We spent one more day in Paramaribo after our journey back from Cayenne. We got all our laundry washed and dried and repacked the backpacks we had left behind after just taking day bags to Cayenne. Paramaribo was the nearest city we could take a flight to Port of Spain Trinidad and Tobago. John also spent the day finalising flights for the Caribbean section of our trip. It has been the hardest to organise as there are no boats between islands and we have to take flights.Some of the flights used Miami as their hub so that was also an issue as to where we would go to next.
We booked our taxi driver for the ride to the airport and he arrived in the dark at 2.30 AM so we could be on time to check in for our 5.50 departure to Port of Spain.
It is always helpful when the accommodation we book gives us clear instructions on how to reach them by public transport.We found a place in the Port of Spain airport to buy a local bus ticket and joined others in the air conditioned partly empty bus. When locals got on they greeted everyone in the bus with a loud 'Good morning' and like a classroom of respectful students the passengers replied. Quite extraordinary.
We arrived at a maze of roadways at the city bus terminal and asked the locals where we could get a taxi. We were directed by the locals to a street where cars stopped and took people in the direction they were going. Our driver didn't know our street but after a couple of calls dropped us at the door of our B & B. We later learnt that taxis have a 'H' number plate but it seemed everyone could turn their private vehicle with a 'P' number plate into a taxi. We rarely saw a 'taxi' sign on a car.
The receptionist directed us to a local roti shop around the corner and we hat a local dish called 'buss up shut'. It came in a Styrofoam box and consisted of curried chicken, chickpeas, roti, lentils and a hot sauce.
The B and B booked us on a northern islands boat tour with the National Heritage Trust. It was a sunny day and we joined a couple of hundred people on the catamaran including loads of school kids on holiday programmes. The lady who gave a commentary throughout, was an ex history teacher so we got all the information on the history of the islands, residents and their stories. One of the islands was a whaling station, one was a leprosarium run by the Dominican sisters from France and one had a limestone quarry. One island still has a prison but it will be shut down in the near future. There are lots of holiday homes scattered in the small bays and the Venezuela ranges can be seen about ten kilometres away.
There were several dozen oil rigs and oil tankers in the bay all parked up as they cannot sell the oil as the prices are so low. Some have been parked up for two years. A lot of projects that the government had planned have not been able to progress as there is not enough money in the budget now.
John spent some more time online planning and booking flights to get us through the rest of our trip. We planned to go from Port of Spain to Tobago Island and had to buy a ferry ticket through a travel agency, We found our nearest agency and discovered that the website was down and had to return the next day to do it. We have discovered that transportation is poorly organised here. The next day we discovered that the ferries had been booked out since June because of the school holidays and no extra sailings were timetabled. We tried to get a flight but they were all booked out and there were no extra flights. We had to cancel our accommodation bookings in Tobago and had to plead our case to get our money back and that took a few persuasive emails.
Luckily we were able to keep our room at the B & B as accommodation here is very expensive and reviews are not good. As it is, this is the most expensive place we have stayed out in our whole trip other than the resort lodge at Iwokrama, Guyana. The B & B is nothing special with few facilities and a 30 minute walk from the city centre.It is probably expensive because it is in the posh, safe part of town where real estate is expensive. The president lives not far away too.
John was happy to be able to watch the opening ceremony of the Rio Olympics on the TV in our room as well as all the other sports. It was a thrill to see the Fijians win the sevens rugby against Great Britain. As it is the rainy season it is also a good excuse to be inside to watch some of the events.
One Saturday night there was an outdoor concert nearby us. It started at midnight and got louder and louder waking us at 3 am. It finally shut down at 10 am. When we talked about it to the nightwatchman, he said it was OK because it had been approved by the government and that meant it was fine to disturb the neighbourhood. Even though the president lives nearby he is actually in Florida so it didn't disturb his household. We walked near the site and were stopped crossing the road as it was a crime scene. We later saw that someone had tried to rob a nightclub and was hiding on a house roof in the area.
There is not a heck of a lot to do here in Port of Spain and transport is so difficult and taxis so expensive to hire. We had booked on a walk in the hills to a waterfall with a hikers' group in the middle of the island and when the taxi came to get us we discovered that it would cost us US$100 to come and go to do a US$10 hike that would take 30 minutes. We dropped that idea and spent the time walking through the botanical gardens instead.
We walked into the city centre one evening to head to a steel band parade in a poor area called Laventille. We had to ask the locals where we could take a shared taxi to the parade and were sent all over Independence Square until finally getting an ex policeman who drove us. He warned us about the area and told where to go and where not to go. There were tents lining the road with families selling cold drinks, grilled chicken, rice and noodle dishes. We sheltered in a stall as it pelted down and only got to see the Tamboo Bamboo group and a couple of other bands as everyone waited until the rain stopped. By the time the 30 odd bands set off, it was already dark, and a few locals had consumed more than enough beers. We decided it was best to head back being the only white faces on the street and not wanting to draw attention to ourselves. We spotted a bus heading in the direction we wanted and flagged it down. From the terminal we got a local car with an ex soldier who brought us home.
We booked our taxi driver for the ride to the airport and he arrived in the dark at 2.30 AM so we could be on time to check in for our 5.50 departure to Port of Spain.
It is always helpful when the accommodation we book gives us clear instructions on how to reach them by public transport.We found a place in the Port of Spain airport to buy a local bus ticket and joined others in the air conditioned partly empty bus. When locals got on they greeted everyone in the bus with a loud 'Good morning' and like a classroom of respectful students the passengers replied. Quite extraordinary.
