Day 14: Going home!

We woke up to the cutest breakfast that was provided to us by Anna, and set off to Asa Wright Nature Center to do a bird watching tour. By now, we were experts in travelling in Trinidad. We walked over to Independence Square, got on a Maxi to Arima and got off at the “dial”, just like Anna told us. It was raining pretty bad, so we ran from one awning to another until we found the right street corner from which taxis were supposed go in the right direction. A random guy stopped for us and agreed to take us all the way to Asa Wright. He was not a taxi driver, but throughout the drive he waved at almost everybody we passed. He said he had a large family and it’s spread all over the area.

We arrived just in time for lunch. It wasn’t bad. Then we sat on the porch and watched the birds. So many birds! Most of them were hummingbirds, and some would come to eat at the feeding stations that are placed right in front of the porch. We also saw some Tegu lizards, which are big, iguana-like black and yellow lizards, and some agouti, which look like rats, but are as big as a small dog.

We got a tour from a young woman with no charisma, along with another couple who turned out to also live in San Francisco. They were young, both from Indian descent, and they were on their honeymoon trip.

 

The tour was nice. We saw very few birds, but did get to see some interesting plants. The other couple offered us to hang out with them for the new year’s eve celebrations. They told us where they were planning to get drinks, and we said we’re going to try to make it. 

Before leaving, I saw a bird on the road that seemed to be dead, and my reaction, as expected, was to start screaming. “It’s not dead,” said a staff member and picked the bird up. It was alive. The man put it my hands. “It’s so cute! Can I keep it?” 

- “No sir, I’m afraid you can’t.”

- “Oh, o.k, can eat it then?” I pushed their lack of sense of humor even further.

The front desk arranged for someone from the staff to take us back to Arima. This time we made sure we knew how much we’re going to pay. The driver was extremely nice. He was saving money to go on a trip the US for birdwatching. He also lived in that area his entire life, and obviously knew the guy who picked us up earlier. 

From Arima we took a bus back to Port of Spain. This was actually the only time we took a bus in Trinidad. It’s basically a bigger van. The bus dropped us off near Independence Square in Port of Spain, and from there we walked through the market back to our guest house. We saw some people eating some sort of a fried thing, and we tried to locate the origin of it, but failed. Instead, we bought Julia some pretty funky shoes.

After resting for a while, we set off to Ariapita street to get some food. We looked for doubles, which is another street food that we missed. We got them at a small cart, and they are amazing: they’re mostly curried chick-peas, topped with a bunch of stuff like tamarind sauce. The whole thing rests between two pieces of small flat bread called bara and served in a paper bag. It’s messy and delicious. We were still hungry, but because it was new year’s eve, most restaurants were closed.

Except for that Chinese restaurant that we ate in on our first night in Trinidad. The staff remembered us, and before we left the manager, the same lady who talked to us last time, engaged in conversation. This time Julia was more willing to participate, which was good, because I didn’t understand a thing. When the lady finally addressed me in Chinese, I responded with “wo de zhong wen bu hao” which means “my Chinese is not good”. Funny enough, it turns out she actually asked if I was learning just Mandarin or Cantonese as well, so it inadvertently seemed to her that I was answering her question. “If you can have a conversation in this level, then your Mandarin is pretty good!” she responded, as Julia translated for me later.

We went on to meet the honeymoon couple at the bar. We had a pretty good time, although I registered some awkward moments. Specifically, when we told them about our experiences in Paris, we mentioned how I got pickpocketed the day Julia left to go back to the states. “So I jumped out of the subway car, and I thought to myself that I would never find the guy. Everybody in the subway station was a black man with a beard and black leather jacket, just like the guy who robbed me!” I could see the guy slightly tightening his grip on his wife’s knee. I suppose that might have come off as somewhat racist, and them being an Indian couple, it might have rubbed them the wrong way. Also, this was Trinidad, where people are black, so maybe they were embarrassed. To my defense I will say that I am a Jew, my fiancée is Asian and everybody in that subway stop was, in fact, black. By the way, if you’ve never heard that Paris story before, I was about to give up and join Julia back at the subway car, when I spotted the robber hiding in the car behind us. I ran to him, he threw the wallet on the floor, I pick it up, and ran back to Julia, who already unloaded her luggage from the car. We quickly picked up the luggage and returned to the car where all the other passengers applauded us. Indeed, we’ll always have Paris.

We went back to the guest house relatively early, since we had to get up in the middle of the night to catch our plane. A taxi driver that Anna arranged for us came to pick us up. He was extremely nice. He told us we should come back for Carnival, but expressed some reservations, as Carnival, according to him, can be challenging for a relationship. We left the keys and the phone with him, as Anna asked us to do, and got dropped off at the airport, where we started the journey home.

In retrospect, I should have blogged this trip in real time, when the events were fresh in my mind and the trains of thought more relevant. I’m sure it would have been better if I did, and I promise to try to do it the next time I’m a 

Person 

On

The 

Roaaaaad!! 

(tun, tun, tuuuuuuun!)

Day 13: Port of Spain, Trinidad

Leaving Tobago was not heartbreaking. In fact, between the weather, people trying to screw us over, Julia losing her stuff and me not getting any cocktails on the beach, we were pretty much ready to end this whole trip, and going back to Trinidad symbolized the beginning of the journey home. As we were instructed, we left the jeep locked from the inside in a parking lot next to the ferry terminal. We were smarter when picking our seats this time - the seats in the center row of the bottom level are by far the most stable ones in the boat.

At the terminal in Port of Spain we tried forever to catch a taxi, but with no luck. Eventually someone directed us to the Independence Square, which turned out to be walking distance from the ferry terminal. From there we took a Maxi Taxi to Belmont, where our guest house was located.

Thanna’s place is run by Anna, a sweet middle aged woman, who was extremely helpful. We wanted to call Stanley, the man who had found Julia’s stuff, but we knew we weren’t going to understand anything through the phone connection and his thick accent. Anna called him for us, and we were surprised to find out that he offered to come all the way to Port of Spain from Chaguanas, a 30 minutes drive, by taxi. Then he would have to walk another half an hour to get to Belmont. Anna lent us a local phone and suggested that we walk around until Stanley arrived.

