Steve and Cathy's Blog

There was a romantic comedy movie that came out in 1969 named “If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium” which is centered around an 18-day, 9-country bus tour.  For us, it’s beginning to feel a little like that, as we are now on our 5th island in 5 days.  I find myself having to look up the date in our excursion guide, and I already entitled the post about St.Lucia with the wrong date, since corrected.

We arrive at 8:00am at the port in Scarborough, the capital of the island.

Of course we head for Waves Grill for breakfast.  As she does everywhere, Cathy makes friends, this time while looking over the buffet offerings, with a wonderful, lively person named Karen from Niantic CT.  On our way out, we meet her husband Bill.  They are taking the Barbados-Capetown segment with two friends from West Hartford, who are continuing on for the rest of the around the world trip.

Today’s excursion is entitled Trek to Argyle Waterfalls, and how we found ourselves on this particular tour bears some explanation.  When we were picking out our tours several months ago from the 245-page listing of excursions, each was described as either Minimal Activity Required (bus icon), Easy Activity (one-person-walking icon), Moderate Activity (two-person-walking icon) or Strenuous Activity (three-person-walking icon).  Now we consider ourselves in pretty good health, so we aren’t really concerned about these icons….errr, let’s say, we weren’t concerned … until today.  Steve had talked Cathy into going for a three-person-icon excursion, which this was.  Doesn’t a trek to a wonderful 175-foot high series of waterfalls sound nice?

So we board our bus and are off on a one hour ride to the falls with our guide Philip.  Now Philip is older than the other guides we have been with, and he is also the first one of Indian descent.  He is very charming and fun, and we are again are inundated with information about Tobago, especially its history.

It’s once again Random Fact time in our post. Tobago is an island of 60,000 people, and is tied together with Trinidad, which is 21 miles away and has a population of 1.3  million.  Thus the country is referred to as the Republic of Trinidad & Tobago, and the capital is Port of Spain on the island of Trinidad.  It is unlike the rest of the Caribbean islands in several respects.  Geologically, it is part of the South American tectonic plate, and during the last ice age, there was actually a land bridge connecting the island to the continent of South America.  Thus its biology is much more like Venezuela than the Caribbean.  The ethnicity of its inhabitants differs as well.  While 38% of the republic is Afro-Caribbean, 36% is Indo-Caribbean, as large numbers of people from India were brought to the island to in the 19th century after slavery was abolished.  [By the way, these stats come from one of the Enrichment Lectures, and other sources I have used do not necessarily agree with that ethnic breakdown.  But suffice it to say, it is different than other islands.]

It is also south of the hurricane trajectory, which for centuries has made it an important colony to the Europeans.  In fact the island “changed hands” 33 times from the mid 1600s to the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1814 when it was ceded to the British.  Over the centuries, it has been ruled by the Dutch, Spanish, French, English, Swedish and even people from the Duchy of Courland (which is located in present-day Latvia)!

As we drive along the windward (Atlantic Ocean) side of the island, where the hills are actually less steep than on the leeward (Caribbean Sea), we pass by Dwight Yorke Stadium, named after the Tobogan who had a fabulous professional football (soccer to us) career and is the pride of the island.  Philip also gently reminds us Americans that it was the Trinidad and Tobago team that last fall eliminated the United States from upcoming World Cup competition.

Oh, and Philip also proudly adds that Trinidad & Tobago have had two winners of the Miss Universe contest and one Miss World.  I didn’t get the names, but that’s a pretty amazing track record.

He also tells us about the very first large environmental land set-aside in the world that took place in 1765 when 3,000+ hectares of forest became protected by the first environmental legislation in the Western Hemisphere.

Philip also tells us that Trinidad & Tobago grow the best cocoa beans in the world.  In fact, he says, there is a “Seed Bank”on Tobago that, should a natural or other disaster take place that threatened the entire world’s cocoa crop, this seed bank would be used to reseed the land.

