It's been a while...

....and quite a bit has happened done here in Trinidad.

Hurricane Dean past well north of us without much impact other than a bit more rain and some rougher seas. It certainly was the major story that everyone was talking about that week. Trinidad is so close to South America, that it is south of the "normal" hurricane belt, and has never had a hurricane hit it, although Tobago was hit by Flora in 1963.

Two weekends ago we went to a party on Saturday night, which required Kate to go shopping for a new "Trini" outfit (of course!). The party was a lot of fun and lasted into the early morning hours - which is the usual for down here and something we're starting to get used to.

Then on Sunday we were invited to an area they call "Down D Islands" (serious about the 'D' - we got in trouble for using 'the'!!). It's a group of small islands off the north-western tip of Trinidad and it reminded me a lot of Muskoka. A lot of cottages which appear to probably belong to mostly wealthy Trinidadians. We were there with our friends Ryan and Tiff who we met through Martha and Diane Gartley (thanks, Marth!). It turned into quite a scene with a lot of their friends showing up, with a lot of kids in tow. It was a lot of fun and we were both very sunburnt when we got home.

This past week Kate had a bit of a "job" helping out the lady who runs the Yoga studio she goes to. Karen was away for the week and needed some help driving Yoga instructors to classes and manning her Yoga clothing store she runs out of her house. It wasn't the most stimulating work Kate's ever done, but the gig came with the use of Karen's car for the week.

This weekend just past was a busy one for us. We went on a beautiful hike on Saturday to a beach that a few people have said is the nicest beach in Trinidad. It is on the north coast where there is no road, therefore you have to rent a boat or hike the 7 kms into it.

Our plan was originally to hire a boat to take us to the beach, hang out for a while and then hike out. Unfortunately The Great Race was on Saturday and the people with the boats wanted to watch the race.

The Great Race is a powerboat race that goes from Trindad to Tobago, past the Islands we were talking about above. Seemed to be a pretty big deal with a lot of people talking about it, and as per Trini fashion, there's a huge party all night over on Tobago after the race. The newspaper story is below in case you're interested....

http://www.trinidadexpress.com/index.pl/article_sports?id=161194758

So back to our hike..... We had to hike both ways in and out from the beach, which was about 2 hours each way with a couple of pretty big hills which made it somewhat tough. It was worth it though, as the beach was beautiful and very secluded. Apparantly there is a really nice waterfall, but it was 3/4 of the way down the beach and then a 30 minute walk up the mountain. We'll be back to see it another time.

We had to get back in reasonable time on Saturday so we'd have enough time to have a sleep and get ready for our Saturday night plans. We went to a Regae show which included some local bands and was headlined by Damian "Junior Gong" Marley with an appearance by his brother Stephen Marley - both sons of Bob (Mom's, you remember Bob Marley, right?).

The concert was great - very much all about the music, and although we couldn't hear/understand all the lyrics, there were a few Bob tunes that we could sing along with. It was very much all about the music and the Rasta/Regae "movement". It was really cool to be at a Regae show in Trinidad - and almost hard to believe. It's cool local events like that, that is what makes our experience here so cool!

Here's the article from the paper on Monday ....

http://www.trinidadexpress.com/index.pl/article_news?id=161195115

Our VIP tickets included secured parking, the first half of the floor area fenced off from the "general admission", free drinks and free food. And the tickets only cost us the equivalent of about $50! A great deal to go along with the great times.

This week is a short one for us as Friday is Independance Day and is a national holiday. We are off to Grenada tomorrow night and come back Sunday night. We've heard it's a beautiful island and we're looking forward to exploring it.

We hope you all enjoy your Labour Day holiday (for those in Toronto). For all of you elsewhere in the world, enjoy the weekend and we'll talk again soon.

Stu and Kate

Tobago

Tobago is the smaller of the two islands here in T&T, with a population of approximately 54,000 people and a total area of 300 square kilometres. It is north and east of Trinidad and is only a 20 minute flight or a two and a half hour "fast" ferry ride away. Tobago is the island with the much nicer beaches and therefore a much more extensive tourism industry. There are many beaches with hotel resorts alongside them, however the resorts are much smaller and older than those that might be found in Mexico or Cuba.

We decided to take the ferry over so that we could take our car with us and explore more of the island than we might otherwise have been able to. Plus Stu had conveniently organized some meetings with the Water and Sewer Authority (WASA) on Monday so had to get to their offices.

We arrived around noon on Saturday and just as we were driving off the ferry the rain started to come down. It rained off and on all day on Saturday, however that gave us a chance to drive around a good portion of the island without missing out on any valuable beach time.

We had been generously offerred a friend's place to stay at for the weekend and we accepted his offer. Although he had mentioned that the place was pretty small and really close to the airport, we were a little surprised at just how small, rustic and REALLY close to the runway of the airport it was. Luckily it is a pretty small airport with only small planes coming in regularly from Trinidad. After our initial shock was over and the weather got better on Sunday we were feeling a bit better about the cabin - unfortunately the mosquitos were pretty bad and drove us into a hotel for our last night there.

