Buccoo
[The following entries may need more editing, but I have to write fast just to keep up…]
Friday morning, 10:30 a.m. I checked my account for one last time before setting off to the bank with my measly 120US$ emergency traveller’s cheques and my passport.
The money had arrived.
I logged off, grabbed my stuff and hurried out of the internet café. There was a huge queue at the Scotiabank’s ATM—with only one machine working—but Scotiabank has consistently given the best rates.
The queue progressed at a creeping pace which often ground to a halt. We were all wiping sweat from our foreheads as the door kept opening and clothing, exhaling the feeble chill from the aircon. Ahead of me, several people were experiencing problems with their transactions.
I was on tenterhooks. But the machine (‘saving’s account’) spat out the cash without hesitation (phew), a great big wad of it. I grabbed it and pressed through the second set of opening-and-closing doors into the main bank where I hastily fumbled with my money belt.
“Hey!” somebody called from the ATM queue outside.
“What?” My heart was pounding.
“Go further inside where people can’t see you!”
“Uh—thanks!”
Stupid me. Tinted windows or not, both sets of doors were practically rendered dysfunctional with people coming and going, and security was hidden somewhere behind the Christmas decorations. There was a mountain of cake platters which banking officials handed out to people, obviously part of their Christmas celebration. The building was heaving. So was the street.
I was save enough in here, but if passers-by should see me they might earmark me for a mugging.
It was 25 minutes past eleven. I ran for the 11:30 Bucco bus, and got there just in time, but there were no buses. The men in the blue shirts were hiding.
After a while one of them emerged. They were having a training course (or a Christmas do, or a berating re. the schedules—which made everybody even more late) and they were short of drivers. I should get a bus eventually.
By now, even Bucco seemed like the promised land. But so did a shower. I was hot in my trousers and T-shirt (this is not a country where you’d want to wear a suit outside). My money belt pressed against my back, sweaty and bulging like a duck’s arse, and probably visible to everybody. And I was hungry (and glad about that).
Was it really worth it?
I decided not. Home, shower, change, eat, then back to the internet café. Tomorrow, I would make the bus station my first stop and head out on my planned reccie to Charlotteville or Englishman’s Bay, whichever came first. Sunday School would just have to wait.
Just as I was about to set foot on the stairs, one of the men in blue grabbed hold of me and pointed at one of the buses, five or six of which had now piled onto the court.
“Black Rock,” he said. “Take the bus to Black Rock.”
I descended the stairs and tentatively joined the first queue. He shook his head and waved me onwards. I couldn’t push against the heaving mass of people headed for the front of the bus, so I ran behind it and around, up to the second in line. He shook his head again, and so did several of the bystanders. I was waved on by a crowd of people until I got to the last bus in line, where an old geezer personally took charge of me.
“Sit behind the driver,” he said. “He’ll tell you where to get off.”
The seat behind the driver was indeed free, and the old man sat down next to me. I marveled at how I ever got by in places where I couldn’t even read the script, let alone speak the language. Honestly, you could send a primary school child to travel solo in Tobago.
That wasn’t all. The geezer couldn’t get over the fact that I had not taken the direct bus to Buccoo.
“There is no direct bus,” I said petulantly. “I was told to go on this one.”
This sparked off a lively discussion with the other passengers and the driver while the bus was semi-stationary in traffic. We were creeping around town in a loop and—twenty minutes later—pulled back into the bus station. The driver removed a yellow ‘Town Service’ sign from the dashboard.
“We have to change bus,” the geezer said. “This one is not roadworthy.”
So we did, and we were off. The time was now 12:30, incidentally the scheduled time for the Buccoo bus.
Round we went again. This time, thankfully, we were flung away from the loop as we entered the Claude Noël Highway, and suddenly we were moving. It was almost easier to breathe. I felt a sense of freedom: I was on the road again, even if it was only for one afternoon.
While we were looping around the town, I’d noticed a sign which I must have walked past on several occasions. It announced the third Reggae Road Block. The radio had been going on about it at length—Beanie Man was going to be there—but I’d thought that it would be held somewhere in Trinidad.
Nope, Plymouth. Tonight.
