More cowbell!!
Trip Start
Oct 01, 2006
1
23
173
Trip End
Ongoing
Where I stayed
inna citi place
Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago
Friday, December 29, 2006
evening to a well known and popular bar called 'smokey and buntys'.. it
turned into a big street party when the parang group started playing
and singing.. i also noticed a girl at the back playing what i thought
was the cowbell instrument which i mentioned last blog, on their break
i approached the girl to enquire what the name of it was and she
replied 'it's a cowbell'.. so for the rest of the night i drunkenly was
telling fellow limers 'i've got to hear more cowbell' but obviously no
one had seen the sketch so it was my little private joke for the night
again..
so also since i last updated i've been busy touring this island, i
rented a jeep for the week and i've managed to get to all the corners
of the island to see hummingbirds, mud volcanos, a lake full of tar, a
hindu temple built in the sea and spent christmas/birthday on a remote
northern beach...
if anyone wants to come to trinidad and wants to rent a car, i'd
definatly try to grab a 4x4 jeep, the roads are crazily pot holed and
have big ridges and crevasses along the roads especially down south..
which also keeps you aware and alert on the roads as the trinis will
not hesitate to swerve on your side of the road to make their ride a
little smoother, and you can't get mad at the as they will look at you
as if your mad.. i think the have a total disregard for road rules all
the time anyway, i've also taken a bit on myself.. especially on the
highways where it is more of a race track than a motorway.. if you look
at my video on tmy other blog of how i weaved my way to work in my car,
well that is pretty much a regular thing here.. so i feel i can go with
the best of them, but as for drinking and driving, under taking on the
hard shoulder and running red lights which seems quite normal aswell i'll leave that to the trinis..
My favoruite road has to be from a small town called Rio Clara
southerly to a beach village called guayguaye.. on the tourist map i
have it looks like a main road, LOL it's a country dirttrack that runs
through an oil refinery, i thought i got lost when i was driving around
massive oil containers, a terrorists paradise.. halfway i was having
fun dodging bumps and speeding over humback hills.. the second half has
a smooth bitumen surface where you can safely put you foot down, but
you must hope you don't crash as there is a small gas pipe running
along the road with you.. as i pass through the security entrance at
the other side it's a short drive to the beach of the tiny village.
i've met some more crazy trinis aswell, i think they are attracted to
me.. one guy which i imagine was a crack head hustler came up to me and
entertained me for ten minutes flicking his lit cigarette from resting
on his shoe and catching it perfectly in his lips.. he could
catch it with the burning end in his mouth aswell and as soon as you
think he messed up the trick, he rotates it perfecly out again and
carries on smoking it.. he wanted some money but i didn't really want
to feed his crack habit so gave him a beer and off he went
happy..
I met a nice rastafarian at the pub, i couldn't understand a word he
said apart the words 'rasta fari' and 'heile salasie'.. i mentioned to
him that i saw mengistu was in the papers the other day about his trial
and that led to another half hour of jibberish.. the guy was cool
though, at first i thought he'll be hassling me for a drink but he was
kind enough to get me a beer..
when i went to pitch lake which to the trinis is the 8th wonder of the
world i managed to get myself going with an unofficial guide, he wanted
ten times as much as the regular tour and probably lasts half as long
but i got away with paying him 67tt which is only twice as much as the
official guides.. he was interesting and showed me around the lake and
pointed out the interesting sights, i walked on the lake bare footed..
and it took a couple of showers to scrub of the black stains on the
bottom of my feet.. As you're driving in or out of the local area
around the pitch lake the roads are amazingly crazy.. some of the roads
have been closed because the fault lines have pushed and lowered the
roads up and down by sometimes a couple of meters, so it's like a fair
ground ride getting over obstacles, also you can see that the loals
have been grabbing some free pitch to haphazardly do up their drive
ways..
Wednesday night i went down to my local, the mas camp pub for the
calypso show but it was sold out, i walked round the corner to the
sweet lime pub which is run by the same company, and sat down for a
drink.. by the end of my first beer this english guy came over and we
started chatting, at first i couldn't make out if he wanted to talk to
me or not.. as he'd ask me a question, i'd start answer it and half way
through he would stop me to talk to the bar man.. i later found out he
runs the place so was busy keeping tabs on his staff.. anyway a couple
mopre of his expat friends came down and he got us in the backdoor to
the calypso show for free along with a couple of free beers.. i stayed
too long that night chatting sh*t to whoever would listen and woke up
the next day feeling totally ruff, by the evening i wasn't feeling any
better so had to call off a birthday party invite which would have been
heavy but if i went i would have probably been moping around with a
hangover..
i've still got a ton of things to do and see in Trinidad but i can feel
Grenada bekoning.. i'll probably stay for new years here (the trinis
call it Ol' years nite) but i'm booked to leave on the 4th.. i still
want to see the laventille area, a night of practising pans at a
panyard and i would like to see caroni swamp and climb cerro del
aripo.. the highest peak in trinidad.. if i do 2 of these i'll feel
happy. The guesthouse i'm staying in is pretty cool, nice location and
has some easygoing girls workng there.. but for the last week i've been
having cold showers every morning.. i told them to sort it out after
i'd worked out that there was no chance of even luke warm water coming
through, by how laid back the trinis are i would bet the next warm
shower i have will be in Grenada.
