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.

Time to head home.

Three weeks have flown by. I have had a good recharge of the batteries and put inches on the waistline despite hashing twice a week and also doing separate longer walks, the food here is so good and away from the tourist areas also so cheap for example a restaurant in Livardia sold me double pork chop, chips and salad for £6.00..
The current  bunch of hashers over here are really friendly and inclusive and I was also introduced to a veritable United Nations of ex-pats who meet in Dora’s bar and they welcomed me into their circle so it has been a really good stay. The down side was keeping myself amused during the day but sitting in the sun reading more than a dozen books passed a lot of time easily and I have a case full of Cyprus goodies as well.
Now it is time to put on sensible clothes in preparation for my return to the frozen north, ‘til next time.

Ruminations.

Yesterday after buying enough leather belts to last the rest of my natural life I asked the shopkeeper to recommend a restaurant for lunch and following his directions I found myself the only foreigner in a Cypriot establishment, needless to say the food was tasty and plentiful and half the price of the tourist traps up the road.

Today I went to the British cemetery in Larnaca to tidy up my brother in law’s grave, whilst there I visited some of the other inhabitants who I had known during my time in Cyprus and I realised that the majority of them were younger than I am now when they died, now do I take this as a sign that I am on borrowed time and make the most of what I have left or - no, there is no or, I  am going to carry on enjoying life.

Another of today’s contemplations was Cyprus. I have been coming here for over thirty years and the place has changed in some ways beyond recognition, really it is just the same place with better roads and some shinier buildings but compared to the Costas and the Algarve etc it is scruffy, it’s continuing saving grace are it’s people and the food.

Back to the sun.

After a nause with hotels.com over a B&B booking I made for Llandudno on Friday night before I flew out here to Cyprus everything else went smoothly, I am now sitting in the back garden of the apartment I rented in Alethriko in 24C of sunshine before I head up the road for this afternoons’ Hash at Ayia Nappa. The apartment occupies the whole of the ground floor of my hosts Nikos and Vassillia’s home, it is far too big for me, it has a comfy bed and all mod cons but I do have to shower and shave before my hosts family drain the solar heated hot water tank in the evening.

I met up with Paul and Teresa yesterday along with Pauline and Jim and John and Gill as well as some new friends Roger and Mia at Dora’s, a very old fashioned Cyprus bar in the back streets of Larnaca. I was advised that the food was not of the same standard as the beer and the company so I settled for a couple of Cyprus sandwiches last night when I got back to the apartment.

My plan this trip is to relax and recuperate so there will not be too many reports on this blog unless I do have something special I feel I need to communicate.