Denniblog

No panic attacks this morning. The local weed was helping, and I could tell that it was the weed and nothing else because I’d acquired my very own man-pest—my pet-fucker—yesterday night.

What I mistook for friendliness is no such thing. Instead of thinking to set sail for Trinidad next week, I was thinking to bring it forward to the following Tuesday. I’d committed to stay in Charlotteville for aweek—paid for it—but what the hell. It was Saturday. Buses would run. I could book passage. Maybe I could make the boat on Monday. Maybe I could make it tomorrow.

I was on Red Alert.
[read on]

As time dragged on, I left the cool sanctuary of the ticket hall for another cigarette. A flock of frigate birds was circling overhead like something out of a Hitchcock film. I had no idea what they were doing there. I’ve never seen them feed., but as far as I know frigate birds are parasites, robbing other birds of fish. The only fishing birds here were a couple of brown pelicans near the harbour. Maybe they had become scavengers.

Watching them circling below the clouds in the sticky heat had an almost hypnotic effect. Amidst all the people waiting for the bus, I suddenly felt like a castaway.
[read on]

[Internet access is tight right now, so bear in mind that these posts are not properly edited. I’m trying to do my best ;)]

The Charlotteville bus was on time. This was newsworthy.

It was full of foreigners. Today my travels would have a different flavour; no solo adventures.

It was just as well. My mood was subdued. Depression kept gnawing at the edges and I had only slept for four of five hours. This year I may have left it too late to travel.

When we arrived I turned my back on the crowd and soon discovered another muddy path (I seem to have a knack for that). A big white-and-blue sign said ‘Pirate’s Bay’, making it look invitingly close. I set off up the hill.

I had been feeling peculiar on the bus, but now it felt as if something was squeezing my heart. I was restless: I shouldn’t be going this way. I should find an internet café and write my Christmas cards. As I walked, quickening my pace, the back of my hand flashed accusingly at me with every step: I had scrawled POSTCODES on it in waterproof ink. Christmas was only seven days away.

But I decided to press on before the others would discover this path. I wanted—needed—to be alone. The vegetation had distinct bluish tinge to it, although that could just have been the light, which was lousy that day.

Pirate’s Bay was not as secluded as I had hoped. There is an eco-village above it and there was the obligatory shop, although in this case it was an abandoned shed with two hole-in-the-plank loos beside it, both with their doors off their hinges and lying askew. A white woman and her two pale children were working their way up the brook that trickled in front of it. A black guy with a tiny ginger baby next to him was sitting on a tree stump, taking photos. They were a family and they were alright: it felt like they belonged here, with the man patiently pointing his camera at crabs and wading birds and the woman and kids exploring the brook.

As I sat and made notes, a tiny hummingbird landed on a branch just too far away to see it clearly. Of course I had left my binoculars behind. The bird must have been smaller than my little finger: I’ve seen butterflies bigger than that.

Something bit me on the foot and drew blood. I lashed on the citronella and it stung my face.

I noticed that the panic had gone.

The light was lousy today, and the waves were fierce. They didn’t look it, but I was glad that I’d thought better of snorkelling near a rocky cove and retreated back to the main beach when I experienced a wash-out at 70cm depth. Twice, one after the other. I surfaced without my mask.

Maybe one day a forty quid silicone dive mask will be washed ashore on Pirate’s Bay. It’s been around a bit: it has seen Scotland, the Red Sea, the Togean Islands, Bali and Australia. Come to think of it, I may have bought it in Taiwan.

Next time I’ll be less cocky when body-surfing.

On the way back I met a man who introduced himself as Mathio. He promised to keep an eye out for my mask.

“If you find it, it’s your luck,” I said.

“No, I believe it should be returned to its owner. Do you smoke?”

We talked for a while about the virtues of the local grass. Mathio didn’t have any on him, but I have his word that it is mild and mellow. Who knows, perhaps it will help.

He said that I should go up the hill behind the town and ask for a Doctor P. who might have room in his guesthouse. I did not find Doctor P. but decided to come back the next day. I felt that the loss of my mask tied me to the place, as if I’d left a part of myself behind. I wasn’t done with Charlotteville yet.

With that I rushed home before the post office closed at four. The bus was only slightly late and I got back with time to spare to check the postcodes. Back at the guesthouse, Diana informed me that the cards would take at least two weeks to arrive.