We looked for food, but it was between lunch and dinner, so everything was closed. We were distracted by the National Museum which was really cool, with exhibits about history, natural history and some interesting contemporary art.

Stanley called us. He was close by. We walked quickly back to the guest house. Stanley was already there, waiting for us. He is very tall, sweet, and warm, and he makes furniture for a living. He found the purse in the taxi after we got off it, and decided not to give it to the taxi driver, because he knew that the taxi driver would not care and just take the cash. Stanley, however, was determined to do the right thing. He went through the purse and found the piece of paper that had our entire schedule, including our hotel and flight reservations. He started calling all the hotels to try to contact us, but failed. His plan was to find us in the airport the day of our flight back. Later he decided to go through the wallet more thoroughly, and it was then that he came across Julia’s business card and was able to email her. He returned everything, including the phone, all the cards, and all of the cash, with the bills sorted by value and all facing the same way. Julia burst into tears and hugged him. We gave him some money as an act of gratitude, and in hindsight, we should have given him more.

There was still the mystery of the attempt to withdraw cash with one of the cards half an hour after our taxi ride. I didn’t want to ask and put Stanley in an awkward position. Obviously he wasn’t after the money. I think he tried to use it just to see if he can get any information that would help him find us. “You should really be blogging about this,” Julia said.

Now was a good time to find food. We went to Queens park where there’s a street food market every night. We finally had the local shark and bake, which is pieces of deep fried shark and some veggies in a pita-like bread. It’s like shark falafel, really. It’s excellent. Then we had Pholourie, which are balls of deep fried batter. Ours came tamarind sauce, and they were great.

From there walked to look for a place to hang out. We found a bar and we sat outside and had a few drinks. Anna told us not to walk back to the guest house when it’s dark. Even the locals don’t do that. We asked the hostess to call us a taxi, which caused a lot of unexpected commotion in the staff. After a few minutes a bartender came up to us and told us he can drop us off. In the car, I realized I forgot Trinidad rule #2 which says that you should always ask how much something costs, especially if it looks like it’s free. We got to the guest house, and the guys asked for 60TT.

- “Are you a taxi?” I asked him.
- “No, but you wanted a ride.”
- “I wanted a taxi. If I knew you weren’t just being nice, I would just get a taxi.”
- “Well, this is what a taxi would have cost you.”
- “No, it’s not, and you know it. If you wanted money then you should have told me in advance. I’ll give you 30. Good night.”

He was young and confused, so he just said “o.k, good night!” and that was it.

Day 12: Castara, Tobago

This would be our last day in Tobago, so we started planning our departure. We went up to the lady at the reception in our hotel to talk about checkout time, and also to express our discontent with the hot water and Wi-Fi situation. We felt that we deserve some compensation. She called the manager, who seemed for nice. The manager asked us to wait for a few minutes while she called the owner, and when we all reconvened she told us she would not charge us for the first night. That sounded perfectly fair, but once my credit card didn’t go through and I suggested that I pay in cash, Julia noticed that the numbers don’t add up. It turns out that the manager thought we stayed for four nights, rather than three. In that case, said the manager, she can only reimburse of for three quarters of the cost of a night’s stay. This seemed to us unfair and random. Why three quarters, we demanded to know. To her, it made perfect sense: it’s the amount of money she meant to give us back, divided by the amount of nights she thought we were there, and multiplied by the number of nights we were actually there. We just wanted to be reimbursed for the night we didn’t have hot water and Wi-Fi. I offered a compromise. She refused. It was unclear to me why she got to set the terms.

- “And what if I don’t give you what you ask for?” I asked.

- “Then we’re going to have a problem.”

- “Then I guess we do have a problem.”

- “I’m sorry sir, that’s the best I can do.”

- “In that case” I said, took out some bills from my pocket - the amount I offered as a compromise - and put them on the counter, “this is the best the I can do!”

- “You do not come in good faith, sir.”

I didn’t want to rub in her face the fact she’s been constantly lying to us, so I just stopped talking. She wrote a receipt, and I just hoped she wouldn’t call the police or poop on our bed. We left. Julia asked me whether I was sure I wasn’t going to blog about this trip.

Having already experienced the procedure of getting ferry tickets, we decided this time to get our tickets back to Trinidad a day in advance. We drove to Crown Point to a small store that sold tickets, but the line was long and the people who were waiting have been there for over two hours, and to make it just a little more interesting, it started raining pretty bad again.

We drove to Scarborough and found another store, but the line there was even longer. Our best chance was to start our day, drive around, and hope things will fall into place.

This time, we drove along the northern shoreline. When we got to Plymouth, indeed, we found a small store that sold ferry tickets, and we were the only ones there. The tickets to the early ferry were sold out, but the dude told us there’s a new ferry that runs at 10AM, and tickets were available. This actually made everything much simpler, and mostly meant we get to wake up in a reasonable hour. 

We drove around, moving away from the shoreline but eventually coming back, until we hit Castara.

We were late for lunch, again, but we found a restaurant that had people in it, so we sat down. A customer went into the kitchen, looking very impatient. The owner came out with a plate and put it on one of the tables. “Finally!” the client said. “An hour and a half!”. Everybody else got up and left.

We walked around and found a restaurant that just opened. We sat on the porch with a creek running below us and nobody else besides us. I don’t remember what we had, but it was the best meal we had in Tobago.

At sunset we started driving back. Nobody pooped on our beds or threw our stuff in the pool. We went to a new restaurant down the road from our hotel that served fancy food, which was actually pretty good. From there we went back to our hotel where we packed, watched terrible American reality shows on the TV and went to bed.

Day 11: Charlotteville, Tobago

We woke up late, drove to Crown Point, dropped our dirty clothes in a laundry service and walked over to the beach. We walked up to a booth that offered glass bottom boat tours to the Nylon Pool. The booth was unmanned, but as soon as we approached, a young man with blond-dyed curly hair came towards us yelling something boat tours. We followed rule #1 of Trinidad very carefully - never go with the dude who comes to you. Look for the guy with right T-shirt. This young man was not even wearing a shirt.