I know this is painting a pretty bleak picture of what is supposed to be a beautiful island, but the weather did clear on Sunday afternoon and all seemed a lot better once we were able to get to the beach. We went on a glass bottom boat tour which included looking through the glass at the second largest coral reef in the world (according to our Tobagonian guide!) , a stop to do some snorkling, and a stop in "The Nylon Pool" (an area of waste deep water which has coral sand on the bottom).

Monday turned out to be the best day of the weekend and this suited Kate just fine. She dropped me off at my meetings and then went to the beach for the day! That night we checked into one of the hotels so we could get away from the bugs and have a nice relaxing evening watching the sunset over the Carribbean Sea.

We will definitely be back to Tobago, hopefully many times. We will certainly take our guests their when they come to stay!

Talk to you again soon.

Stu and Kate

Manzanilla Beach and Everyday Life

So we had a pretty relaxed couple of days last weekend. We did go for a drive to the east coast of Trinidad. We hung out at a beach called Manzanilla Beach and then drove south through a forest of coconut trees towards another town called Mayaro. We turned around before we got there as it was starting to get dark, but we'll go back. The beach and drive were pretty as it was a seemingly endless beach, with lots of palm trees, but the swimming wasn't all that great, more like a warm bath.

Since we don't have any exciting adventures to share, we thought we'd show you some pictures of everyday life for us here. As you can see Kate is keeping busy......

...seriously though, she has organized slip covers for the chairs and futon. We just couldn't live with the ugly orange fabric for a year!! She also has recovered the dining room chairs with some "monkey" fabrics we brought down with us. Thanks Mom and Sis, they look great!

Here is our car - a Chevy Optra. Nothing special, that's for sure, but we're certainly not going to complain about a free car! It's been giving us some trouble lately (it didn't start on Tuesday), but the leasing company comes and brings us another car as soon as we call, while ours is being fixed, so we're not really inconvenienced.

This is my office building - the smaller one with the mirror windows on the front. It's also nothing very special. We are totally full and there is not a spare desk or table to work at. I share an "office" with another engineer who is originally from Columbia. We both sit at tables and we don't have a phone extension in the room as the phone system is at it's maximum capacity. Don't fear though, we're moving by the end of the year to a much nicer place, the Nicolas Tower (picture on the right). It's the highest and newest office tower in Port of Spain and we're going to be taking the top three floors - GENIVAR has stepped it up, that's for sure! It will be a huge improvement as we will have three times as much space, parking in the building (which is a problem right now) as well as a coffee house, travel agent and other shops right in the lobby of the building. It's right along Brian Lara Promenade - Brian Lara was one of the best cricket players of all time (I'd bet that Matt is the only one of you that knew that!) and he is from just outside of Port of Spain.

We'll share some more photos of everyday stuff later, but this post is getting long and it's time to end it.

We're off to Tobago this weekend. We've heard it's really beautiful over there - white sand beaches, clear Caribbean waters, and an even more relaxed attitude. So look for some sweet pics next week. We're also hoping to find a nice place for the Dickson family to have Christmas.

We miss everyone back home and we hope you are all enjoying your summers.

Cheers,

Stu and Kate

The Lime - or Liming

Or perhaps I should say Limin' (with an island accent!) is a true Trini past time and a large part of who they are. It seems to be a very versatile word as it can be used a noun - Are you going to the Lime tonight? - or as a verb - Who were you liming with last night?


Essentially liming is hanging out with your friends, having some drinks, sharing some laughs and generally having a good time. A Lime is not a party, though - there needs to be an element of spontaneity and lack of organization. If you have invited a bunch of friends to your house in advance, that's a party - if a bunch of people just meet up on the street and have some beers around someone's car, that's a Lime.


Our guidebook notes that Liming is "T&T's favourite pastime" and a paper I found on the net says that liming is a social institution and a cultural state of mind. Although nowhere can I find out where the word came from, or why it's called Liming. I guess it's just always been a part of life here in T&T!

One of the regular Limes (I know I said it had to be random and unplanned - the definition is illusive...) occurs at the office every Friday afternoon! Yup, around 4:00pm, people stop work, some rum, coke, ice, snacks and beers appear out from the corner and we have a Lime. Now not every Friday does the entire office partake, but it seems that almost everyone comes out to the last Lime of the month. This is when there is plenty of food, lots of drinks and birthday cake - it's when they celebrate the people's birthday's that were in that month as well as any other significant events (births, people leaving, etc.).

Sorry there's not any exciting pictures today, but in addition to sharing our photos and adventures, we want to try and share what we're learning about Trinidad and Tobago and it's people (Trinbagonians is the politically correct way to describe the people from the entire country). Trini is really what people use.

Hope you all had a Lime or two over the long weekend.

Stu and Kate