Day 9 (March 18, 2017): Homeward Bound

All good things come to an end.

We were up before 3AM to get ready for our 4AM ride to Piarco International Airport.  Actually, we were awake much before that!  I think half of Port of Spain had gathered in the room next to ours around 7PM, and the party got wilder and wilder as the night wore on and the booze consumption increased.  Despite the noise, we were able to doze, but woke with a start at 12:08AM when they started banging on pots and pans -- or at least that's what it sounded like.  I called the front desk, and the hotel security quickly shut the party down.

Our Wesjet flight to Toronto left late, so it was a tight connection at Pearson.  And some wet snow meant our Westjet flight to Halifax had to be de-iced.  But we landed just a few minutes behind schedule.  Our kind friends, Jim and Lorna, were there to meet us and drive us home.

Curacao, Guyana and Trinidad & Tobago provided a wonderful triangle of Caribbean experiences.  Kaieteur Falls and the Caroni Bird Sanctuary were two highlights of the trip we won't soon forget.

Thank you for tuning into the blog!  Happy travels.

One last photo: a Carnival float on display at Piarco International Airport

Actually, here's THE last photo! Pam excitedly unpacked her small steel souvenir drum from Trinidad and has been learning a few pieces for her music class at school. I think it takes her back to the Island! 🤣

Day 8 (March 17, 2017): Ibis Wonder

We try to make each vacation day a mix of R&R and something experiential to give us insight into the country we are visiting. Port of Spain, surprisingly, has no beaches, and getting to the beaches -- such as famous Maracas Bay Beach -- costs close to $150 CAD. We decided that spending that kind of loot for a couple of hours visit to Maracas wasn't worth it. So instead, we spent a pleasant morning hanging out by the pool, then hit a few more sights in the city, before starting the "pièce de résistance" of our Trinidadian experience:  a visit to the Caroni Bird Sanctuary. 

Starting our second trip into the city core, we felt like pros: we hoofed it down the hill to St. Ann's Circle, flagged down a shared taxi, and asked to get off by the war memorial. After visiting that sight and the National Museum, we found a wonderful church-run cafe called Living Waters for a light lunch. The place was packed and the food was excellent.  From there, we asked a passerby how to get back to the hotel and she said, "Hop in, I will take you."  Her name was Suzanne from San Fernando, and she said, "I believe we all need each other!"  She dropped us off, wouldn't accept a dime, and we parted ways with renewed hope in the kindness of strangers. 

The Hilton's pool area. 

Do you see anything wrong with this picture? The hotel is situated on a hill. The lobby is at the top of the hill and you descend to the higher numbered floors. So if you're on floor 9, as we were, you have to go DOWN to the 12th floor and UP to the first floor!

Seen on a gasoline tank. It must be an island thing?!

The War Memorial, located in Memorial Park. 

This beautiful piece of architecture near the Queen's Park Savannah is the National Association of Performing Arts (NAPA). San Fernando, the second largest city, also has the exact same facility. Quite an impressive commitment to the arts for a small Caribbean nation. 

The National Museum & Art Gallery, in a classic colonial building, has a dusty historical exhibit ranging from Amerindian settlers to African slaves, as well as explanations of the technology behind Trinidad's oil exploration. It was worth the 20-minutes we spent there. Sadly, the Art Gallery was closed.

Just wanted to show these 1946 population stats from a display at the museum:  in 1946, there just over a half million Trinidadians, with those of African, East Indian and European origins comprising the majority. Today the population is 1.3 million, but those origin ratios still dominate. 

Fruit stand in Port of Spain

View of the Savannah and city from the Hilton

At 3PM our driver showed up to take us to the Caroni Bird Sanctuary, which is a huge mangrove swamp south of the city on the coast. We decided to go with a small company we had read about on Tripadvisor. What an experience! There were five boats in the swamp today doing the tour: four were packed with about 75 tourists apiece, but Pam and I had a huge boat to ourselves and a private guide named Darren. All the other boats were eyeing us with envy!

Darren is 24 and started working in the family swamp tour business at age 14. He is brilliant and knows the swamp like the back of his hand. We saw all kinds of birds; two snakes; a tree crab; red, white and black mangrove trees; three flamingoes -- a rare sight apparently; and, of course, the star of the show: the scarlet ibis. At dusk, the ibis start to arrive on one small island by the thousands from all over the massive swamp, where they spend the day catching crabs. It is the crab diet that gives the ibis its red colour. 