- “We are looking for the person in this booth”, I said

- “You want the boat tour?”

- “Yes, but from this booth.”

- “I will take you to the boat!’

- “This boat?”

- “Yes, I am the captain!”

- “You don’t strike me as a captain…”

A dude came, wearing the right kind of T-shirt, and entered the booth, but Captain Curly was persistent. “Does this guy work with you?” I asked the guy in the booth, who avoided the question and blatantly ignored Captain Curly. The dude said we had hurry to get the tour that was leaving soon, since they were canceling the afternoon tours due to the bad weather. We hadn’t eaten yet and the weather did seem to get worse, so we decided to skip the tour. Instead, we got food - I got goat stew and dumplings, which are totally not dumplings, and Julia got a crab, which was impossible to manage. 

By the time we were done eating, it had already started to rain pretty bad, and it didn’t look like it was going to stop. We had to make a run for it to the car which was far enough for us to get completely soaked. Again. With no further plans for the day, we decided to just drive around the island.

We drove to Scarborough, where it didn’t rain anymore. We drove up a hill and reached Fort King George.

We drove along the windy coastline on the east side of the island. We were late for lunch again, and some hope was sparked when we passed an open restaurant in Speyside. The moment we got out of the car, we saw a large group of people leaving the restaurant. “They just ran out of food”, they said. “So where do you guys want to have lunch?” I asked them.

So we drove on. Right before Charlotteville, the road was blocked by a couple of peacocks. 

In Charlotteville, we raided a small grocery store. We bought candy and chips, and then bought some fruit at a stand across the road. We ate our loot sitting on the docks and watching the pelicans dive into the ocean and come out with fish.

We drove back hoping to get to our hotel before dark. We stopped to take some pictures at the Speyside waterwheel, which is the ruins of an old sugar factory.

We got back to the hotel and were very annoyed, as the Wi-Fi was still down, and so we went to the lobby to check up on life. Julia got an email from a guy named Stanley, who said he found her stuff. He said we should text him before we call. We were overwhelmed. On one hand, this was very good news. On the other hand, we were suspicious: why do we need to text first? We know somebody had tried to use Julia’s credit card at least once. Maybe he wants to blackmail us? After some attempts to text, email, and call him, we finally got hold of him. All that we could understand through the bad connection and his thick accent was that we should call him again when we get back to Trinidad. “You don’t want to blog about this? Are you sure?” Julia asked.

We drove to Crown Point and had dinner at the only place we could find that was still open, the Cafe Coco. It’s a fancy restaurant, and the food is pretty good. We finally got callaloo soup, which we saw in some places. We drove back to Buccoo. Sunday nights in Buccoo are famous for “Sunday School”, a street party that includes local steel drum bands, cheap beer and an arts market. The steel drum band that we saw was great.

From there we walked across the street and entered a dance club where we were pretty much the only tourists. We hung out there for a couple of beers and watched people dance. I don’t understand people who dance so well. The coordination that it takes for two people who have just met to move in the same direction at the same time just doesn’t look realistic to me, yet these people can make it work. I just don’t get it.

Day 10: Tobago

We woke up very early to catch the ferry to Tobago. Considering the impossible transportation arrangements in Trinidad, we chose to walk to the ferry terminal from our hotel, which turned out to be not that terrible. The procedure of going on the ferry wasn’t really clear, but we stood in a line, got tickets, stood in another line which we weren’t supposed to stand in, and then got directed to the ferry. Whatever. It worked.

This ferry was much nice than the one we took in Puerto Rico - the seats are comfortable, there’s a movie playing, and there’s a cafe. We ate breakfast, and Julia immediately fell asleep, being exhausted from the events of the previous night and generally not being very good at waking up too early.

We landed in Scarborough, the main city of Tobago. We had a car rental reservation, and we were supposed to call a guy who in turn was supposed to bring us the car, but since we landed much earlier than we expected, the guy didn’t answer. We decided to take a taxi to the car rental place, which was supposedly near the airport. We stood around and tried to hail taxis, but of course there was a system we didn’t understand, causing us to get into fights we didn’t even understand what they were about. Eventually, a French couple explained to us that we need to wait for a taxi to pull over in a very specific, unmarked spot. This is the spot for the legitimate taxis that go to the airport. Of course.

At the airport, we went into the tourist information center. An extremely nice lady helped us. She called the car rental people who said they couldn’t deliver the car until the evening, but promised to get it to us at the hotel; she called our hotel to check if we can show up early; and then she got us a taxi to take us to the hotel. All this time her friend, an enormous, young woman, was sitting next to us, waiting patiently and smiling to herself.

The receptionist at the Belissimo Boutique hotel in Buccoo showed us to our room. It was next to the swimming pool, which was not necessarily an advantage for us, since it meant more noise. She also said there’s a problem with the hot water which will be taken care of soon, and lastly, there’s a problem with the Wi-Fi network. We were upset, but took her word when she said everything is being take care of.

We went out looking for lunch, but it was late afternoon, and since everything in Tobago is kind of small, most restaurants are only open during meal times. Finally, we found an Italian place that was open, and we had very mediocre pasta.

Back in our room, Julia passed out again for a few hours while I read, When she finally woke up, we went to the lobby for Wi-Fi and waited for the car. There were two young boys in the lobby, watching cartoons. A woman, probably their mom, was cooking in the next kitchen. One of them was craving for attention, and he slowly approached us. I finally asked him for his name but I couldn’t parse it through his thick Caribbean accent. He climbed on the couch, curled himself with his head on the seat and his legs on the backrest. I told him he was crazy. He disagreed. After I wore him out he started asking about our camera. “Take a picture of me!” he insisted. So I did. “Take a picture of she [sic]!” he pointed at Julia, who was very unhappy with the whole situation. “I don’t think she’d like that” I answered. “I will take a picture of you!” he tried a new strategy. “How about I take a picture of both of us?” I said.

