

Except when the vehicle coming the other way is one of the three buses I encountered.

Or it starts raining which it did.

All told, my visit to the Asa Wright Nature Centre was very nice and perhaps the most harrowing drive of my life.

East and South Side of the Savannah

Going down the East side of the Queen's Park Savannah, there really isn't all that much to see. There are no major landmarks and we're perilously close to the largest "No Go" zone, the Laventille. I'm not entirely sure what the deal is with this part of town so I'm left to assume it is a high crime zone. Like most of the "No Go" zones, I've been there. Of course I was doing a race at the time.

This is the way the trail looks to me most of the time.

Most of the houses that were there are gone now and you see this odd mix of new offices and run down houses. The small, bright orange building on the left is on our side of the river that is the border between Port of Spain and Laventille.

So you tend to focus on what is on the south side of the southeast corner of the Savannah. This is the National Performing Arts center or NAPA. This is a large theater complex that was clearly inspired by the Sydney Opera House. Here you can see such treats as The Sound of Music as performed by an all black cast while accompanied by a steel pan drum orchestra as well as more conventional fare. The building itself is one of the two most out of place buildings in the city.

This building looks a lot like several I saw in Belgium. In fact it is the National Museum. Originally built in 1892 as the Royal Victoria Institute, it houses an eclectic collection of artifacts. It has a natural science display concentrating on oil and another on the flora and fauna of the island. Another display focuses on life in Trinidad during WWII. One of my favorites was the display on Trinidad's athletic heroes. The biggest and brightest of their athletic heroes is Brian Lara... who'll be the subject of another post.

Another post will cover the rest of the south side of the Savannah but here is a picture from the south side.

The North Side of the Savannah

A lot of what I do here is walk and it seems the longest, safe location to walk is the Queen's Park Savannah. It is just over two miles around so I end up seeing a lot of the stuff surrounding it.

I talked last about the Magnificent Seven, a group of 1900's homes that are still something to see. They are all on the western edge of the Savannah. In this post, we'll turn the northwest corner and head toward the East.

But first a diversion. The company has designated certain areas of the city as being "No Go Zones." Typically these are high crime areas. You generally don't have any problem picking those areas. But there are some exceptions. This happens to be one of the No Go Zones and about the first thing you see while walking on the north side of the Savannah. Why its a NO GO Zone isn't obvious to me but given it is relatively secluded and a popular place to park for folks using the Savannah, perhaps there are a lot of car break-ins.

Our first attraction on the northside is the zoo. This "little" zoo was tucked into a valley and if you are going to see all the animals, you have non-trivial climbs. The zoo is a bit old fashioned and not up to modern standards. There are lot's of little cages for the animals. You can see the entirety of the enclosure for these monkeys. The zoo has a decent collection of reptiles, birds and small mammals. Given that the admission fee was TT$20 (about US$3) I don't know what you expect.

This Ocelot also shows how small and unnatural the cages can be.

This was also the largest cat I saw at the zoo. The maps all showed a Lion and I thought I heard one but I never found it. The Lion enclosure is undergoing renovation and while I was looking, one of the workers did a very passable Lion roar. I was later told that the Lion had died. Figures.

Next up is the Botanical Garden. Admission is free. Unless you are prepared to spend a good amount of time searching, the Botanical Garden is mostly a park like collection of trees. It seems the logical extension of the Savannah, which is mostly an open grassy field with a surrounding walkway and ring of trees. The Botanical Garden is very pleasant.

When I went, Dave, a local, started giving me a spontaneous guided tour. Apparently this was how he made his living explaining the trees to the unwary visitor for tips. I gave him a five and he seemed happy enough.

Immediately next to the Botanical Garden and possibly actually inside it, is the President's House. As close as I can tell, the President is kind of like the Queen. He's nominally the head of state but in reality the Prime Minister is actually the true executive power. Anyway, the president gets to live in the large, older, kinda run down house.

Note the left side of the building. This sort of roof over the roof is actually fairly common. My guess is that it indicates there is a problem with the regular roof and that repairs are underway in that section.

The last building along the north side of the Queen's Park Savannah is the Hilton Hotel, sometimes referred to as the upside down hotel. Possibly the best hotel in Port of Spain, it was built of the side of a hill looking over the Savannah. Or it would overlook the Savannah if the trees didn't almost completely block the view. It is called the Upside Down hotel because you park and enter the hotel from the hill side. The lobby is on the top floor and you take the elevator down to your room.

