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.