“Take a picture of she!” he asked again. “No. No more pictures”. He started getting a little physical and luckily, the mom just came in from the kitchen. “He’s a very sweet boy, but I know how this will end. He’s getting very excited and playing a little too strong. He’s going to hurt himself and I will feel bad. Please take him from me. I can’t be your boy’s babysitter.”

She apologized and yelled at him a little bit. She went back to the kitchen and the boy went back to his cartoons and turned the volume up. The lady came in from the kitchen. “The TV is extremely loud, and we’re trying to work. We would have gone to our room but the Wi-Fi is down”.

- “I’m sorry” she said. “But the boys keep turning it back up!

- “Maybe you should hit them. Then they’ll know not to do it again.”

She slapped the boy’s butt. I didn’t actually think she was going to hit him, which made me feel a little bad, but just a little. Julia gave me the “are you sure you don’t want to blog about this?” look.

A guy showed up with the car, which was actually a jeep, and a left-handed one, since you drive on the left in Trinidad. We reserved a manual one, but thank god there was a problem and they had to give us an automatic one. Driving on the left side of the road is hard enough without having to deal with shifting gears with your left hand. I kept turning the windshield wipers instead of signaling for turns.

We drove, slowly, to Crown Point, which was the closest town where something was actually happening to get some food. We drove back to the hotel, where we discovered there was still no hot water. The same woman was in the reception, and I yelled at her a little bit. “Not only there’s no hot water, I can’t work from the room because there’s no Wi-Fi, and I can’t work in the lobby because there I need to babysit your kids! Am I on vacation or are you on vacation?!” It’s amazing how both my accent, intonation, and phrasing become very Israeli when I get mad. I’m like the blue and white hulk. 

To calm me down, we walked around Buccoo for a little bit, grabbed a beer and went to bed.

Day 9: Pitch Lake

Our goal for the day was to get to the Pitch Lake. We had instructions from a random TripAdvisor post on how to get there, which seemed to be a pretty complicated, but we went for it anyway.

Step one: get to Independence Square. We walked to the main road with the intention of hailing a taxi, but we couldn’t see any. Julia said she read somewhere that the taxis in Trinidad don’t have clear markings, but rather have something different about their license plate, but she couldn’t remember what it was. So we just stood in bus stop and indeed someone pulled over. Maybe that was a taxi. Maybe someone who just wanted to make a buck. Anyway, he took us to Independence Square. This is the main transportation hub of the city, and it’s surrounded by a very vibrant and loud market. We looked for something that resembled breakfast, but couldn’t find any. We ended up buying some pears.

Step two: get a Maxi Taxi to San Fernando. We figured out that all taxis have license plate that start with an “H”, for “hire”. We started asking around, but taxi drivers just threw random prices at us, like 70 dollars. American. We finally asked a guy specifically for the Maxi Taxi to San Fernando, and he directed us to an alley where the Maxi Taxis for San Fernando were lined up. A Maxi Taxi, now we learned, is a minivan with a specific route that leaves when it’s in full capacity. Very similar to service taxis in Israel, only harder to locate. They’re also priced reasonably, and I think this ride cost us about 15 TTD, which is about $2.5 a head.

Step three: get to La Brea. We walked to where the taxi driver told us the Maxi Taxi stop to La Brea would be. Now we learned to recognize the little white signed that mark the taxi stops. We waited for a while, but saw no activity, so we asked one of the store owners next to the stop. This stop is no longer active, he said. We should walk all the way down the street. We did, but had no idea what to do now. We sat down and ate the pears. It wasn’t enough, so we decided to look for food

Unfortunately, everything was closed due to the Christmas vacation. The only thing that was open was a Subway. This was extremely disappointing, but there was no choice. In the line, some lady asked for a replacement sandwich - a fly landed on the meat while they were piling cheese on it. I found that funny. For me, the problem would not the fly. It would be the actual food. Julia had their new Sriracha chicken, that was terrible. I blocked out what I had.

Outside, we were getting frustrated, but then two policewomen walked by, so we asked them. It’s very hard parsing english with a Caribbean accent, but after they repeated themselves five times, we understood what we had to do next: we walked to the bank, looked for a Maxi Taxi to Point Fortin and asked the driver to drop us off at the lake.

It worked! We finally got to the lake, but it was now raining pretty bad. We followed Trinidad rule #1, avoided a random dude who offered us a tour, and went straight to the guy with the right T-shirt. We waited for the rain to weaken and Garvin took us into the lake. It’s pretty crazy: you get to walk on this huge lake of tar. Rain is trapped in the small valleys that the folding of the pitch create, and small fish and plants live there. Tiny holes on the surface release sulfur and they bubble when you step near them.

Garvin explained to us about the history and the chemistry of the place, and eventually showed us a pond full of lilies. He took us back to the visitor center, and then we asked if we could go back to the lake on our own to play. He told us to be careful and not go to the center of the lake where we might get get stuck and sink. We managed not to sink, but when we finished playing we had a hard time navigating back to the visitor center. We finally made it. We washed our feet, ate some terrible Subway sandwich leftovers, and moved on.

Step 4: Walk back to La Brea. This was relatively easy. It’s 1km to walk to the end of La Brea, where the driver who brought us to the lake told us to wait for a taxi. The only hard part was that my flip flops were dying.

Step 5: Taxi back to San Fernando. No taxis were passing by. A woman joined us. She was also going in that same direction. She just hailed every car that passed by, until one of them stopped. Every car is a potential taxi, so it seems. The lady got off after 15 minutes, leaving us alone with the driver, who drove insanely fast.

Step 6: Maxi Taxi back to Port of Spain. Piece of cake.

We sat for a little while in Independence Square and then walked around in the market trying to find me some new flip flops. I felt that the merchants were trying to charge me too much money, so we gave up and took a taxi back to the hotel. After chilling in the room for about an hour, Julia couldn’t find her purse. We went through our bags. Twice. We looked all over the room. We moved to extreme measures, clearing one corner of the room and then scanning everything, bags, pillows, clothes, and moving every scanned item to the clear corner. The purse was definitely gone. Damage assessment: phone, wallet with credit cards and driver license, a paper with all our flight and hotel reservations. We started making calls. The credit card company said an attempt was made to withdraw money just half an hour before. To us, that meant that we have to escalate. We blocked all the cards, and asked T-Mobile to put a hold on the SIM and brick the phone. Considering the circumstance, we managed the situation pretty well.