Next up: The east and south side of the Savannah. And just to whet your appetite...

The Magnificent Seven

One of the landmarks that Trinidadians are duly proud of are "The Magnificent Seven" which have nothing whatever to do Yul Brenner or Steve McQueen. Rather, this is a group of buildings on the western side of Queen's Park Savannah... which is a large park located in the middle of town.

My apartment is located just off the left edge of the map and when I go walking I pass by that park on the left and arrive at the Savannah next to the Queen's Royal College. I admit that the building looks very nice from the front but I pass right by and... well to be generous they are more concerned with how the front looks than the back.

When I do my walks I cross the road... some will tell you that the savannah is the largest round about in the world... and head north. The next one of the seven I see is Hayes Court. While not as big as the Royal College, it is a good sized house.

Then comes Mille Fleur, which I believe means either "thousand flowers" or "mile long flower." You can see the real problem with the magnificent seven with Mille Fluer; it's actually kind of run down. Still we have to grant them the fact that "Magnificent Seven" is a much catchier title than "Formally Magnificent But Now In Need of Repairs Seven."

Then Roormor which may have been the home of a newspaper magnate. (Yeah. I know. That was an exceptionally weak pun.)

You get much more of a feel for what the group must have looked like when they were newer from the Archbishop's House... which oddly enough was the home of the Archbishop. (Trinidad's Christian population is not as heavily Anglican as you might expect from a former British colony. The Roman Catholics and the Spiritual Baptists also have a big presence here.)

Next we have Whitehall which is the home of the Prime Minister. I assume the name comes from the street in London. This house is probably in the best condition of the seven.

Finally we come to the oldest of the group, Stollmeyer's Castle also called Killarney. The new bride of the original builder, Stollmeyer, named it Killarney because she wanted to honeymoon in Ireland. Apparently both the Castle and Whitehall were occupied during the second world war by American troops. I can only assume they were there because Trinidad is the eastern most of the Caribbean islands and they thought the Germans might invade.

Pizza in Trinidad

Next to my apartment in Port of Spain is a large slice of something very familiar, a Pizza Hut. But there is something unusual about this Pizza Hut.

The difference is that it is so big. Of course it sits next to the largest movie screen in the Caribbean, the Digicel Imax theater, so it does seem appropriate. As it turns out, this Pizza Hut is purported to be the largest in the world. According to the story, it used to be a movie theater.

So I went to have dinner Sunday evening. It is large and it was crowded. Approximately eight thousand 8 year olds were there having a raucous birthday party.

Still, since the day I found sauerkraut in my enchiladas in the Netherlands, and the most popular fried chicken place in Oman was the Texas Fried Chicken, I've wondered about the local variations in the menus and sure enough the Pizza Hut in Trinidad didn't disappoint me. Below is a section of the menu that I ordered from:

There are five varieties of Personal Pan Pizza listed; Pepperoni, Vegetarian, Hawaiian, Texas and Santa Fe. The first three are pretty much as you'd expect with the Hawaiian being topped with ham and pineapple. The Texan is just a bit surprising. It's topped with beef and and green peppers. Then there is the Santa Fe which, in keeping with traditional Southwestern cuisine, is topped with Beef and Pineapple... Cause you know those Pueblo Indians, Apaches, Comanches and the Mexicans just love their pineapple. I have to admit it was pretty tasty.

While I could still taste it. On the table was a bottle of Pizza Hut Pepper Sauce which is vaguely green colored and was used as the prototype for acid blood in the movie Alien. This sauce will also eat its way through a formica counter top.

Looking for a Scuba Shop or God is a Trini

Most of you know that among my other failings, I am a scuba diver. One of my regrets is that I didn't take up scuba diving until after I finished my assignment in Jakarta. Indonesia has some world class scuba diving and while Trinidad doesn't have world class scuba diving, the sister island, Tobago, has some very good diving. Determined not to repeat my "mistake" I set off today to find a scuba dive shop.

You know there have to be dive shops when the country's flag looks so much like a scuba flag. The Trinidad and Tobago flag is the one with the black stripe.