“But they’ll have the Tobago stamp,” she beamed.

The bus deposited me by a muddy track that seemingly disappeared into the jungle. But after a short stroll the track opened up on a palm-fringed crescent of golden sand. The place was deserted aside from a single ramshackle shop-cum-restaurant and a handful of people. Brown pelicans dived into the clear water, darker streaks indicating where the reef began just twenty metres from shore. This was Englishman’s Bay.

The bay is not walkable from Castara, but camping should be possible here, although it’s frowned upon and I would have to hide. On the other hand I think it is just as possible to base yourself in Scarborough and get to Englishman’s Bay by bus, although the little hilltown of Castara has its charms.

I gazed regretfully at the sparkling clear water. There would be no snorkelling today because I was here on a reccie. None of the few tourists who had arrived in their hired cars were snorkelling either. Like me, they took a few pictures, then they rifled through the souveniers on display and drove off again. I on the other hand was sorely tempted to blow my last change on hiring a mask and fins and strip down to my underwear. It was just as well that I didn’t as a couple of teenage boys showed up later.

But for a while I had the bay to myself. I strolled along its length, accompanied by a mangy dog that was pathetically grateful for the attention I gave it. I would have to come back, that much was certain.

For now, I’d seen enough. I started the long walk back, stopping to take some pictures from a vantage point, then waved at every driver going in the opposite direction in the hope that one would give me a ride when they turned back. One did.

Or perhaps not precisely. There wasn’t much traffic. I had taken care to fill my waterbottle but I was thinking about economising when I passed the dead dog I’d seen from the bus. Its hindlegs were twisted 180°, the spine clean snapped. It must have happened recently. There was no blood. If it wasn’t for that grotesque distortion, the dog could have been sleeping. One for the Darwin Awards.

The dog had been quite away from Castara, so when I heard engine noise, I stepped onto the kerb, turned towards the road, and smiled.

The car stopped.

It was one of the big silver 4WD jobs which we know as Chelsea Tractors and it was driven by a local woman. She went out of her way not only to deposit me by the Castara beach facility, but to fix me up with accommodiation. A beachside grocery owner going by Lous Walker promised to put me up for 100TT a night if I stayeda week. I toldhim I’d give him a call. I was undecided: as pretty as Castarahad looked from the bus, it had its share of tourists including a gaggle of drunken Englishmen who brought back memories of the ageing swingers. I took care to avoid them as I stood in the bus shelter for over two hours in the pouring rain before finally getting back to Scarborough.

Just before six o’clock the chickens fluttered up into the trees to sleep (I told you they’re smart!) and the yard dog—which by now had returned—prised open the small gate to the porch and asked for a pat before lying down slap bang in the middle of the entrance.

When trespassers walked by, he was up in an instant, barking and snarling as if he wanted their throats out. But once you were inside, he turned into a puppy. I took care to only pat him gently, lest he would get excited and rip my dress off while jumping at me. He was practically dancing on his hind legs with rapture.

All the dogs I encountered were friendly—at least the free-running ones, of which there were many. Buccoo struck me as a a bit of a dog’s paradise.

It’s certainly a paradise with bite.

Just before the chickens had gone to sleep, the see-’em-nots came out. Tiny sandflies or whatever, which are the Tobagoan equivalent of midges. And like their Scottish counterparts, they pay no heed to citronella which I’d started to use neat. The guy who came in with an armfull of sofa cushions said they get blown in by the southernly wind from the lagoon. I’d had a quick look at the beach that afternoon, and there is an extensive marsh behind it, teeming with birdlife.

Tobago is a paradise for many: sun-seeers, music lovers, twitchers, divers, dogs, mosquitoes, and sandflies.

*

It can be a paradise for photographers too. The next morning, I thought I’d take a stroll on the beach, maybe go for a swim. As advised, I left my valuables behind, including the camera. The idea is to take what you need, and leave everything on display when you go swimming. I’d doubt anybody’d nick my sunscreen, only Danish-speakers would get any joy from the book I was reading, and only an arsehole would steal somebody’s glasses case.

I walked along the tideline. After a few minutes I had left everybody behind and found myself on a desert island.