The receptionist stopped giggling when we explained the situation to her, and she explained to us how to get to the police station. The police officer gave Julia a piece of paper that basically says “To whom it may concern, Julia lost her stuff. Try to be nice to her.” I asked him what would they do if they find the stuff, so he agreed to write down an email address. That did not give us any hope.

We walked over to St. James, the nightlife part of town, and got jerk chicken from a street food cart. It was awesome. When we started walking back to the hotel, it started raining again. This time it was raining hard. We had no umbrella, and we just could not find a taxi. We started walking in segments, from underneath a roof to bus station. We then heard music and saw people dancing. If it’s a club, we thought, we could get a drink and wait for the rain to stop.

It was an Indian wedding, and we were not invited. So we stood under a shed right next to the wedding and rested. The wedding was taking place under a tent, but one young woman seemed to have found the tent isolating from mother nature, and danced very purposefully under the rain. She raised her hands to the sky, part to embrace the rain and part to make sure she is noticed. She signaled other guests to join her, but they valued their dryness. We, too, valued their nature. “She’s a free spirit!” Julia said sarcastically and we both burst with laughter.

The rest of the journey home was torture. It just kept raining harder and harder, and by the time we got back to the hotel we were completely soaked. “Are you sure you don’t want to blog about this?” Julia asked.

Day 8: Port of Spain, Trinidad

Our main goal of the day was to get to Trinidad in one piece. Each. So two pieces all together. Our car was parked all the way in the front of the line of cars in the guest house parking, so we did the old car-tetris thing to get it out, and we were on our way. Of course, it rained on us again at the car rental office, and we realized that the forecast was for it to rain during our entire stay in Trinidad.

There are several ways to get from Puerto Rico to Trinidad. Most of them require you to fly back to the mainland - to Miami, for instance. Another option is to hop between the islands with a Caribbean airline, like Liat. The reviews they are getting online are terrible, but we decided it’s worth the adventure. 

Our first stop was Antigua. We had very little time to change planes. In this plane, a Caribbean woman was in my seat.

- "Excuse me, you're in my seat."

- "No I'm not."

- "Can I see your boarding pass?"

- "I don't have it."

- "What seat are you supposed to be in?"

- "I don't know."

She turned her head away, disengaging from the conversation. Julia put her bag down at her seat, while I signaled a flight attendant.

- "Do you have to sit together?" the lady asked. She started to realize she was going to lose this one.

- "Yes, we do!"

- "O.K. I'll trade seats with you." she said, and moved to the seat across the aisle, next to her boyfriend. Asshole.

We flew over many big and small islands, and landed in St. Lucia. Here, we didn't have to leave the plane. It was a short stop for people to hop on or off the plane, and then we continued to Trinidad. Overall, the airline was great. I really don't know why the reviews online are so bad.

The number one rule in Trinidad is to go with the guy with the right T-shirt, like the taxi drivers in the airport. Don't go with the random guy who offers you a ride. Go with the one that has the airport taxi service T-shirt. The guy took us all the way to our hotel in Port of Spain, and it wasn't too expensive.

The receptionist at the hotel just stared at me and giggled. Julia thinks she thought I was cute. I think they're both right.

- “We have a reservation.”

- “A what?!"

- “A reservation!”

She was very confused. It looked like it was unreasonable in her mind that we’d have a reservation. Like she forgot this was a hotel. The entire conversation was very frustrating. And very giggly. Eventually we got our room. It was pretty bad. All the rooms in the hotel were named after different Caribbean islands, and those names were engraved on wooden plaques hung on the doors. Ours didn’t. We barely had a door. It was more like a gate. And the bed… I would rather have the bed I slept in during basic training than this bed.

It was Christmas night, so everything was closed for dinner, but the receptionist told us that we might have better luck downtown. And then she giggled. Can she get us a taxi? She can, but we can also wait for the manager - she would be happy to drive us, and she should be back any minute now.

Half an hour later, the manager showed up. She said she would take us, but nothing is open, except for this one Chinese restaurant. Just like America, we thought. So she drove us there, a drive that takes about two minutes, and then demanded a fee of ten dollars. American dollars. The second rule in Trinidad is that you don’t talk about Trinidad. O.K, it’s not. The second rule in Trinidad, actually, is to always ask how much things cost beforehand, especially when you don’t think they will cost anything at all.

The staff at the Chinese restaurant had very poor English, and had a hard time talking to us as Julia would not talk in Chinese to them. Her excuse was that she heard them speak Cantonese among themselves, and she only knows Mandarin. My argument that almost every Chinese person speaks Mandarin did not convince her. The truth of the matter is that she’s just uncomfortable speaking Mandarin at all.

We tried to pay with one of my cards. The waitress took it to the back and we could see that a struggle was taking place between her and the credit card machine. Eventually, a more senior staff member came to the table and in broken English tried to explain to us that the waitress had charged my card twice, so they’re returning to me the difference in cash, if that’s o.k. The waitress, it turns out, is new. “She doesn’t know!” she said. This was my time to shine. “Ta bu zhi dao ma?” (“she doesn’t know?!”) I asked. I was so convincing that she switched immediately to Mandarin, obviously repeating the whole story to me, now completely ignoring Julia.. I just nodded and uttered an occasional “dui, dui…” (“right, right...”) which just made her go faster and Julia laugh harder. “Are you sure you don’t wanna blog about this?” Julia asked as we walked back to our room.

Day 7: El Yunque

Our first stop was Loquillo. Friends of mine told me that this is the city Puerto Ricans go to for their vacation. On the other hand, Julia heard from her friends that it’s a good city to get grilled meats. 

