It’s all uphill.

Soufriere is located in the caldera of a hopefully extinct volcano consequently any walks are going to be uphill so today’s adventure took me up a long mile and a half hill to Morne Coubaril estate where Noelle took me for an informative tour of the estate what really interested me was the simple way sugar cane was milled and how complicated is the process of getting cocoa from the pod to the finished product and then there was the whole coconut/copra story. It was an excellent tour,  I tasted herbs, freshly squeezed sugar from the cane, raw cocoa beans and the finished roasted bean as well as coconut water, heart of coconut and the flesh itself, there was no need for lunch after all that.
After the tour I explored the rest of the estate which offers highly priced tours on horseback or by zip line to bus loads of tourists from the cruise ships and the resorts in the north of the island. The zip lines are well laid out and run through the rain forest, the horses are really healthy looking and very amiable when I went and said hello even though I had no carrots.

Because of all the ripoffs of the cruise passengers and tourists from their highly priced resorts the costs of transport, accommodation and dining in the town is really OTT, I was enquiring about taxi fares to the start of a walk I would like to do, the first offer I had was £90.00 for a 6 km return journey so far the cheapest I can get it is £29.00, basic main meals off plastic tablecloths in a restaurant on the harbour are over £40. I had one of the best pizzas I have ever eaten tonight at a local joint for under £7 and the beer was half the price it is in town plus I got to meet Rusty who besides running his own small farm hand carves various rocks, shells etc to make jewellery, between us we put the world to rights over a few beers.

I haven’t made plans for tomorrow yet but I have to get back here by 4pm for the start of the 6 Nations rugby.

Observations.

I have mentioned before how the current crazy British political correctness can stifle your feelings and experience but on two occasions in Tobago I had to smile. I was talking to Cat, the guy who picked me up from the airport and made himself into my minder and mentor, I mentioned that two girls had visited me at my first apartment to ask what it was like as the were  thinking of renting it, he asked me straight away if they were dark, no mention of the word black also when I was getting my haircut Kamala  Harris one of the senators for California was on the TV making a speech and all hair cutting stopped whilst they discussed wether she was mixed race or not, no mention of that spurious phrase Woman of colour.

Today’s exploration of the local area allowed all the touts in the area to offer me the services of their water taxis, normal taxis and tour opportunities, even the girl in tourist information joined in and took me to her preferred provider who only wanted £27.00 for a 6 km return taxi ride. I stopped off at a cafe recommended by Cisco, the coffee was probably the best I have ever tasted and to top it off it was served by the prettiest girl I have seen on this trip, I may have to go back for another cup.

I did visit the Diamond Botanical gardens and waterfall which were pleasant but when you live down the road from Bodnant nothing else measures up but the cats whiskers plant was cute, I now know that mace and nutmeg come from the same fruit and when I do develop dementia my way out will be ricin which is obtainable from the castor oil plant and is twice as deadly as the worst snake venom. On that Happy note it is time for an aperitif.

Thoughts so far and moving island.

I have enjoyed Tobago but it is the people, my choice of location and the bird life that have made it for me. Castara where I was staying is only a small place where everyone knows everyone else so it is very friendly and laid back, in the capital Scarborough and the tourist areas the locals are getting on with their busy lives.

Today I had fortunately booked my transfer to the airport quite early and despite my driver stopping to make sure his kids were OK and also picking up his sister to take her to work we were at the airport in plenty of time, the flight I was booked on had been cancelled so they had moved me to an earlier flight. I am sure if had arrived late they would have shrugged their shoulders and still got me there in time, I cannot praise the airport staff and Caribbean Airways employees highly enough, they were friendly and laid back but oh so efficient. I arrived in Castries airport ahead of time so after whizzing through passport control, customs and baggage collections I was still in my transfer car at the time we were supposed to land, brilliant service.

My lodgings for the next week is in Diamondview in Soufriere, St Lucia. Cisco my host gave me an exhaustive run down on my bayt and the local area, the apartment is immaculately clean but very shabby chic, however, there are floral displays everywhere made from flowers and foliage from his garden, he mentioned that he travels around the world with his business, it has got to be something arty, I will find out.

I went downtown to explore and buy the essentials and the first person who spoke to me was a scantily clad young lady in a red minidress who invited me over to drink and dance with her much to the amusement of her raucous friends, I took a raincheque on her invitation.

This week looks like it could be busy and interesting, I will keep you posted if I have time to write.

Slow time.

Not a lot has happened in the last 7 days, I had a little bit of enforced rest because my right heel objected to thursday’s walk in trainers to English Man’s Bay, they will now be relegated to light duties only. I must admit it is very pleasant here swanning around in just a pair of shorts I will have to turn the central heating up when I get home and continue the motion.