The light changed. Clouds had moved in and the sun broke through them, painting the beach with streaks of gold and dabbing the sea with turquoise. The great filter in the sky was up. This was magic hour.

I sat on an abandoned sunchair in the shade of large, round leaves, smoking my cigarette and contemplating the scenery. Then I stubbed it out—my mind made up—put the butt into the pack and rushed back the way I’d come from. I tasted salt on my lips and sweat was stinging in my eyes as I fumbled the key into the lock, groped around for the camera, and raced back to that magic spot.

The sun had gone.

Bucco: Paradise Regained

The couple in the seats behind me had been here three days, but they already knew their way. The bloke took out a sheet of tickets and ripped out two to give to the bus driver. Not surprisingly, they were Trini. And Trinidad had come to Tobago: for the first time—as we headed to the Claude Noël highway—I saw guns in the street.

They were submachine guns, cradled by two burly, sour-faced men who were sweating in their camouflage fatigues as they walked down the street.

“Trouble?” I asked.

“There is crime here,” Chamilla said. “Christmas is coming.”

For a while I wondered whether I would become one of the Sunday School crime statistics—people would come from all over, not just Tobago but further afield—but when I got to Bucco the thought seemed absurd.

*

Whoa, what had happened to the aircon?

The heat was like a smothering blanket as I stepped off the bus. As I wound my way to Auntie Flo’s, I gradually reduced my marching speed to what I assumed was a Caribbean pace.

Auntie Flo was minding one of the tiny stalls that serve as shops here. One of her friends waved me over and walked part of the way up to the guesthouse with me. “You trying to set the speed record?” he asked.

“If I slow down any more, I’ll stop,” I gasped. I’d found that, below a certain speed, my bags make me wobble. My rucksack was dangling lopsided from my shoulder, although it was nearly as heavy as my backpack. “I need rhythm.”

At that the man nodded understandingly.

*

A woman gave me a lift up to the fruit stall which had greeted me at the street corner yesterday. She had a bottle of beer clamped between her thighs as well.

The fruitstall was the one where you get two limes for a dollar instead of one. It was also the only greengrocer around. And there was a kitchen in the downstairs part of the guesthouse (which has—guess what—en-suite rooms). Two kitchens, in fact.

I had brought my spice box. It turns out that, around here, they like a woman wot cooks 😉

I made a very oily aubergine curry (no kitchen tissue to blot the things with, not even salt) with garlic & ginger-fried plantain and a salad. It was filling, to say the least. Showered and fed, I was ready to explore. But when I opened the gate the yard dog slipped past me, and vanished.

That was my excuse to see Smokey again. He and his mates were once more by the cars underneath the trees, surrounded by puppies, although there were no children this time. He told me to chill about the dog, it would come back, and—in a friendly, casual way that reminded me of a mate of ours who was partial to the odd joint—invited me over to the Captain’s Sand Bar across the street for a drink later on.

That’s when it struck me, as I sauntered the few dozen steps up the road to that idyllic bay. These guys weren’t a couple of chums from South East London here on holiday. They really live here.

They live in a place so beautiful that it’d made me choke twice so far (once on each visit).

And I hadn’t even looked below the surface yet.

[Needs more editing]

I didn’t know that the bus tickets here are like stamps, although I’d suspected it for a while. The sign in the bus station proclaiming ‘No Refunds, No Changes, Know Where You Are Going’ may have caused my doubts.

In any event, I had come to Buccoo with a single ticket, figuring they’d be on sale in any bar or minimarket. They weren’t. The town’s only ticket outlet was closed.

Now what?

Calm down. There were several solutions. I could convince the driver to let me get the ticket at the station (fat chance, but worth an effort). I could walk to the next town and buy one there, catch a maxi, or hitchhike. After all, at least two thirds of private cars here moonlight as route taxis. It wouldn’t be free, but it would be considerably less than a tourist taxi.

I crossed the road and looked around. There was a bus shelter just behind me. In front of it stood a woman in a worn dress. She had an expression on her face that I recognised, but she was holding some papers.

“Are you going to Scarborough?”

She nodded.

“Got a ticket?”

She shook her head. Only later did I realise that she probably didn’t need one; they have bus passes for the elderly and disabled here. For now, I thought we were in this together.

