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.
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