When I first came down here, I assumed there would be dive shops in Port of Spain itself. So far, my search has turned up nothing. There are six listed in the phone book but none of them are in the city itself or in one of the immediate suburbs. Undeterred, I selected a couple that are on the peninsula near Port of Spain and set off to find them. A task which is easier said than done because of the local habit of giving addresses that are only meaningful to the local mailmen and which aren't posted anyway. As often as not the locals give their address as "Orchard Gardens" which is a subdivision of Chauguanas without a street name or number. Which is all right given that they almost never put the number on the building and street signs are sporadic.

The two I picked were in Chaugaramas which is unrelated to the town I decided not to search, Chauganas. I did find one but this entry is mostly about what else I found today.

The locals like to say that "God is a Trini." And as much as anything that comes from the country's history with hurricanes. They will gleefully tell you that no hurricane has ever hit Trinidad. This is not quite true but it is close. NOAA has a cool little application that shows the track of every hurricane for which they have data. Here is the plot for Trinidad.

There is Trinidad in a big blank space. The two that passed south of Trinidad were tropical storms at the time. One of those had been a hurricane but dropped down to tropical storm status before getting near and then restrengthened back into a hurricane. One of the one to the north happened in the 1890's. So they aren't lying about having never been hit by a hurricane. Tobago had one become a hurricane right over the island but that doesn't count.

While there is undoubtedly an element of luck to this, on such pieces of luck an industry is built. In Trinidad, that industry is riding out Hurricane Season.

This is what I found when I went looking for a Scuba Dive Shop.

This behemoth may be the largest private yacht I've ever seen. This one and many others are here to avoid hurricanes.

Though most of them were no where near as big as that one, there were a couple hundred of them of all sizes and shapes.

And what does the bored yachtsman do while waiting to be able to take his yacht safely back home. Well someone thought he might like to scuba dive and so in the middle of this complex designed to maintain yachts and pamper their owners, they put a dive shop.

That's it tucked in the corner behind the boat and much smaller than the nail salon next to it. Apparently if you have enough money to keep your boat in Trinidad, you care more about your nails than you do scuba diving.

One final note. The address described this shop as being located on "Level 2." If that's correct, they are either counting from the top down or being scuba divers they consider being underwater as an acceptable level.

Floor Plan

I found this floorplan on the internet.

It is very similar to my apartment. Mine is a mirrored along the diagonal axis of the main hallway with the master bedroom on the left and the other bedrooms on the right.

I still haven't figured out what I want with that many bedrooms but Pat insisted I needed this much space. Or four large screen televisions. Or two and a half baths.

Driving in Trinidad

Among the perks that come with this assignment is a company car. This is mine, parked in the garage in the sub-basement of the apartment.

That they gave me a car implies that they thought I might want to drive. But to be perfectly honest, driving here scares the willies out of me.

Here we are on a fairly typical two lane road on my way back from the office to the apartment. Obviously with the cars parked on either side of the road, the best you could hope for is two really skinny cars side by side. In practice, the street is a single lane until you get to the corner. The walls on either side of the road create an interesting problem at the corner since you can't see what's coming.

Here is the road in front of my apartment and you can clearly see a major part of my problem with driving here is. These guys drive on the left hand side of the road. As far as I am concerned, the British are wrong and this is demonstrably the wrong side of the road.

[The argument goes like this. For the majority of humans, the right hand is the stronger, more coordinated hand. If you the steering wheel on the left side of the car as is typically done in countries who drive on the left hand side of the road, the right hand is trapped in a space of just a few injuries unable to do much more than hold the steering wheel. All the tasks that must be done toward the center of the car, everything that involves gear shifts and the center console must be done with the weaker, less coordinated left hand.]

Park a car of two on one side of the road and you can get a sense for how narrow the street is and how much fun driving here can be. And just a bit up the road is my personal favorite road design feature: the round-about or traffic circle.

I found this video online taken by someone riding a bus near my part of Port of Spain. The Pizza Hut is right at the corner where my apartment is. He added some nice, local music as well. Enjoy.



Note in the later part of the video that the bus drifts across the dividing line between the lanes with oncoming traffic. This is actually fairly common. Whenever someone decides to stop or park on the narrow roads, then everyone else gets squeezed down into the remaining space. Most of us slowdown when that happens preferring the slow speed head-on collision.