“OK, I’ll try to us catch a lift—” a hire car zoomed by “—If only I could see the drivers earlier.” I thought that tourists were my best bet. The lift would be free for starters. And boy, would they be surprised if I asked them to wait while I fetched my companion. The woman—who hadn’t said a word—had retreated into the deepest shade of the bus shelter.

Another car zoomed by, but the tinted windows made it impossible to see who was inside until it was too late.

After a while, a car pulled over on the other side of the road. A hand appeared out of the side window and the driver yelled something. I ran across.

“You’re going to Scarborough?”

He said something I didn’t catch and made a gesture I interpreted as having to turn around. He had a passenger next to him whom he might have to drop off first. A route taxi after all.

“OK, I’ll wait.” I made to go back to my spot.

“No, no, come in.”

“There is a woman by the bus stop. She doesn’t have a ticket. Could she—”

“No, no. She be OK. Come in.”

I crawled onto the back seat, and that is when I spotted the beer bottle clamped between the man’s thighs. The patois wasn’t all that had lent a drawl to his voice. He was pissed.

He introduced himself as Glen.

We set off in the direction away from Scarborough, and kept driving, the car swerving every now and then onto the other side of the road as Glen turned his head to talk to me.

“That lady there,” he said, “she’s not right.” He tapped his head with one hand, while making a course correction with the other. “Krank“.

By now I wasn’t surprised that everybody here seems to speak a few words of German. Glen had been married to one. What pissed me off was that most people took me for a German on sight. If I can’t be British, why not Scandinavian? Or at least Dutch? Not that I had the leisure to contemplate this then.

“Watch that lorry!” I cried.

Glen grinned, turned around, and swerved back onto his side of the road. There should have been enough space, but a panicky reaction by either driver might have caused a head-on collision.

“You’re going to Plymouth?” He turned around again.

“No Scarb—” But whyever not? Plymouth had shops that sold tickets. “Yeah, Plymouth is fine. I can catch the bus from there.”

“You want to go with us?” He indicated his friend who had remained silent the whole time.

“No! I— I mean I’ll have to go back to Scarborough. I have work to do.” That wasn’t a complete lie. The internet café was open until six and I thought I’d better get back before then.

“Oh, OK,” Glen said. “Relax.”

I hic-upped a laugh. “I am relaxed. This is very kind of you. It’s just—You hear stories. I’m not looking for, you know—” Even the LP suggested that lone women hitching in Tobago were interested in more than just a lift.

“Oh, you’re not interested in boys? Bist du schwühl?”

“Schwul, the word is schwul.” I could have bitten off my tongue. This conversation wasn’t going in the direction I wanted it to go. But strangely, I didn’t feel threatened. I thought that Glen was drunk enough to handle, and as for his friend, he seemed harmless enough.

Once again Glen told me to relax. He spotted some people, stopped and reversed. Drivers here always hoot at friends, stopping to talk to them or give them a ride. It’s that kind of place.

A man holding a beautiful girl toddler got in and placed the child between us on the back seat.

“My half-brother,” Glen said. This didn’t feel threatening at all any more.

We dropped the man and child at a house up a hill and a few moments later, we stopped at a junction in another village.

“You’ll get your ticket there,” Glen said, pointing at a shop across the street. “Wait on the corner.”

With that, he drove off. I looked around. On a fence almost in front of the was a sign advertising the third Reggae Road Block later tonight on the hard court, Festival Yard. It took me a while to realise that this sleepy village was Plymouth. I kept imagining an industrialised harbour town.

I got the hell out of there.

The bus was on time. The internet café had closed early.

[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.

Waking up in the tropics still has that dream-like quality for me. I’d been half-dozing since a quarter to five this morning—with my earplugs not quite filtering out the occasional crowing of an over-enthusiastic cockerel—so I felt half-jetlagged when I finally decided to get up.

I wondered (still) who’d left the heating on high overnight and what that strange golden light was, up there on the wall where the sun filtered through the airholes (just imagine: open walls and window grids in December!) The gauze of the mosquito net gave the view a dreamlike quality. A single determined mosquito kept circling just above my head, bumping into the mesh as if trying to ram its way through, and sticking its proboscis through the holes, raising its hindlegs in a determined effort to pump blood out of thin air.

Ha. Take that!