Since Julia is the one who makes the plans, we went to a grill restaurant, ordered way too much food, and had to move on. The next stop was El Yunque rainforest. The guy at the information center booth had a big mustache and was radiating with self-entitlement. We were there with a large group of people, so he got up from his chair to count the visitors. It didn’t look like a very accurate count: he eyeballed everybody and continuously pushed the tiny button on his people counter until he felt like he was about done. “Can we get a map?” Julia asked. “I will give you a map. Be patient!” He replied, “Everybody! Line up at the right corner of the counter!” Everybody scooted to the right. “Other way! Since I’m the one who’s talking, it’s my right, which is your left. That’s O.K. I taught you something new today.”

First, we went to see La Coca falls, where everybody takes pictures.

Then we took a short hike on Big Tree Trail.

Then we went up the observation tower.

And finally, we took a longer hike to La Mina falls.

Aside from the vegetation, water, snails, and birds, people on the trail are also intriguing. Most people are American, Chinese, and Indian. Without getting into the specifics of ethnicities, let’s just say that some are very fat. The others still manage to be in your way. We kept passing a kid in his late teens sitting on various benches along the trail, waiting for his fat parents to catch up. God forbid he would walk with them, or just admire the surroundings while he waits. Instead, he played on his phone. I actually think he ran quickly up the trail just so that he would have more time to play. In one instance, when his parents finally caught up, the three of them started fighting over the most stupid shit. In conclusion, El Yunque is awesome, and people are dicks. 

We got back to San Juan just in time to change clothes and go to Hagit and Kobi’s apartment for dinner. Thank god we did that - we finally had a good, healthy meal. After dinner we sat in the porch that overlooks the ocean and had some white wine. From there we went to the lobby of the Marriott, again, because Hagit said there was going to be a band. She was wrong, so we had a drink and left to buy local chocolate for Julia to bring back to her officemates. We agreed that it would be wise if she didn’t tell them we got it at Walgreens.

Day 6: San Juan

We haven’t been eating very well since we started this trip, so we went to the supermarket, bought bread, tomatoes and cucumbers, returned to the hotel and made ourselves some Israeli salad, and ate with the bread and some of the leftover meats from the dinner of the night before. The poor quality of the vegetables is yet another reminder that Puerto Rico is a part of the USA. We walked back to the souvenir shop where we saw the good hat for Julia. This time we weren’t drunk and the hat still looked good so we bought it. It has wide brim and a good color mix of light brown and green. We then went to the beach to take a walk. The celebrations to commemorate the purchase of this hat didn’t last very long. They ended when the wind blew the hat right off Julia’s head and straight into the ocean. The hat was retrieved, but the brim became extremely floppy and practically unwearable until we treat it.

We took a bus to the old city. As the doors of the bus opened at one of the stops, a fat American woman was yelling at the bus driver from the outside with thick Southern accent. We couldn't hear the driver’s responses, and I think his English was not that good either, which made the whole thing sound like a ridiculous monologue: “Where is this bus going to? Can you take us to souvenir shops? We need to get to a souvenir shop. Are there any souvenir shops in the old city? well, how much is it for the five of us? Is it true that buses only take coins? But I only have bills! Where can I get coins?” It didn’t matter to her at all what was there to see in the old city. It didn’t matter to her that everybody on the bus was waiting for her. All that she cared about was not going back home without a T-shirt that says “I went to Puerto Rico and all I got was this lousy T-shirt”, which in her case will make perfect sense. “Are you sure you don’t want to blog about this?” Julia asked again.

Blogging a trip takes a lot of effort. You need to constantly pay attention to things, take lots of pictures, and just the writing itself takes me at least an hour and a half every day. This time I just wanted to rest and have fun.

The old city is very pretty and very touristy.

We stared at a whole pig that was roasting in a store front and contemplated whether we should eat there.

“Get the shoulder!” said a woman who overheard us. “It’s my favorite thing to eat here.” We got some shoulder meat, a couple of pasteles, which are a mash of meat and vegetables wrapped in a banana leaf, and we ate it in the street. We walked to Castillo San Felipe Del Morro, a fort built by the Spanish in the 16th century. It’s a real shame that such impressive engineering achievements are the consequences of war.

We took a taxi from the old city to La Placita de Santurce, where we set to meet with Hagit and Kobi. We got there a little early so we found a place to sit and drink. The heart of the placita is a market, and all around it are tiny places, I wouldn’t even call them “bars”, where the locals come to drink after their work day. It’s very lively, and we were told there’s often live music and street parties. 

I know Hagit from the Minzar, my favorite bar in Tel Aviv. She left Israel a year after I did, following Kobi, her husband, who has a mango farm in south Puerto Rico. We were supposed to go to Jose Enrique, a very popular restaurant, but they don’t take reservations, and although we got there really early, the wait was two hours. We drove to an Indian and Thai restaurant instead. To be honest, I knew Hagit very superficially, but it turned out both her and Kobi were really fun to hang out with. 

After dinner, they drove us to the Marriott, where we had a few drinks in the lobby. 

Julia and I left to the hotel and sat on the porch. We talked about how we move around, how we do that so well together, and how excited we are about the future. I then asked Julia to marry me, pretty much the same way I try to open the door every time we come back home: frantically going through my pockets mumbling “I swear it was in this pocket”. Julia wasn’t really surprised. I think between the two of us it was clear that we’re just waiting for me to deal with the logistics of proposing. 

And so we went out to get more drinks to celebrate. Over some wine, I told her how I carried the ring in my pocket the entire trip, waiting for the right moment. I told her how opportunity did present itself that very morning, when we passed by a jewelry store, and she jokingly gave me an impatient look. For a second, I wanted to take the box out of pocket, shove it in her hand and yell at her in the middle of the street “there! you want a ring? here’s a ring! happy now?!”, but decided that although it may seem funny to me at the moment, it might not be accepted as well as I would like it to.

Day 5: Arecibo

We had a busy day ahead of us, so we woke up early, had breakfast at the hotel, checked out and left. The nice thing about Puerto Rico is that even though it doesn’t feel like being in America, it still shares some of the infrastructure, like the currency, or Walgreens. We needed a Walgreens in order to get a cable that allowed us to play music in the car from my phone. The night before, Tom, my friend in Israel, sent me his mixes for an album I’ve been working on. I couldn’t wait to listen to it.