Seeing the ibis fly in from all directions like clockwork is truly a miracle of nature.  Darren was a wonderful guide for our two hours in the swamp. His dad drove us back to the Hilton and, on the way, we suggested how proud he must be of Darren. He proceeded to tell us that his other son, Shawn (age 28) went out fishing with his friend in May 2015 and they never returned. Venezuelan pirates and human trafficking are a major problem in these parts (Trinidad is three miles from Venezuela at its closest point), so they have reason to believe the two were taken  to do forced labour in Venezuela or else shot and their boat stolen. It was a heartbreaking story. 

We arrived back at the hotel at 7PM. After filling up on a smorgasbord of meatballs, samosas and other treats in the executive lounge, we were too full for dinner. We have to be up at 2AM for our early WestJet flight home, so this is good night from the end of our tour. 

Starting our tour of the Caroni Swamp

The mangroves create a tunnel in the swamp channels - it felt like driving in Ireland's hedge-lined highways!

Blue heron

Tree crab

One of two "Cooks tree boas" we saw in the trees above our heads. 

Darren was beyond excited to see these flamingoes from Venezuela - they are an extremely rare sight in the swamp

Just like clockwork, the ibis started arriving in flocks from all directions. 

By the time we left, the island was taking on a red hue from the thousands of birds roosting in the trees.  

Day 7 (March 16, 2017): "Welcome to de island!"

Today was a "let's change countries" day!  Up at 4:30AM, we took a cab to Chenni Jagan International at 5:30AM.  The airport is literally like a relic from 1950 that hasn't been updated at all.  We ran the gauntlet of all the normal check-in, customs and security protocols, gobbled a bowl of cereal at a very run-down business lounge, and then boarded the flight to Port of Spain, which left 8:15AM.

Just because I found it so intriguing, here's another example (enroute to the airport) of the house-on-stilts approach that is so prevalent in Guyana.

Saying farewell to this quirky-but-captivating place that's stuck in a time warp. 

About to board our Caribbean Airlines flight from Georgetown to Port of Spain

Our last photo from Guyana was the flag flying proudly at Cheddi Jagan International Airport. 

We landed abit early at Piarco International Airport in Trinidad & Tobago.  The flight was less than half full, so clearing customs was a breeze.  In no time, we were in a cab to the Hilton, and were amazed enroute at how modern and progressive Trinidad is compared to Guyana. However, with 1.3 million people, the highways were clogged. And we weren't even in rush hour traffic, which is apparently horrendous. 

We arrived at the Hilton around 10:30AM, only to be told there were no rooms available for early check-in. So we stored our bags and set out to discover Port of Spain. The hotel is situated on a hill overlooking the Queen's Park Savannah.  We walked to a nearby stop on one of the city's established shared taxi routes and took a taxi with a couple of locals as far as Woodford Square, a park in the centre of downtown. They kindly gave us the lay of the land, and we set off to explore. 

Pam quickly found a store selling small Trinidadian steel drums, which feature prominently in the annual famous Carnival, which ended three weeks ago on Shrove Tuesday.  While we missed Carnival, this drum will enable us to take home a small flavour of Trinidad's unique culture. 

The photos below chart our exploration path for the day. We made it back to the Hilton at 3:30PM to find that we had been upgraded to a room on the executive floor, which included access to a lounge with unlimited soft drinks all day long, evening hors d'oeuvres, and breakfast. After a dip in the pool and some lounge snacks, we had a light dinner and called it a day. 

This artwork of a steel drummer appropriately greets visitors at Piarco International Airport

Our first stop in Port of Spain was Woodford Square, a nice park alongside the Anglican Cathedral. 

Holy Trinity is an Anglican Cathedral whose corner stone was laid in 1816.

Independence Square is not actually a square;  rather, it's a ten-block pedestrian stretch from the Catholic Cathedral to the Parliament. Quite seedy at one end, quite 'financial district high-end' at the other. 

Waterfront Park is an area bordering the ocean where one can catch a water taxi to San Fernando, the second largest city in Trinidad.

This gleaming set of towers at the western end of Independence Square includes the Hyatt (the city's most luxe hotel) and another tower containing the Parliament. So odd to see a country's Parliament as a tenant in an office tower. 

