Blanchisseuse Beach

I figure I’ll cover my trip to the beach this time around.
From Port of Spain, we, being my hosts and myself, drove for about two hours through the mountains in order to reach part of Blanchisseuse beach on the northern side of Trinidad. The roads were quite a ways up the mountain, which provided a lovely view the ocean, provided that you could actually get a glance at it through the dense forest that cover the entire mountain. Along the way, we stopped at a fairly touristy beach for lunch, where we had shark, as I mentioned in my previous post.
Also, do note, the washrooms are a dollar per use.

It was actually a rather rainy day unfortunately. I say unfortunately because the most that I really wanted from a trip to the beach is to sit in peace and breathe some sea air. With the rain, the only way to stay rather warm was to stay in the water itself which, as those familiar with the northern side of Trinidad may know, has rather powerful waves.

So, not the best of beach experiences. If you’re wondering about the beach itself, it’s mostly fine. Occasionally the sand was slightly grainy and hurt a little to walk on, but it was rare. I can’t say that they beach was completely clear of garbage either, but, again, not very common. Otherwise, there were some fascinating rock formations for those geologists interested. As I said before, the air was crisp and clean, though one has to try very hard to do enough environmental damage to ruin the air at a beach.

Sadly, there was one other disappointment there, for those of you who drink beer. A quick primer before that though. After seeing enough beaches in fiction and Anthony Bourdain’s specials, I have a rather romantic notion of lazing about at a beach, drink in hand, watching the sun set. My hosts were kind enough to bring a cooler with us, but unfortunately, brought a rather poor set of drinks.
Regular spring water, chubby soda, Smirnoff vodka and a local beer, Stag lager.
The idea with the soda and vodka being, well, vodka and soda. Sadly, chubby is made with, somehow, even more artificial sweeteners than most sodas seem to be and ends up being overcome with its rather distinctive disgusting aftertaste. Stag lager on the other hand, is really just piss.
My apologies. I’ve been trying to be less vulgar recently, but I offer no other excuse other than Stag lager is the worst alcoholic drink I’ve ever had by a wide margin.

Here’s hoping that my next trip to the beach is a more relaxed, quiet, and involves vastly superior drinks. A sunset wouldn’t go amiss either.

I was planning on covering a trip to an art exhibit as a double feature to apologize for the delay in this post, but my time at the exhibit spanned less than a half hour and the name of the artist has already escaped me. My apologies will have to suffice this time around.
My plan this weekend is to spend some time at the botanical gardens in Port of Spain, which is coincidentally located adjacent to the zoo. I’ll certainly be going to one, so perhaps I will be able to visit the other along with it.
Until next time.

Food starters

Well, I've been here for a few weeks, and before I get to covering some of my actual tourism activities, I figured I'd cover a few of the different local foods I've had while I'm here.

For starters, the local street-food, doubles. Two pieces of dough, wrapped around a chickpea curry, and local spices. You can get some unique stuff in them depending on where you go. Frankly, a bit difficult to eat, since it's closer to a meat-pie than a wrap, and less sturdy. So far, my experience has also been that it's a bit too greasy for my own taste.

Then, there is Roti, which is essentially doubles on steroids. Larger, with much more break-like dough and far more ingredients. It can come both in pie form and as more of curry, with the dough used as a dipper. I've much preferred roti so far, with much more variety in flavour and frankly, it tends to be a little less heavy on the grease.

Bake and Shark. Well, there's plenty of different fish and meats available, but shark is the most marketed and notable. It's actually just deep fried shark on a bun. Pick your toppings and chow down.

Tamarind balls. Sugar, Tamarind, salt, pepper and garlic in a ball. Not much like anything I've ever had before. But, frankly I can't say I care for them.

Pepper cherries. Sour cherries soaked in pepper, salt and sugar. Not a fan.

Well, that's a quick run down of some of the local delicacies. I'll be back with more as they come by me. In the mean time, I'll start to jot down some of the wandering around I've done during my time here.

J.