We have our rigging issue underway, and it looks like we will be able to get that completed on Monday. We’re keen to move on to the Venezuelan islands of Los Testigos pretty soon. Chaguaramas isn’t a bad spot – certainly good for working on the boat – but it doesn’t have the beauty of many of the places we have visited so far. One factor is the water clarity. We’ve become accustomed to seeing 20m, even 30m underwater, but here it’s not clear at all. I don’t think it’s especially dirty; rather it’s the effect of the Orinico River pumping out millions of litres of muddy water south of us. There’s also a huge number of boats here. Pump-out facilities are almost non-existent in the Caribbean, so we’re not very excited about swimming. Not so good given it’s also hot and humid. Still, we’ve had dolphins swimming around the boat in the harbour where we’re anchored, and I almost hit a pretty big turtle while zooming with Greg in the dinghy.
So we knew we were here for the weekend. I took the maxi-taxi on the 20 minute ride into Port of Spain (90 cents), really more for a look around than anything else. We have so many people warning us that it’s unsafe that it leaves you a little paranoid, but what I found was pretty relaxed. Tight, windy, back streets and little pokey malls that crossed between selling cheap clothes, expensive high-powered stereo gear, and little carts and trucks blocking the streets selling vegetables, fruit, eggs. And guys pulling around giant speaker systems on tiny wheels pumping out SOCA (soul-calypso) beats at full volume. They’re selling counterfeit mixes of the big-hits from Carnival for about $3. We bought some and they’re great, although given every place in the country is blasting the same we’re getting close to saturation!
Later I met some local guys and we had a couple of Stags, the local brew. They worked in the petroleum industry and told fascinating stories about working on the rigs. It seems safety standards and the like are pretty high now, but it was pretty wild not long ago. One told a story about a gas seam blasting up through the rig, and bigger guys ripping lifejackets from the smaller; of course they didn’t have enough to go around. Greg called from the boat – we have local SIM cards in our cell phones – and we decided to see what was going on after dark. I think with usual care Port of Spain is okay; you need to be in the right area, and you need to push out of your mind that 40 people have been murdered this year already. Not bad for 1.3m people. Only get into a cab with an H plate or with a yellow stripe, and, or course, keep out of the shanties. I’d love to show you some photos but I just don’t feel comfortable breaking out my camera on these streets.
Finally, after what turned into around one-million drinks, our new mates left, and I think the bill was charged to BP. We had a club called Zen recommended to us. It was just around the corner. Fortunately Greg had bought in a pair of jeans for me and some sneakers; my shorts and flip-flops were never going to work (funny how in places like Trinidad the dress-code is so full on, whereas in New York you can kind of get away with almost anything). Now Zen was something else! A magnificent space backlit by candles and soft lighting, and all designed to look like the inside of a Buddhist monastery; soft reds, Chinese characters and ginormous Buddha statues. Well, a Buddhist monastery that pumps out full powered SOCA beats and hip-hop, that is. ‘Acoustic perfection’ as Greg put it, referring to the enormous but very good sound system, and as those of you who like clubs would know, a quite unusual benefit. It just seems so out of place in Port of Spain – I mean, it was a really good club. Drinks were horrible expensive by local standards, but still very cheap to us acclimated to NYC. And what fun! It soon filled up with locals – albeit the wealthier set and many back from overseas for Carnival - all ‘wining’ (that funny dance, previously described, in which girls shake their bum’s around in an exotic counter-rotation, and the guy gets effectively frotted with a somewhat astonished look on his face) and ‘liming’ (hanging out).
When the Soca big-beats came on everybody went crazy (here I’m thinking specifically of ‘Bring It – Ah Want me Rum Mix’ and ‘Thunder Waist – Leggo da Riddim Mix’ – let me know if you want a copy). If you don’t know SOCA it’s a super high energy Caribbean beat, a removed version of Calypso, and it’s designed to support all day drunken high-energy dancing Carnival marches through the streets. And that’s the lyric’s main theme: wining, liming, the road, going all day, and big, chunky Thunder Waists (of which, I suspect due to a large number of KFC’s, there are many).
Finally, somewhere in the early hours Greg and I were done, despite Greg talking us into the VIP. He’s just got an amazing gift for these things. Well, we got kicked out in the end, but we were big pimping rockstars for a while there.
Normally, you would just go home, but it’s a bit tricky in Port of Spain at 4am. It’s not really safe to walk around, taxis are highly infrequent, and local cabs are finished. It is also very hot and humid in jeans once you’re out of the super cold airconditioning. Ultimately we walked around Queens Park cricket pitch to the Hilton hotel – the fanciest in PoS and looking down on the city from the NE hills - on the basis that we would insinuate ourselves in and have a swim, and asses the transport situation there. And that we did after snaking over a security fence around the back, running up the bank behind the tennis courts and timing our run perfectly into the closed pool area, trying to keep our giggling and laughing quiet. After a swim we found they had those super recliner chair things, with a deep soft cushion, so we decided that would work fine. I presume we’ll get Hilton Honors miles for our stay. It got a bit chilly so I snuggled up under a towel; Greg was woken by a security guard sometime during the dawn with the advice that he should keep his computer-phone thing in his pocket (so they’re really good people when it comes down to it). We woke up well rested after a deep sleep to find people swimming laps, and perhaps a bit overdressed for the morning pool scene at the Hilton. At least Paris wasn’t there. Thank Heavens I had my sunglasses. But it all gets better! We went to the top floor and had one of those foreign hotel breakfast buffets where the variety of things stretches from horizon to horizon, eggs, fruit, ‘omelet station’, smoked salmon, fresh squeezed juice, croissants…absolute gold, and with a lovely view down on the city. You would never guess at Port of Spain’s more edgy elements when gazing down from the rarified air and leafy grounds of the Hilton.
I called Kady and wished her a Happy Birthday. She is skiing in Chamonix and was exhilarated having just skied a deep powder bowl. It’s just so hard to conceptualise that while looking at the hot, smoking and decrepit shanty villages, cooking smells almost visible in the heat haze, and the sea sparkling right across Golfo de Paria to the hills of Venezuela, the heat and moisture already causing big cumulous clouds to boil high into the sky as a steamy new day begins. What an amazing world we live in.
9 Feb 2008
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