Apparently there are over 200 species of birds on Tobago and I have enjoyed seeing them on my explorations but yesterday I went on a rain forest tour where in addition to explanations of all the flora we were seeing Roachee our guide really has his eye in and pointed out all sorts of exoctic birds including a couple of rare examples which birders come back time and time again to see, all in all it was a pleasant afternoon with a knowledgeable guide contact him on roacheesrourstaxiservices.yahoo.com.

Chilled

Golden Apple Villa is up a steep road out of Castara so I am getting enough exercise with trips down to the village at least three times a day. Today I went down to book tours for next week, to order tomorrow’s bread and pick up coffe for tonight’s carrot cake. The carrot cake is excellent but the Nescafé takes me way back to Oman in the late 1980s, it was the only coffee brand I recognised and I have been bitten once too often with local brand imitations like yesterday when I walked to English Mans Bay I had a couple of locally bottled/canned US drinks and they were so sugar laden that they reminded me of the gunk you drink for the diabetes test, it is a wonder the locals have any teeth left.

Besides my calls in the village I also visited the waterfall on the Castara river, it was lovely, just a hundred meters off the road and I was in the forest and surrounded by local birds which had no fear of me. I went to the bonfire on the beach last night, the food was good even if I couldn’t identify everything that I was eating but the highlight was watching them light the bonfire with a refreshing disregard for health and safety, this is another country that puts responsibility for such things in the hands of the individual, if only we could go back to the days before the nanny state, rampant political correctness and ridiculous H&S, I hope coming out of the EU will be the start of the revolution. Oops that rant slipped out, I was going to say that I didn’t stop long at the bonfire because the music was turned up too loud for my old ears so it was back to chillin’ on my patio which I will be doing again very soon after I have collected my takeaway from Ria who is acknowledged to be the best chef in the village.

With Virgin to Tobago

Tuesday’s travel plans went seamlessly. A three minute walk from my hotel to the bag drop followed by less than 10 minutes to get through security and a well planned rush free loading by the Virgin ground staff deposited me in an aisle seat with no one besides me. I was surprised that there were no new passengers boarding the plane when the majority disembarked at St. Lucia so less than 50 of us made the eighteen minute hop to Tobago. Cat my transfer driver was waiting for me in arrivals  and he deposited me at Golden Apple Villa my accommodation for the next week in less than an hour but we did make three stops on the way for beer. I was unpacking when things went wrong , the power went off as soon as I switched the air conditioning on, it wasn’t until later that I learned that one of the local buses had taken down not only the power lines but also the internet and TV cables as well. The power company guys were out within the hour and the electricity supply was soon reconnected but TV and internet are still down but Bruce, my host, brought around a dongle this morning to satiate my digital desires.
I am staying in Castara on the Caribbean coast of Tobago, it is a fishing village that has some rustic tourist accommodations. The people here are lovely and love to chat but I have not yet managed the local greeting of ‘yeah man’. I have met Hazel the baker and ordered bread for Friday, and also ordered a carrot cake from a lady who bakes to order, the barber is proving elusive, he only opens when he has nothing else to do. It is cheaper here to dine out than to buy the ingredients and cook yourself so besides breakfast and the occasional lunch on my patio I will be dining out especially as there seems to be something happening at one restaurant or another most days of the week.
Today I plan to book some trips out and walk up to Englishman’s Bay, the next beach north, for lunch.
The only drawback so far are the Tobago alarmclocks, there are an over abundance of cockerels in the village whose internal clocks are out of whack so they seem to crow constantly, fortunately my brain has tuned them out so I can sleep soundly until the sun comes pouring in my window at 6:30.

A faltering start.

Everything was going too smoothly, the packing and house prep was all finished with time in hand, Peter and Helen got me to the station in bags of time and the sun was shining then in Chester after waiting a while for my connection to Euston there was an announcement to say that the service had been cancelled and that we should catch a later train to Crewe and then catch the next connection to Euston, 10 minutes later this train had been cancelled due to technical problems in Crewe with no further information forthcoming. I had a word with one of the station staff who told me that my best bet was to circumvent Crewe and catch the train to Warrington where I could change for the express to Euston and from then on everything went swimmingly (why couldn’t the announcer have told us all that) I actually got to Gatwick airport only 15 minutes later than my original time.
I am staying tonight at the Hampton by Hilton which is located in the North terminal only a few minutes walk from check in tomorrow morning, the room is excellent and the bar serves Becks Vier but the dinner menu is very limited in fact half of the dishes are not available and the prices are a little inflated, however, the friendly Irish waiter has recommended a restaurant in the terminal so I shall give that a go.