Tobago, land where nobody´s home

We´re in Venezuela now, but here´s one last round of stories from Trinidad and Tobago.

When I last wrote, we were waiting for a bus to the capital of Tobago on Republic Day. After three or four hours, we gave up and took a taxi for about US$35. It was a pretty damned unoffical-looking taxi, with beers on offer and party fliers pinned to the ceiling of the car. But it got us to Scarborough in record time--less than an hour. The bus takes almost two hours. We were happy.

After that, the rest of our plans kind of went to shit. Our plan was to catch the 10am ferry the next day for Trinidad--we had to be there on Tuesday to buy our ferry tickets to Venezuela. So we thought that we´d check into a posada, then buy the ferry ticket to Trinidad. It was only 3pm...no problem, right?

Ha.

We went to posada #1. The owner wasn´t around, but a guest called her, and told us that no rooms were available. Off to posada #2. The owner wasn´t around, but a guest said that she´d be back within an hour. We decided to wait in the living/dining area. After half an hour, I wandered off in search of food and ferry tickets.

First, there was a small mob at the ferry station. I arrived just in time to hear a message delivered by the Port Police--there was a waiting list for all ferries remaining on Monday. For anything pertaining to Tuesday´s ferry, I would have to come back at 4am. Whee.

Nothing I could do about that one besides plan on waking up really early the next morning. So I went looking for food. There are easily 25 restaurants and two minimarts in downtown Scarborough, but only two of those businesses were open: KFC and Church´s Chicken. I am not making this up. Luckily, Church´s serves tolerable hoagies and pizza in T&T. Yay for American fast food while traveling overseas.

After a full two hours at posada #2, we gave up. I stopped at #3. All of the doors were wide open, but nobody was home. After a long walk, we found posada #4. No answer. We started asking random people for directions to any damn room anywhere in the damn town, and got some vague stuff about a cottage on a hill with two large trees--you can´t miss it. By then it was kind of dark. We met a wonderful woman who worked in posada #5...but the owner wasn´t home, so we couldn´t stay there.

To make a long story short, I left Amber with the woman from posada #5, and hiked up a nasty hill in search of posada #6. And found it, but only after passing a minimart with its doors wide open...but not a soul in sight.

That was definitely an odd experience. Five of Scarborough´s six guesthouses were left completely unattended. If you ever want to start a crime wave in Scarborough, I can assure you that it would be really, really easy.

Let me put it differently for the sake of any parents who are prone to worrying: if that many people leave there businesses unattended, it must be an incredibly safe place.

This has already been a long posting, so I´ll gloss over the rest fairly quickly. Up at 3:30 am, down to the ferry station...no space on the 10am ferry, so I ended up waking up way before dawn just to buy a ticket for the 1:30 pm boat. Poopy.

The boat to Trinidad was amazing. I expected a grungy old boat with tin benches, certainly nothing better than the Staten Island ferry. But we ended up on a super-fast catamaran with really comfortable reclining seats, great views, and a bar. Good stuff.

Trouble was, we had to make it to a completely different pier in a different city in Trinidad by 5:00 on Tuesday--supposedly, we couldn´t even buy a ticket on Wednesday morning to catch the weekly ferry to Venezuela. After taking a taxi from one pier to another, we arrived at 5:20. No tickets, no information, nothing. All we could do was try to find someplace to stay for the night, and come back before 7am the next morning.

I´ll try to make this short...we walked about five miles through a seemingly neverending series of boatyards, and finally found a hotel called The Cove Beach Resort, at the very end of the highway. It was an epic shithole. But it was an air conditioned shithole, although the air conditioner was stuck on one setting--we couldn´t turn it off or down or up. There was no hot water, the toilet only flushed after ten pumps of the handle, there was no key, the furniture had piles of termite-induced sawdust around it--but no visible termites, thankfully, although there were plenty of bug corpses and spiderwebs around. Even a vacated wasps´ nest in the bathroom. Which was carpeted, by the way...scary, considering that the carpet looked like it was 25 years old. Mmmmm.

This luxury in Chaguaramas, Trinidad can be yours for just $50 a night.

And guess what two restaurants were open in Chaguaramas that night? Yup, KFC and another pizza joint.

I´ll continue tomorrow, and tell you all about how our new Swedish friends were abducted by the Venezuelan police...