Pity, I thought.
Little did I know that I would get to Plymouth that day.
*
There was a fruitstall at the corner of the road to Buccoo, offering some welcome refreshment. I was glad that I didn’t have the backpack with me as I walked down the winding road. The place was deserted. When it’s not partying, Buccoo is sleeping.
There were a few places open in the village itself. Lunch was rice & peas at Latalia’s Cuisine. It came with chicken instead of peas but it was only 20TT, and it was delicious. Afterwards I worked around the village which lay dreaming in the afternoon sun, gazing out over a turquouise bay. But I could find neither Battery Street nor anything that looked like a hostel.
“Can I help you?” A man stepped from out under the shade of a tree. “Need a tour guide?”
“No, not a tour guide. But would you know about a cheap place to stay? There was somewhere that was supposed to have dorms…”
“No, no dorms. But wait, come with me.”
We walked back to that tree, which was some way back from the road, and now I could see several guys working on two cars with their boots up. There were a few kids and puppies too. I waved at them all.
The guy called to someone and a tall man with charcoal skin and matted Rasta hair walked up to us. Part of his hair was chestnut brown. All of it had been baked slowly in the sun, for about forty years or so.
“My name is Smokey,” he said in a voice that told me why.
We shook hands.
“I’m looking for a place to stay,” I said.
He pointed through a gap in the trees, across a corral where two horses were swishing their tails, their heads held low. “See that house?”
“The near one?”
“No, the tall one, behind it. It belongs to a lady. She take guests. You can go across the field.”
I looked at it doubtfully. The fence was no problem, it was made from big wooden beams, set far apart. But there was greenery around it.
“Are there snakes here?”
“There are no snakes,” Smokey said, and when I looked doubtful, “Come on.”
We walked up to the house and a little dog on a chain started barking and snarling at us.
“Miss Flo!” Smokey yelled over the din. “Hello, Miss Flo! I have a lady here…”
There was no answer.
“Go on up, she’s there.” Smokey said. “Around to the gate. Come back if you don’t get on.”
On the other side of the corral I found myself on a small street which ran up to Buccoo Bay. Banana plants were flapping in the breeze, framing the view of the deserted beach and still, blue water. I had already made up my mind to stay. I liked what I saw.
Upstairs there was a kitchen and lounge with the open feel that said ‘guesthouse’ even if it wasn’t for the ironworks of the gate proclaiming ‘Welcome to Auntie Flo’s’. But there was nobody around. I called several times, without luck. Hesitating for a moment, I eventually stepped into the corridor. The rooms were separated only by curtains which were picked up by the breeze, revealing two king-sized beds in each. Amenities were shared. This was the kind of place I was looking for, although security might be a little doubtful. I wondered who else would come to stay over the weekend.
In the last room, an old woman lay asleep.
I tip-toed back outside. I did not want to wake Aunty Flo. But Smokey had said to come back to him, so—struggling briefly with myself—I did.
“There was nobody there,” I said.
“She is there. She’ll be sleeping.”
I blushed inwardly, not wanting to admit that I had seen so for myself. Once again, Smokey took me by the proverbial hand. This time we walked up to the fence behind her garden, and he called out once more. “Miss Flo! Miss Flo! I have a lady here.”
This time there was a response; some calling back-and-forth ensued. “I’ll send her up!” Smokey yelled eventually, repeating himself a few times. Then he pointed back across the corral. “OK go, she’ll be waiting.
Auntie Flo was twice my age, if she was a day. She was waiting on the upstairs veranda, behind the closed gate, and I approached timidly.
“Come on up,” she said, but she did not step away from the gate, let alone open it.
I hesitated a little when she told me it would be 150TT for a night. But what the hell—this was not to be missed, and I’d had my fill of Scarborough. I needed to get away for a few days.
Aunty Flo looked a little doubtful when I told her that I’d be back the next day, by lunchtime. But I would.
Buses permitting.
Tags: Americas, Buccoo, Sunday School, Tobago, Tag Index
Denni
June 30th, 2010 at 13:46
nice… 😉
Yes, Bucco is our LITTLE PARADISE!
& Aunty Flo´our wonderful Neighbour…