I hopped out of bed, put on the fan and blew it away.

It was seven thirty. It seems the mozzies are working overtime here.

*

Getting out of bed was less difficult because I’m settling in, and am actually happier outside my room (confined spaces are bad news). I was less certain about going out of town, and not just because money is tight and my first call would have to be the bank to cash my emergency traveller’s cheques. Getting to Bucco shouldn’t take long and I already have the ticket. I bought it two days ago—thinking I’d check the place out for Sunday, maybe even relocate there—and had taken a seat in the waiting room when a man who worked there walked past muttering. “I wish the bus was here already to take everybody where they are going.”

You and me both, mate.

He muttered something more under his breath, went to talk to some of the people further along and then walked back to the door proclaiming: “first there are no buses and then there are four or five at once. I am not happy!”

Since my own bus was due in about ten minutes, I stepped outside and saw that the fuss was about. About four or five buses should have been departing but there was no sign of them. Then they trickled in, one-after-another, late.

“Where are you going?” somebody asked me.

“Bucco.”

“Into Bucco itself?”

“I guess so, I don’t know the area.”

“There has been an accident, buses are not running there. Go and talk to one of the men.”

Oh, cheers. I walked over to the men (and they were all men) who had gathered in their blue shirts on top of the stairs. The one who turned around at my approach was the one who had done the muttering.

“Yes. Can I help you?” He gave me a radiant smile which I thought must be to cover his irritation, yet at the same time couldn’t help thinking was genuine.

“I’m going to Bucco. I hear there’s been an accident?”

“Yes. No. That’s just what I told the people.” He was a bit uncomfortable—almost squirming—as if I had found him out.

“So there are buses to Bucco?”

“Where do you want to go? Into Bucco itself?” What was it about that question?

“Guess so.”

He looked uncomfortable again. “No bus right now.”

“That’s OK, I can wait,” I said, thinking about coming back later. On the other hand, perhaps the bus was just late. I decided to wait a little longer. I had narrowly missed the 11:30, due to overrunning in the internet café, and now the day was half-over. I didn’t want to lose an entire hour and, sure enough, two more buses turned up.

I walked back to the guy. “Is one of those going to Bucco?”

“No they—” he paused. “I can send one of them to Bucco for you.”

You can’t fault the service here.

“Heavens no,” I said. “I think I’m the only one who wants to go there, and it can wait until tomorrow. Is the ticket still good tomorrow?”

“Of course it is,” he said.

So here we are, two days later, and I’ve still not left town. Yesterday evening I checked my bank account and found that I’m near destitute. Today is Friday, my traveller’s cheques will only last me until Monday and I’ll probably have to ask to pay for my accommodation in retrospective, which is not how I usually do things.

The people here are easy about it, but I’m not happy.

I have made a deal with myself that I must eat or go back on the Amitriptyline. I don’t want to. That stuff makes me tired and I don’t want to lose any of my golden days, plus there would have to be a serious cutting-back on the rum & coke ;). But I didn’t relish the thought of dinner: a can of mackerel in tomato sauce and a bag of Nut King’s Original Corn Curls.

The corn curls weren’t too bad, but I swear the mackerel had shit floating in it. Mackerel shit to be sure, but shit all the same.

I’d worked out my daily budget before buying those dinner items, right up until the last week when I might travel around Trinidad and spend a little more. It comes to 36$ US a day. It used to be 48, but then the pound went down and it is still going down. The bank exchange rate for the US dollar is more-or-less fixed at 1 to 6, so that is no help at all.

Up until now I have more-or-less spent 50$ US a day, but when I came to Scarborough, I started to match the budget (32 dollars today, with two meals. Lunch was a tuna salad). I have to be careful.

Peanut butter, coconut water, tuna, mayo. The bill came to 68 dollars. Ouch. But I must eat.

On my way to the shops I saw a kite soaring into the electric blue sky. On my way back a car hooted and made me jump. The drivers all hoot here, either in greeting or because they’re looking for fares. Most seem to be moonlighting as route taxis, and the fare is always three dollars. If only we had such a system in London.

More tomorrow. I’m taking things easy for a few days. But I’m thinking of going to Sunday School in Bucco after all. Carlos is nice enough, I was just being too guarded (but that has always served me well).