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.

Puerto Rico / Trinidad and Tobago: Prologue

“Are you sure you don’t wanna blog this?” Julia asked for the millionth time. It was close to midnight and we were standing under the pavilion, already completely soaked, watching an Indian girl dancing in the rain, signaling to the rest of the wedding guests to join her. It was impossible to get a taxi, and the rain was just getting stronger. That’s not what I had imagined when I said we should go to Trinidad for our vacation. I just wanted to sit on a beach chair, facing the ocean, drinking a cocktail. I don’t even like cocktails, but I just wanted to do this at least once in my lifetime. 

I hate planning, but Julia loves it. And so by the time we left for our vacation Julia had the entire trip planned out. The outline: a week in Puerto Rico, including a short escapade to Vieques, and a week in Trinidad and Tobago. It wasn’t supposed to be eventful enough to blog about. 

Oh boy, was I wrong.