As elsewhere, Tobago was a single-crop economy, with sugar as that crop, of course.  But sugar is extremely labor-intensive, which is why slaves were brought to the island.  The importation of slaves ended in 1834, but it took years before the existing slave population died off, at which time Chinese, and then Syrians were brought in.  Neither of these ethnicities worked out, and the Brits then brought in people from India.  While they did work out as labor, the world price of sugar collapsed in part due to the development of beet sugar and the plantation system withered.

On Tobago, the agricultural sector diversified into lime, coconut and cocoa.  Still a very poor island, however, Tobago in 1889 became a ward of the island of Trinidad.  On the latter, larger island, however, a new industry came to life in the bringing of the 20th century: Oil.  Trinidad to this day has a large oil and natural gas industry.

While hurricanes are a rarity this far south, Hurricane Flora managed to hit the island in 1963, destroying 75% of the coconut and cocoa crops.  There has been an effort to rebuild the stock, but after that, the island wisely has turned to tourism.  Hence the port in Scarborough, which wasn’t built until 1991.

Well, now we arrive at the entrance to Argyle Waterfalls park.  There are two busloads of us, and local guides will take us through part of the oldest forest reserve in the Western Hemisphere for about a mile, with the “Trek” taking approximately forty-five minutes.

Here is how our excursion brochure describes the event: “You may see hummingbirds, butterflies, red squirrels and more, happily flitting and scurrying about.   Before long, you’ll reach Argyle Waterfalls…It’s a magnificent sight, and you’re welcome to take a refreshing dip in the serene pools at the bottom. …  It’s immensely relaxing to effortlessly float on your back and gaze up at the tropical landscape, the waterfalls cascading behind you.”

And here is how Cathy might describe the experience: “Starting out, we walk through the woods on a wide pathway.  Soon enough, the pathway begins to narrow, becomes wet and then muddy and slippery.  The grade up and down becomes steeper, so much so that there are stairs and railings in a couple of spots.  Then we come upon a huge rock with the words “BORSCHT RUTSCHIG and PRECAUTION RESBALADIZO and CAUTION SLIPPERY” painted on it, and things go downhill fast.  For the next quarter mile, it’s hold on to someone, breathe deeply, pray that I won’t fall in the water, take one small step at a time and listen to the guides as they help me each effing step of the way.  I will never forgive my husband for this.  Never! And when we arrive at the falls, there is no %$#@ way I am going to walk over more slippery damn rocks to go swimming!  And then we have to go back?!  I hate this!!”

The falls really were beautiful, the walk through the woods very invigorating, and we did meet a nice couple named Lyn and Warren from Norfolk VA.  But something tells me this is the last “Strenuous Activity” excursion the both of us will take together.

We survive the journey, hang around the entrance for a few minutes and hop back on the bus for the ride back to the ship.  Enroute, we stop for a couple of photo ops because the beaches are so beautiful.

Because we have some extra time, the guide and the bus driver decide to treat us to a quick visit to Fort King George, an old British fort that overlooks Scarborough and the windward shore.  The views are breathtaking and we take photos of the scenery and each other.

Then it’s back on the bus and a quick arrival back at the dock.  Because it’s Sunday, the stores are closed, so Cathy and Steve buy postcards and stamps at the little mall at the dock.   The Steve and Cathy routine then kicks in: lunch and quiet time.  As the stores are closed and the ship is due to depart at 5pm, we stay on the ship and catch up on stuff.

We also go to the Canyon Ranch Spa Terrace.  It is a fringe benefit of being on Deck 7.  You have complete access to an outdoor area in the bow of the ship where there is a Thalasso Therapy Spa, which is essentially an oversized hot tub.  And the benefit of a steam room and a couple of other Spa amenities.  It’s a nice way to spend an hour.

The ship backs out of the harbor on time, and Cathy watches the pilot transfer procedure with great interest.  The evening is a fun one, as we have dinner with our new friends Karen and Bill and their delightful traveling companions and friends Mary Lou and John.  After that, our day of adventure comes to a close as Insignia heads east/southeast towards French Guiana, our next stop.