Trinidad! (but not Tobago)

The crest of Trinidad and Tobago, including the red Ibis, which
is the symbol of Trinidad, and a white Cocrico, found only on Tobago.
Also it includes Christopher Columbus' ships which landed here.

Typical start to the day.  Up, breakfast, get ready.  We had a ship tour (meaning a tour provided by the cruise line, not a tour of the ship), and expected to be back on board by lunch, so decided to save a little time by having a small breakfast in our room.  We headed to the meeting point (one of the dining rooms) in plenty of time.  We found a seat and just got settled when there was an announcement…the President of Trinidad (& Tobago) had declared a “State of Emergency” overnight.  Of course, everyone was then on their phones googling what happened.  Crime and civil unrest has been rather bad in T&T for a while, and it was on the US State Dept list as a “Level 3” which means “Uhh, don’t go there”.  Level 4 is “You should leave…” and Level 5 is “You’re on your own, we’re outta here!”  I think they have other words but it’s about like that.  So, we chose the ship for the tour so at least we’d be taken care of on the tour.  And frankly, the crime rates in several US cities are pretty bad, and we could be mugged in Omaha, so we planned to just be cautious.  Anyway, since the State of Emergency was declared, the ship’s Captain was talking with the corporate risk department and the local and national government officials to determine what to do about “us”.  We spent about 20-30 minutes in the area, then they sent us off as it would be a while longer.  We went back to the room, and then grabbed an extra bite in the buffet, figuring “If we do go, we’ll get back too late for lunch”. 

Our "bus" looked pretty much just like the picture!

Finally, we got the announcement they were going to let us off the ship, but the authorities were urging everyone be back on the boat before dark, so that was set as 6PM.  We headed out to queue for our tour.  They split our group into two “busses” or “Maxi Taxi” as they call it.  We probably could have fit all 13 people on one, but having the extra space was a little nicer. 

The driver took us around Port of Spain (the Capital) and pointed out several buildings, ranging from probably important government buildings to schools to a really big bank.

Locals playing chess in "Independence Square".

One of the schools on the island.

The performing arts building (meant to look like the national flower).

A random building.  It had some reason to be here.

Look.  Botanical.  Garden.  Ooh.  Aah.  Ohh.

We headed to a botanical garden (yay.) where he first allowed us to take a bio-break.  But first, he pulled out a giant roll of toilet paper and a soap dispenser, and suggested the ladies take the paper they needed and bring the soap with them (presumably to share?).  After a break, he walked us through and told us about many of the plants.

Three colors of flowers.  I guess?

A curious tree trunk.

A brazil nut tree.

The brazil nut fruit, which purportedly is hard 
and heavy enough to kill a person when it falls.

The President's residence.

Also the President's residence, but from a spot people like to 
use for weddings and other special events.

The national flower.

The performing arts center, meant to look like the national flower.

We headed up the hill to a little shopping area with food and crafts and …stuff.  And an overlook.  Continuing up the hill, we came to St. Benet’s Hall, which is a multipurpose facility that used to be part of the school the Abbey ran.  It being restored by a Couples for Christ chapter.  In about 1912 or so, some monks fled from persecution in Brazil to Trinidad for peace.  They associated with the Holy Family fleeing from Bethlehem to Egypt, so they named it The Abbey of Our Lady of Exile Mount St. Benedict.  Anyway, a volunteer told us about their work and the facility, and then we had some potato bread (almost like an empanada) with tamarind sauce, and black fruit cake, and some juice or water.  The potato thing was pretty good.  The fruitcake was AWESOME!!!  We went down the hill to the Abbey, and were free to explore it at our leisure.  There was a nice church, a gift shop, and more.

The church at the Abbey.

A giant tank of holy water??

Here comes the rain again...

From the top of the hill, we had some nice overlooks of the island and sea below, including a nice rainstorm heading our way.  We boarded the bus and headed back down the hill.  We finally came to the port, where we were dropped off just outside in a spot where…there was more shopping for crafty stuff we didn’t particularly want.  But, Bill found a flag and we got back on board. 

The Italian restaurant was a bit sparse!

It was a little late for lunch so Theresa changed our reservation for dinner from 6 to 5:15. We were to be in the Italian restaurant, which seemed to have a lot of food, so skipping lunch would help!  Bill had spaghetti two ways (first plate with a meat ball, and second plate with shrimp), and Theresa had risotto and then a steak.  The steak was very good but huge! 

Theresa's dessert came on a UFO plate.

If you aren't sure what to do, they have a schedule on a monitor!

After dinner, we went to a trivia challenge (music through the decades), and then a comedian.  Afterwards, it was on to the show.  The show for the evening was a “sand artist”.  (Yeah, we didn’t know what that would be either.)  Do you remember the overhead projectors from school?  It was a little more than that.  This woman had a screen that was lit from below, and a camera directly above.  She spread sand over the screen and moved it around with her hands and made scenes.  She constantly worked the scene, so it was not a simple picture, but an evolving scene which she used to tell a story (but without speaking).  It was very impressive what she was able to do with simple sand and no sand.

An example of the sand art.

After the show, we went to a stargazer event.  There is a star that flares up about every 80 years, and is only visible for a couple of days, which was supposed to show up maybe that night.  We thought that was the feature.  We gathered on the top deck, and after everyone was set up with headphones, the host started talking about stars, while the clouds rolled over obscuring our view.  But she was using a smart phone with one of the star apps to figure out what she was doing, and she kept talking as though the cloud was not there.  Then she used a laser pointer to indicate where she was looking in the sky.  We couldn’t imagine what she thought we saw as the laser pointer would either go out to space and never be seen by us, or reflect off of clouds in the way and all we’d see is a red spot in the sky.  Either way, she wasn’t even suggesting we’d be talking about the novel star, so, we dropped our headphones and headed off, figuring we could stare at clouds from our balcony. 

Yeah, I don't see any stars!

But first, we grabbed a couple slices of pizza and drinks and headed to our room.  We got all set up and sat down.  The pizza was good!!  But the wind was mostly at our stern, so the air was a bit still, rather warm, and a little humid.  So, sitting on the balcony wasn’t very comfortable.  We wrapped up the night with a little TV in our room and went to bed.  So, in summary, Trinidad was in a State of Emergency, but we’re fine.  😉

Bye bye Trinidad!