What I did on my Winter Vacation

(Note: Clicking on any image in this travelogue will bring up a full screen version of the image.)

Tuesday, March 19

It seems as if yesterday's rain inconvenienced more than us. Banana left a hatch on his boat open, and his cabin and engine compartment got flooded. Sailing is off, at least for the early part of the day while he dries things out and effects repairs. Off to Pirate's Bay (They have the greatest names for places around here!) for swimming for me and snorkeling for Jenny. I've not had much luck snorkeling; My beard makes the mask not seal well, and it fills with water with every inhalation. I've managed to paddle about holding my nose with one hand through the mask to isolate the suction from the mask, but it's more trouble than it's worth.

About 1/2 mile walk up a steep dirt road and down a looooong set of cement steps set into the hillside to a lovely cove that would have been secluded, were it not for all the people. Must have been at least a dozen or more. These crowds are going to be the ruin of this place! I got a little tired before Jenny, so I trekked back into town. Stopped for a fish & chips in a local restaurant. About 8 schoolgirls around 12 or 13 years old, entirely too cute in marching band uniform were waiting for their food. They jabbered away (local variant of English is virtually incomprehensible to me unless they try), eying me surreptitiously, until one of them slyly asked if I was Santa Claus. I laughed and told her sorry, I had left all my toys at the North Pole, but did she want to be an elf?

Due to scheduling difficulties, we must shift to another cabin tomorrow. Darn! Just when I was beginning to learn how to flush the toilet. In the evening we thought to go up to the top of Flagstaff Hill again to see what it looks like at night. But yesterday's rain left the upper unpaved portion a slimy rutted mess, which we were into before I realized how bad it was. By that time, of course, there was no place to turn around. All I could do was put it into 4-wheel drive lo, and forge ahead. Finally found a spot wide enough to turn around and head back down. I was never really in trouble, but it wasn't comfortable. We went back to the Speyside overlook instead.

View of Speyside from the Overlook

I've been taking notes for this travelogue on my Palm Pilot. However, somewhere I lost my stylus. I'm writing this with the handle of a plastic spoon.

Wednesday, March 20

We made arrangements today to take a guided walk through the central rain forest preserve. Tobago, showing remarkable prescience, restricted all development over a major portion of its land area in the central mountainous region back in 1765. They recognized the value of the watershed to irrigate the lower agricultural regions, and banned all development and logging. It's now a national forest, open only to guided tours.

We met our guide in Speyside at 7:30 and followed his car to top of the central mountain. At 1400 feet, the weather was noticeable cooler and breezy. Our guide led us and one other couple along a short walk on a muddy track stopping often to ogle at tiny colorful birds and hummingbirds that he would spot through the foliage. Like the boatman at Caroni, he was extremely knowledgeable, picking out birds by their habitat, calls, and sometimes recognizing individual birds. The 3-hour walk was exotic, tranquil, and beautiful.

Our guide took us to a spot where we would watch a most peculiar and exotic courtship ritual of the manekin, a nondescript sparrow-sized bird. Sure enough, right on schedule on the very branch predicted, a menage-a-trois of two males and a female proceeded. The two males aligned themselves one behind the other, facing the female. Then alternately, the male in front would give a cry, and leapfrog backwards over the one behind him. Then the second male followed suit. The two of them repeated this for a couple of minutes at an ever increasing pace until the female chose one with a loud scream, which sent the other male off into the bushes. The remaining couple then cavorted about for a while, and flew off. Next show in 15 minutes.

We had a few adventures on the way home. First, I pulled over towards the center of the road to avoid a couple of pedestrians when an oncoming car came around one of the innumerable blind curves. In the words of Paul Keens-Douglas, "If we'd ah had one mo coat ah paint, we'd ah bounced!" Not two minutes later, around the bend came an oncoming police motorcycle, blue lights flashing, gesturing me to pull over. "What did I do?" I wondered, "And how did he find out?" Then came another police bike. And a police car. And another. "Why all this fuss over a near miss?" Then followed a whole string of official vehicles including a limo, forming a most improbable motorcade along this windy crumbling mountain road.

A bit later, we stopped to give a schoolboy a ride home. (I believe the nearest public school to Charlotteville is 3 towns away in Roxborough over 2 formidable 2nd gear hills. And there is no public school transportation.) As he was climbing in we were approached by a man with a horribly swollen and distorted face who mimed some sort of plea. I could not understand him, chose not to help him, and drove off feeling a little guilty. The kid was a little more talkative than the taciturn pair we picked up the other day. He told us the personage in the motorcade was the Minister of Finance.

Time for one last swim before packing for home. Walked out to Sharon & Pheb's, the one sit-down restaurant in town. We found ourselves seated next to a table full of locals, 4 white and 1 black, somewhat in their cups, boisterously engaging in banter on the state of the world in general. I got sucked right into the conversation, and found that one of them was "Charlo" Turpin, a big rowdy Irishman, and the owner of Man O War Bay Cottages, where we were staying. Conversation led to the fact that I play music, and so does Charlo. Well bam! Next thing I know, I'm in the bed of Clark's clapped-out Mazda pickup, rattling up the mountain in the soft moonlight to Charlo's house to pick up his guitar, leaving Jenny and the rest of Charlo's pals to hold the fort at the restaurant. We picked up my axe on the way back. We spent an hour and a half after dinner out on the porch of Sharon's regaling each other and anyone else that cared to listen. Charlo played pretty basic guitar, hopelessly out of tune, and sang old country standards in a surprisingly good bass voice. A lovely end to our last day.

Thursday, March 21