A tribute to the country's Olympians, outside the Parliament.

Queen's Park Savannah (known simply as "the Savannah") is Port of Spain's largest open space. It occupies 260 acres of level land, once used for growing sugar cane. 

The street to the west of The Savannah is perhaps Port of Spain's finest. It houses at least seven buildings of very ornate architecture. A few examples are shown below. Oh, and it also has some very ornate carts - such as this one -selling fresh fruit drinks. 

Queen's Royal College for boys

'Roomor'

Archbishop's Residence

White Hall

One of the great things about the Caribbean is the fresh fruit. This made for an excellent dessert tonight. 

Day 6 (March 15, 2017): A faded city with a strong heartbeat

If Tuesday was all about Kaieteur Falls, then Wednesday was all about Georgetown, the capital city.  When we drove from the airport to the city on Monday night, our first impressions were of an underdeveloped city.  We wanted to see if that was really the case today – we wanted to see if Georgetown had a pulse!

We were up at 7:30AM and ate breakfast in the hotel.  However, we doddled until 10AM before heading out.  We had read so many security warnings about Georgetown that we assumed we would be hacked into pieces the moment we stepped off the hotel grounds.  But that turned out to be completely unfounded.  We were treated kindly all day, wherever we went, despite the fact that we stuck out like sore thumbs:  from the time we got up until we got back to the hotel late afternoon, we saw one other Caucasian.  With a population profile of Christians (57%), Hindus (28%) and Muslims (7%), the country is incredibly diverse.

What follows is a series of photos to highlight some of the key sights of Georgetown and its architectural styles.  But first, three things to note about the place.  First, the drivers have to be among the worst we have seen anywhere, and horn-honking is a national sport:  they honk just for the sake of doing it!  Second, every single street in the city – even in the downtown core – is lined by an open ditch filled with water.  So that is perhaps why malaria and dengue are so common here.  Very odd to see an urban core with open ditches these days. Third, Georgetown – and Guyana in general – seems stuck in the 1950s.  Despite its rich resources, it seemed like a quirky mix between a very poor African nation and an Eastern Bloc nation coming out of 50 years of Communism.

In spite of those observations, we did find a pulse in Georgetown.  It is actually a city that is very much alive and has a real soul.

The Georgetown Lighthouse was first built by the Dutch in 1817 and then rebuilt in 1830 to help guide ships into the Demerara River from the Atlantic Ocean.

Archbishop's Residence

A fine example of the use of "coolers": the cooler is an ingenious invention to cool the inside of a house. It blocks sunlight and its heat from getting in and lets air in and out through its slats. In days gone by, blocks of ice were placed on its base at sill level to cool the external warm air as it passed into the room.

Umana Yana (1972) has a conical shaped palm thatched roof, also referred to as a benab, like the Wai-Wai benabs found in Guyana’s hinterland.  'Umana Yana' is of Amerindian Wai Wai origin meaning, “meeting place of the people.”

Stabroek Market (1880) - the virtual heart of the city.

Presbyterian Church

Magistrates Court.  Talk about a buzzing spot!  There must be a lot of minor lawsuits in Guyana.

What balance!

The Parliament Building

The Parliamentary chamber

For one brief minute, I was the Speaker of Guyana's Parliament!  Oooh, the power!

Catholic Cathedral

Supreme Court, presided over by Queen Victoria herself.

Just another typical example of a wooden structure in Georgetown.  Buildings such as this now house a variety of government departments.

City Hall has been described as the most picturesque structure in the city.  Made of timber construction, with cast iron columns, it is one of the finest examples in the Caribbean of ‘fancy dress’ Gothic Revival architecture.  Unfortunately, it is currently in such a state of rot and disrepair, it has been abandoned as City Hall.

St. George's Anglican Cathedral (1889), apparently the world's largest wooden church

Interior of St. George's

A few highlights from the Guyana Zoo

Think Amazon jungle, and perhaps most people's greatest fear is the anaconda.  Well, the zoo had a huge collection of them, in all sizes.  Note the largest one above - they can actually swallow a deer!

The botanical garden

Giant water lilies in the Botanical Garden

There are no public buses in Georgetown.  However, there is an endless supply of minibuses, plying established routes all over.

We were amazed at how many 'dress code' signs we saw around the city!  Quite specific were the requirements, too!