And so we drove to the Rio Camuy caves park with my upcoming album playing in the background. The road was windy and the drive beautiful. We were soaked in deep green and often drove through tiny villages. It was hard for me to divide my attention between manipulating the car through the sharp turns, absorbing the view, and getting excited about the album and how good was the work Tom did on it.

Unfortunately, when we got to the park we discovered that it was closed on Mondays, and so we continued to our next stop, the Arecibo observatory. It’s the largest radio telescope in the world, so a couple of nerds like us just had to see it.

The observatory features a small museum that is really cute but a little outdated. Some of the exhibits still refer to Pluto as a planet. Pffff.

The dish itself is really impressive. We had a young tour guide that tried to tell us some facts about it, but he suffered from a very soft voice and complete lack of charisma. We waited until everybody else left so we can take silly pictures with the dish, and then we got hungry, so we got hot dogs from a stand that was right on the porch overlooking the dish. The kid at the stand was also a tour guide at the observatory, and he was way more fun to talk to. He told us how they shot scenes from Contact and James Bond there, and that Pierce Brosnan was afraid of heights so all the scenes where Bond is climbing the telescope feature a stunt double. Also, the hot dogs totally hit the spot.

We then drove to the city of Arecibo. It’s terrible.

We ate some tapas in the only place that we found to be open, which were actually pretty good, and drove to Cueva del Indio. In these cave you can see drawings that were carved in the rocks by the Taíno, the native people of the island. Besides that, the nature there is extremely interesting: the textures of the rocks, the purple coloring of it where it meets the water, and the different shades of blue of the ocean. We also saw bee hives and urchins and we played with crabs and snails.

The sun was starting to set and we still had to get to San Juan. The roads were terrible, but we made it in one piece. We checked in at Aleli by the Sea, a small and cute guest house right on the beach and went out to look for dinner. We went into an Argentinian restaurant and got one of those meat assortments for two meals. This turned out to be way, way, way too much food for us, but the waitress told us not to feel bad - she only saw this dish finished once. It was by a single guy, though. 

When we left, Julia was already a little bit drunk, so even though we saw a great hat for her, I managed to convince her not to buy it until the next day, when she has a clear mind. We went to sleep and were forced to use earplugs due to air conditioner. Why does everything in Puerto Rico have to be so loud?

Day 4: Ponce

We woke up to the sounds of a band playing at city square. The sound penetrated our earplugs and disturbed what was supposed to be our first jet lag-free night. We didn’t really have any plans, so we decided to try to get to the Indigenous Ceremonial Center, an archaeological site with findings from the local communities that lived on the island prior to the arrival of the Europeans. We couldn’t find anything to eat for the longest time until we found an Italian restaurant where we had some decent pizza. We got lost on our way out of the city, driving through some of the rougher areas, and found ourselves in a park. In hindsight we know this was in the vicinity of the cemetery. Anyway, we parked and went to explore on foot.

We then saw a horse that was tied to a tree. The rope was tied to her neck, but her foot was also entangled in it. This way, her head could not go any higher than her back. She was obviously in distress. On the one hand, we really wanted to help her, but on the other hand, neither of us had ever really dealt with horses, and we were afraid she might panic. Moreover, what if her owner did this to her on purpose, and just as we’re helping her he would pop out of nowhere and beat the shit out of us?

We pet her while I tried to figure out how hard it would be to release her. Then I realized that the rope split and her foot got stuck between the thread. Raising her leg was not easy but I finally managed to get her to help me. I pushed and pulled and all of sudden it worked. “Now we run away” I said in the calmest voice I was able to produce. We walked very quickly to the car and split. “Are you sure you don’t wanna blog about this?” Julia asked as we drove away. 

We drove on to the Indigenous Ceremonial Center, but because of all our distractions, by the time we got there the site was closed. We drove back to the city and headed to the beach, where we heard there were supposed to be some things to do, but we found nothing. We were tired and hot, so we stopped in a shopping center where I had my first Cold Stone ice cream. It’s o.k. After that we had a beer in the tiniest bar in the world, just across from the shopping center.

From there we went back to the hotel. The events to commemorate the Ponce Lion Blue marching band would not stop. Now there were some local dance troupes in the city square, featuring some of the tiniest little girls I have ever seen. “Let’s try the beach again,” Julia said. “I don’t think we were in the right place”. 

This time we found it. There were merchants selling stupid swag for kids, pimped cars that people had parked in a row to show off, some restaurants, and a few stages where musicians were playing salsa music and a bunch of people were dancing. We sat in one of the restaurants. It had a duo of a guitarist and a female singer playing, and they were really good. We had mofongo, a popular local dish made from fried plantain. I had mine made with shrimp. Julia had hers with the conch she was was so eager to try. She found it meh.

Day 3: Vieques->Ponce

We hardly slept at all. We were jet-lagged, and as falling asleep wasn’t hard enough, roosters from all around the guest house woke us up before dawn. We decided it was time for our vacation to feel like a Caribbean one, so we headed to the beach. We wore bathing suits and even took with us a snorkeling mask that we found in our room. The walk to the beach took longer than we expected, and we forgot to bring water. We passed by a small shack, and there was a guy who looked like he was opening the place for some sort of business. We asked if he sells water, and he said that he’s not open yet, and the water is not cold. He then walked to the back of the shack and came back with two bottles of water, and he wouldn’t take money for them. We walked on, passing many stray horses and chicken. Vieques is full of them.

We finally got to the beach. It was pretty and mostly empty, but neither Julia nor me are very good with beaches. We went into the water, appreciated how nice they were, but didn’t really know what to do next. We tried the snorkeling mask but there was not a lot to see. We decided to try another beach that was closer to our hotel.

This one had a pier. We tried the snorkeling mask again. I have never snorkeled or dived before, so I was very disappointed at first, but then I tried to swim under the pier. Suddenly I was surrounded by countless little fish. A few meters below me, bigger fish were swimming. It’s really hard to describe the feeling of experiencing this for the first time. It’s so beautiful and new, and for a reason I can’t really put in words, scary.