We arrived at a maze of roadways at the city bus terminal and asked the locals where we could get a taxi. We were directed by the locals to a street where cars stopped and took people in the direction they were going. Our driver didn't know our street but after a couple of calls dropped us at the door of our B & B. We later learnt that taxis have a 'H' number plate but it seemed everyone could turn their private vehicle with a 'P' number plate into a taxi. We rarely saw a 'taxi' sign on a car.
The receptionist directed us to a local roti shop around the corner and we hat a local dish called 'buss up shut'. It came in a Styrofoam box and consisted of curried chicken, chickpeas, roti, lentils and a hot sauce.
The B and B booked us on a northern islands boat tour with the National Heritage Trust. It was a sunny day and we joined a couple of hundred people on the catamaran including loads of school kids on holiday programmes. The lady who gave a commentary throughout, was an ex history teacher so we got all the information on the history of the islands, residents and their stories. One of the islands was a whaling station, one was a leprosarium run by the Dominican sisters from France and one had a limestone quarry. One island still has a prison but it will be shut down in the near future. There are lots of holiday homes scattered in the small bays and the Venezuela ranges can be seen about ten kilometres away.
There were several dozen oil rigs and oil tankers in the bay all parked up as they cannot sell the oil as the prices are so low. Some have been parked up for two years. A lot of projects that the government had planned have not been able to progress as there is not enough money in the budget now.
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Cuppa with NZ powdered milk and ginger nuts! |
John spent some more time online planning and booking flights to get us through the rest of our trip. We planned to go from Port of Spain to Tobago Island and had to buy a ferry ticket through a travel agency, We found our nearest agency and discovered that the website was down and had to return the next day to do it. We have discovered that transportation is poorly organised here. The next day we discovered that the ferries had been booked out since June because of the school holidays and no extra sailings were timetabled. We tried to get a flight but they were all booked out and there were no extra flights. We had to cancel our accommodation bookings in Tobago and had to plead our case to get our money back and that took a few persuasive emails.
Luckily we were able to keep our room at the B & B as accommodation here is very expensive and reviews are not good. As it is, this is the most expensive place we have stayed out in our whole trip other than the resort lodge at Iwokrama, Guyana. The B & B is nothing special with few facilities and a 30 minute walk from the city centre.It is probably expensive because it is in the posh, safe part of town where real estate is expensive. The president lives not far away too.
John was happy to be able to watch the opening ceremony of the Rio Olympics on the TV in our room as well as all the other sports. It was a thrill to see the Fijians win the sevens rugby against Great Britain. As it is the rainy season it is also a good excuse to be inside to watch some of the events.
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| Queens College |
One Saturday night there was an outdoor concert nearby us. It started at midnight and got louder and louder waking us at 3 am. It finally shut down at 10 am. When we talked about it to the nightwatchman, he said it was OK because it had been approved by the government and that meant it was fine to disturb the neighbourhood. Even though the president lives nearby he is actually in Florida so it didn't disturb his household. We walked near the site and were stopped crossing the road as it was a crime scene. We later saw that someone had tried to rob a nightclub and was hiding on a house roof in the area.
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| Stollmeyer's residence |
Every day we get out and walk somewhere and found a farmers' market one day and bought some home made guava wine and a red sorrel wine.
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| Tamboo bamboo band |
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| Setting up the walking steel panners |
On Tuesday 9th August 2016, we got a message that we had a grand daughter. We were able to talk to our daughter and her husband and see wee Charlotte Eva and hear all the news. The internet makes such events possible and even though the signal here is weak and erratic we were still able to see Charlotte jiggling and wriggling. She will be 6 weeks old when we are able to give her a cuddle.
We enjoyed a visit to the National Museum and Art Gallery. There were displays of all the different ethnic groups that settled the country. East Indians (35.4%) came to work in the sugar cane plantations. Africans (34.2%) were slaves. Africans and others mixed are 15.3% while mixed African and East Indians are 7.7%. There are also a large number of Syrians and Lebanese.
Near the museum is a huge cultural centre that looks like an aluminium copy of the Sydney Opera House. It was built by a Chinese company and has lots of unused sections.
The receptionist organised a trip with a church friend of hers to take us for a look at the pitch lake at La Brea. It contains the largest natural deposit of asphalt in the world. It covers 40 hectares and is reported to be 75 metres deep.The houses in the surrounding area built on the pitch are moving as the pitch oozes out of the ground and heats up. Three boys were swimming in pools of water that covered parts of the pitch and a local told us the water was a good mosquito repellent.
We went further on to visit a Hindu temple near San Fernando where a large population of Hindu Indians live. We passed a crowded park where several pyres were burning to cremate bodies.
In the early afternoon we stopped at the Caroni Swamp where we joined some of the locals on a boat to check out the wetlands. We saw several kinds of crabs, fish and caiman, blue herons and egrets as well as a snake on a branch waiting for the bats.
The scarlet ibis is the national bird and the swamp is its protected sanctuary. It was spectacular watching them fly in from Venezuela to roost in the trees on sunset.
The rains have been heavy about every third day and straight after them it gets very hot. There is also and increase in the number of small mosquitoes and something called no-see ums, which like to bite. There is no malaria here but there are incidents of Zika and West Nile viruses and chikungunya which are all mosquito borne diseases. We have now used up all the Deet based repellents we brought with us and have to use the local stuff which has a surprisingly low amount of Deet.
We are disappointed not to have been able to get to Tobago but are looking forward to our next stop in Kingston, Jamaica.
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