Trinidad: Into ‘Bandit Country’
Today the situation at the maxi terminal was reversed: the platform was crawling with people, but there were no maxis. However we didn’t have to wait for long. One of the things I love about the maxis here are the little spare seats that prop up in the most unlikely places—disguised as arm-rests—when you think that they could really not fit in any more people.
Another thing I love about T&T are the epiphytes that grow on the powerlines (at least in the rainy season). The jungle is encroaching on the towns and cities. Even in Port of Spain, you can see brightly coloured tropical birds.
Once we’d arrived in Arima, I walked away from the maxi stand and headed north. There were no signs and nothing what looked like a main road to Blanchisseuse, but a man told me to “just walk up the hill”, and what a hill it was! (I have a picture, but I can currently not upload any files. There will be limited blogging and photos in the coming two weeks unless I decide to go back to Tobago).
Arima is bigger than Sangre Grande. It is one of those places that you think you never get out of, and it took me a good half-hour to do so. By then I had resigned myself to walking all the way, if necessary. I’d had enough of cities; I wanted rainforest.
A guy stopped to shake hands. “Where to?”
“Asa Wright.”
His expression turned serious. “Take care of yourself. Yong Shan has robbers.”
I have no idea whether he said ‘Yong Shan’ or ‘San Juan’ but the way he said it, it sounded vaguely Chinese. And why not? They have tribal names here, French names, Spanish ones, English—not to mention Scottish—why not also Chinese?
All I cared about was the mention of robbers. I stuffed the pillbox with my Xanax down my trouser pocket, put 20TT in my chest pocket and another five in my other trouser pocket, so that I would have enough for a maxi home. I only carried what I thought I would need for the day: about 90TT which was enough to cover the entry fee to the Asa Wright Nature reserve.
If I ever got there.
About a mile on there was still no sign of virgin jungle, or of a robber village. A red-banded maxi drew to a halt ahead of me.
“You’re going to Asa Wright?”
I nodded.
“I’m not going that far, but I can take you to the entrance of the forest.” The driver slid open the door. He was an Indian guy in his fifties. “You’ve got to be careful around here, you know.”
“I’ve heard. A man just told me about robbers.”
He appraised me. “If there’s some guys, meeting a single girl like you, it’s not robbers you got to worry about.”
Go on, say it.
“It’s—you know—rape.”
We drove for quite a while until we came to the place where he would turn.
“Thank you. How much do I owe you?”
“Oh, nothing!” He waved his hand.
“Wow, my first free maxi ride!”
“You take care now.” With that he shut the door and turned off the road, down a steep muddy track and across a metal bridge where there was a cluster of houses.
Maybe this was the robber village. If so, it didn’t look too threatening. The houses looked nice and there were only a few people about, and they were friendly. I continued to walk down the road, towards the jungle which the driver had implied started around here.
Ten minutes later I arrived at a mining quarry. Heavy lorries were rattling down a gravelly path, throwing up huge clouds of dust. Half the hillside had been ripped open by diggers extracting blue limestone. One of them balanced precariously on top of the near-vertical slope, crusted with green vegetation where the forest had been pushed back. The noise of the lorries followed me as I rounded a corner and came to the jungle, at last.
I had a brief fright when I passed a couple of guys swinging a machete, but they smiled and waved. Everybody was smiling and waving, including the passengers in the cars that passed me occasionally. I debated what I would do if one of them should stop. The danger would come from a car filled with criminals who would kidnap me. There was too much traffic for anybody to try anything on the open road, and the jungle was impenetrable, perched on a steep crumbling slope on one side of the road and down a sheer drop on the other side.
The immediate danger facing me was more mundane. I pressed against the muddy bank as another truck hooted past. One of the men in the back yelled something.
“Wrong side, baby! Wrong side! Other side of the road!”
He was right, I needed to be seen along these tight bends. I crossed over.
There were so many bends because the road ran uphill almost all the way. But the slope was gentle—to allow for the heavy lorries—and the going was easy. It felt positively cool in the shade. Only when I stopped to take notes or light a cigarette did I become flushed with sweat.
Around the next bend, the trees and undergrowth gave way to a series of green cascades. I had seen weeds in Asia that overgrow and suffocate all the underlying vegetation, a deadly green tide. But when I got closer I was startled to see that these ‘weeds’ were propped up with iron rods and a mesh of wiring. I had arrived at a giant Christophene plantation.
An old man in bare feet, rolled-up trousers and a torn shirt emerged from the only building by the roadside. He matched my step and walked with me for a while.
“You’re going to Asa Wright?”
“Yeah. Is it far?”
“About half a mile. You’ll be there in ten minutes.” The man was a fast walker, unusual from what I’d seen of people walking around the towns here.
“I used to be a guide there,” he mused. “It was a long time ago.”
We talked for a bit and then he stopped at a heliconia plant, one of the few that were in flower. He pointed it out and called it by its Latin name.
“Here is my destination.”
With that he disappeared into the greenery. There were no buildings I could see, but I later noticed some tiny sheds that I had passed on the way. That is where the plantation workers live in abject poverty.
Retirement can suck in Trinidad.
At long last there were signs for the Asa Wright Nature Reserve Conservation Area. Ironically there were very few birds around. I could hear them, but I’d seen more of them in Port of Spain.
The road was shaded by overgrowth, mainly bamboo on the down-sloping side. Every few steps a solitary bat would weave overhead, sweeping the air of mosquitoes in its clearly defined range. I’d never seen insectivorous bats hunting in the daytime—let alone solitary ones—but they provided a great service.
It had taken me two and a half hours to get to the Asa Wright Nature Reserve from Arima, and that was with the short lift the maxi driver had given me. I had time for little more than refill my water bottle before I had to turn around again in order to make it back before dark. Near the lodge I saw a few birds disappear into the trees in flashes of colour, but the reserve is big. There are several trails and it is a place where you need to take your time.
It’s a shame that I hadn’t taken more money with me, thanks to the prevailing paranoia. It would have been a relatively simple matter to press on to Alta Vista, spend the night there and return to Asa Wright early in the morning. Another time perhaps.
As they say, the adventure is in the journey, not in the arrival.
I was glad that I had made the decision to turn back when another car passed me, full of young men. As usual, the driver hooted and they all waved, but I was suddenly worried that they might decide to come back and pick me off the road. Once I had left the mining area behind, traffic had decreased to a trickle. Between here and Blanchisseuse, it would be easy to disappear.
An old rust bucket clattered past and slowed to a halt. The driver was a single older guy.
“You’re going to Arima? You want a ride?”
One of him, four of them. After a moment’s hesitation I got in.
“Thank you.”
“I live up there,” the man said, pointing vaguely behind, “but I’m going back downtown.”
“You’re going all the way to Arima?”
He smiled and nodded. He spoke slowly, almost in a drawl, and for a while I wondered whether he was drunk or high, but he just seemed very relaxed.
“You smoke?” He opened the glove box and a crumpled ten-pack of duMauriers nearly tumbled into my lap. I offered him one of mine.
“If you’re back this way you could come to my place. We could cook some food.”
Uh-oh.
I went into geisha-mode.
Keep him entertained (and speak more slowly, for heaven’s sake), but remain aloof. Don’t volunteer any unnecessary information.
Harry remained curiously unthreatening. He smiled when I told him I wasn’t in the habit of going into the homes of strange men and shook his head when I said that half the menfolk of Tobago had wanted to be my boyfriends.
“You have to be careful with that, you know. There is a problem with AIDS.”
He drove me all the way to the maxi stand, although it meant that he had to drag his old rust bucket back up the steep slopes of northern Arima, where he was staying.
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Denni