We were running out of time. We walked quickly back to our room, packed and left. A taxi driver who was looking for other passengers that didn’t show up took us to the town of Vieques, where we had lunch in a tourists’ bar and boarded the ferry back to the main island.

From Fajardo we drove with our rented car to Ponce. We asked the receptionist in the Hotel Belgica why so many streets in the city were either blocked or restricted for parking, and he said that there’s no good reason. Surely there’s a parade or festival soon, we said, but he insisted. 

It was very hard finding a place to eat, but we finally found a hidden family restaurant, where we had tapas that was excellent, and we left to wander around the city.

No parade my ass. It wasn’t a very big parade, but it had marching bands and dancers and floats. We learned that the parade is one of several events to take place in the city square over the coming days to celebrate the anniversary of the local marching band Ponce Lions Blue. Indeed.

We found some ice cream, because it was very hot, and then looked for a place to have drinks. We found a dance club that was almost empty and had a second floor with a porch that overlooked the city square. From the porch we watched the weekend night traffic. Everybody has to be loud in Puerto Rico. The volume of music that comes out of cars makes you wonder how the drivers still have their internal organs intact. In some cases, the answer is obvious: they mount towers of speakers on top of the car, producing the desired effect without compromising their own hearing. The cops don’t seem to mind. From where we were sitting, we could see how they were able to direct traffic, wave and chat to their friends who passed by, and dance - all simultaneously.

There Are speakers, in case you were wondering.

Back in our room, we were excited to realize how big our room was, but let down by how close the hotel was to the city square, with our window facing a main street. I wasn’t so proud of myself for bringing earplugs to this trip since the ferry ride, just a few hours before.

Day 2: Bioluminescence in Vieques

After grabbing a little bit of shitty breakfast in our hotel, we drove to Fajardo. The roads in Puerto Rico are worse than anything I ever had to drive on. In fact, at some point we had to pull over because I was certain we had gotten a flat tire. When we got to Fajardo, we went straight to the ferry terminal to get tickets, and from there we drove downtown to burn a few hours until our ride.

Not much is going in Fajardo. In the city square we saw an iguana and we followed it around for a while. The locals probably thought we were being stupid. A little like the girl who gave me a ride from the airport in Canada about twelve years ago. “Stop the car!” I yelled at her. She immediately hit the brakes and when the car stopped she yelled back “what happened?” Through my excitement, I managed to reply “a squirrel!”

After the iguana left we continued to wander around. These people have weird taste when it comes to nativity scenes. They look more like a crime scene, if you ask me. One of them had what appeared to be the body of a man hidden in a closet, with only his shoes and the lower part of his pants peeking out. Next to him were baby Jesus and the three wise men. Next to them was a man roasting a pig. It turns out every nativity scene in Puerto Rico has to have one.

We were bored and hot, so we looked for ice cream, which was nowhere to be found. Instead, we found a coffee shop. We enjoyed the air conditioning for a while and continued to the ferry.

I was very excited to go on the ferry. Ever since my first ferry ride where I learned that I can have a beer while being on the ferry, it became a ritual for me. Unfortunately, the ferry from Fajardo to Vieques is more like a bus in San Francisco - it’s crowded, noisy, doesn’t have beer, and good only for taking you from one place to another.

After landing in Vieques, we shared a taxi with a tiger (our code word for a mixed Asian/white) family, that for $5 per person took us all the way to Esperanza. We walked over to the Coco Loco Guesthouse and met Joel, our host, who is very nice and very talkative. We settled in our cute casita and walked towards the beach for a late lunch.

There are a dozen or so restaurants on the beach strip in Esperanza, and they are all populated by Asians. Julia wanted to try conch (which is a big snail, really) and get a coconut at some point. The restaurant we sat in was out of conch. We were disappointed, and we ordered fish. The table next to us got a beautiful, whole fish. We were encouraged. We got our food, and it was a different fish. We were disappointed again. Our food was good, so we got off the emotional roller coaster and were content with our lot.

We were supposed to be picked up at 6pm from a gazebo on the beach to be taken to Mosquito Bay. Julia had that arranged months in advance. But it was already twenty minutes past the hour and no one had showed up. We tried to call Abe, the tour company owner, but could not reach him. It was finally my time to contribute my share: she makes the plan, I deal with emergencies. I found a guy who was clearly from another company that arranged Mosquito Bay tours and explained to him the situation. Vieques is a small island, so of course he knew Abe personally and had his personal phone number. On the phone, Abe said that they no longer pick people up from the gazebo. Thanks for letting us know, Abe. He sent his driver to pick us up, and when he dropped us off to join our group, we noticed that everybody was already wearing their life jackets and giving us dirty looks. “Are you sure you don’t wanna blog about this?” Julia asked.

We were the last kayak in our group to get into the water, and Julia was immediately mesmerized by the bioluminescence. That left me to deal with armies of stray kayaks handled by equally mesmerized and completely distracted Asian tourists. When I finally managed to shove them all away with my paddle, I saw how in incredible the bay is. Countless tiny organisms called dinoflagellates (“ooh! prehistoric animals’ farts!” - “not dino flatulence, idiot!”) glow in the water around your kayak and where your paddle meets the water. They glow to trace the path of fish zooming around in every direction. When you scoop water in your hand, it looks like you’re holding star water. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to take pictures because the effect is so subtle, and it turns out that every picture that you see on the web is actually photoshopped.

We returned to the shore, and one of the guys in the group handed me his life jacket. For some reason, it happens way too often that people think I’m working. I was at a friend’s wedding once and somebody asked me to clear the table. I was standing in a gas station and a lady gave me her car keys and asked for a full tank. I was standing near my motorcycle, holding my helmet, but that didn’t stop her.

We returned to Esperanza and got a late dinner which consisted of terrible mango fish tacos and some unidentified fried thing they serve only to tourists, and tried to sleep, which was not an easy task: nature is pretty loud with all its crickets, birds, and frogs.