The Office

I know everyone is tired of hearing about my apartment, and given that I spend most of my time here in the office, I thought I would focus on the office for the next few posts.

This picture was taken from an airplane... we have mountains here but they are on the opposite side... and was the first photo I saw of the office here in Trinidad. The yellow building in the left foreground is the Marriott where I spent the first several weeks of my time here. The office is the shiny glass structure in the middle and the rather garish colored building on the right is Movie Towne. You can also see the two stadiums on the other side of the transnational highway.

And here is the office as viewed from the Marriott.

You go up to the first floor which, by some strange logic is actually what Americans would refer to as the fifth floor, and ultimately you get to my cubicle.

Which is actually about the same as my immediate boss's office. This is Binh Meador in her cubicle which is right next to mine. Binh is a friend from Houston.

Her office looks, remarkably, like everyone else's office. Unless, of course, you are a corporate official, in which case your office has walls and a door. Clients, sometimes, also get actual offices though several of them have cubicles that look just like Binh's and mine. The head you can barely see over the cubicle wall just past Binh is one of the clients.

Obviously the office is ultra-plush.

Where is the Beach?

Everyone assumes that because Trinidad is a tropical Caribbean island that there must be a beach nearby. And there is... assuming you don't mind a drive through the mountains to get there. By far the most popular beach on the island is Maracas Beach and here are a few pictures to give you a feel for that.

Maracas Beach is located on the north side of the island about 10 miles from the city... which by Houston standards might as well be next door. The drive, however, can be harrowing as the roads are narrow, windy, routinely wet and the Trinis aren't famous for being slow cautious drivers. I'll write more about driving in Trinidad another day.

The beach itself is in a roughly circular bay with tree covered hills/mountains coming down to the water on either side.

The net result is a very pretty setting for a beach with virtually no buildings nearby except for a few change houses and the famous Shark'n'Bake sandwich shops.

Mountains

Somehow, none of the pictures I've taken really show the mountainous nature of the vicinity around Port of Spain, so here I'll try with a few more.

This shot shows the apartment complex I'm in... it is a little difficult to distinguish Tower 2, where I am, from the comparably sized Tower 3 but I'm closest to the tallest Tower 1... but you can clearly see the mountains in the background.

Here's the complex from another angle that shows the mountains and some of the industrial nature of the city. The major road you see is one of the two largest highways in the country. This one runs east-west across the north side of the country while the other runs north-south down the western edge from Port of Spain to San Fernando which is even more industrial.

Finally, what is an apartment complex without a swimming pool? It is very nice and so far the only folks I've seen using it have been a couple guys and an eight year old's birthday party. Obviously, the pool here is the place to be to pick up chicks.

Steel Pan

The national instrument of Trinidad and Tobago, and in theory at least the only musical instrument invented in the Western Hemisphere, is the Steel Pan.
Experimenting here to see if I can embed a song in this blog. Assuming this works, check to see how long it takes you to recognize this song:
Song 1
I first encountered actual steel pans on a previous visit to Trinidad which was during the Christmas season. Nothing says Christmas quite like Silent Night as performed Calypso style by a steel pan band.

But without a doubt, the most bizarre demonstration of the drum I've yet encountered was a performance of the Sound of Music with an all black cast accompanied by a steel pan orchestra. I'm still searching for clips from that performance to include in this blog.

The Night View

In this post I'm going to share some of the pictures I've taken from my apartment at night. Actually I've been very pleased that my inexpensive digital camera will take decent shots in such reduced light cases.

So here we are with a south view showing the One Woodbrook Plaza and some of the surrounding neighborhood.

This shot was taken facing the same direction zoomed in on the stadium. The structure behind the stadium is the office building I'm in and the Courtyard by Marriott where I spent some seven weeks. This stadium is used for soccer and track and field events. On the right side of the stadium you can see the road I drive on my way back to the apartment.

This shot is facing the harbor and you can see some of the downtown toward the left. There is an Anglican Church more or less in the center of the picture. There is a Methodist Church in town... directly across from the largest cemetery in the country.

Continuing around, you can see downtown in the distance here and closer in on the left Tower One in the complex and the Imax theater. There is a patch of light about half way up on the left. That's the Queen's Park Cricket Ground. And below's a tighter shot on that. If I had a decent pair of binoculars, I could actually watch the matches.