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.
No comments:
Post a Comment