Unni, Nikhil, and I were the designated drivers so we left early in the morning with the intention of catching a Maxi Taxi to downtown and another from there to the airport. We were peering at our little map when a well-dressed lady in a suit approached us and asked us where we wanted to go. When we told her, she asked us to walk along with her and pointed us to the bus to hop on to while she went on to her job at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The bus, she explained, was cheaper, air-conditioned, and would take us to the city bus stop. And so it was! Can you imagine a public transport bus with air-conditioning and plush high-backed seats for less than 30 US cents a ride?
Unfortunately, when we got to the city bus stop, we found out that there were no more buses to the airport till evening. We hadn't even had time to plan our next move when we were approached by another Trini, a man this time, asking us where we wanted to go. We told him.
"Where you from?" he asks.
"India," we reply.
"I'll take you," he says.
The airport was a good half hour's drive on the highway, understand, so we didn't immediately register that he was offering to drive us there himself. He didn't even give us a choice really, saying matter-of-factly that it wasn't every day he got to meet people from India. Nikhil walked along with him. We followed with some hesitation, which rapidly changed to gratitude when we discovered he was a policeman coming off duty after a 24-hour shift, and that he was going to borrow his friend's car to take us.
The car was parked some distance way at the Department of Labour. We walked through town observing all the ladies in business suits walking briskly to work and all the, ahem, gentlemen, liming and showing no sense of urgency. "Sri Lanka," one of them called out, seeing Unni and me.
Our friend, we discovered, was Adrian Bharat, and, like many other Trinis of Indian origin, felt a great fondness for a motherland he really knew nothing about. He showed us an old New York State driver's licence. He had been there for a year, working in the World Trade Center till 9/11 happened. It was his "Trini attitude" which made him late for work that day and saved his life. It also made him decide to return home.
Adrian dropped us off at the airport and gave us his phone number to call in case we had any "legal troubles" :). And that was how we got to the airport for less than the fare of one Maxi Taxi ride.
We drove back to pick up the rest of the gang and headed out for the Asa Wright nature centre. Stopping for coffee in town, which took its own Trini time, gave us a chance to ask for directions. We wanted to take the Eastern Main Road (EMR), not the highway, we told the Trini man who had (surprise, surprise) stopped to help us. The EMR wasn't the best way to go, he said; the highway would be better.
"We want to see things along the way," explained Unni.
"Ah!" he said, enlightened. "Tourists." He proceeded to give us precise and elaborate directions peppered with uncoventional descriptions of landmarks (like "confusion junction"). These, along with Unni's manful negotiation of the winding roads through the forested mountains, led us to Asa Wright (almost) without a hitch.Asa Wright, being a protected area, cannot be explored without a guide and the tours for the day were over by the time we reached. We would have left without seeing a thing but for Veena and Unni's never-say-die attitude. They convinced the receptionist to arrange for a special mini-tour for us and it was perfect.
Barry the tour guide was a young man with a dry and sarcastic sense of humour that perhaps belied his affection for the creatures he showed us. According to him, there were over 70 species of birds to be seen from the verandah alone. We stood there and soaked it in for a while before taking a little hike where we encountered a mat lizard, a couple of noisy parrots, exotic plants like haliconias, a colony of ants with a fascinating social structure, and various colourful birds. See my updated albums for pix.Another long and winding drive through the Northern Range and along the coast brought us back to T&T in time for dinner. Street food in Trinidad vanishes around 5:00pm so dinner is always harder to find. We reluctantly settled for TGIF, giving up all hopes of "sightings." Given the experience of the past couple of days, we should have known better. Leverock was there when we walked in, sitting at a table of four. The intrepid ones got photos, of course, and also found out the name of the other player at the table, Smith.
- Who do we like?
- Adrian Bharat, coz we don't get to meet people like him everyday
- Leverock, coz he stood up and was happy to take a picture with us
- The Trinis, coz they are incredibly helpful
- Not so much?
- The street food vendors, coz they won't stay open for dinner
- New friends?
- Adrian Bharat
- Favourite activities of the day?
- Communing with nature
- Getting our daily dose of cricketers!
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