VENEZUELA and T&T 2009

We've been busy making the most of our last week in Trinidad, starting off with a return trip to Michael and Jacinta's land for our first spot of WWOOFing... We spent the morning there, digging up a bush of sorrel plants, preparing new holes in the ground with lime, ash and manure, and then replanting the sorrel in the shade of the pawpaw trees. It was tough work, particularly as the midday sun came up, but very satisfying - and we definitely deserved the spring rolls that Michael bought us for lunch! As ever, it was lovely being on the land, working peacefully, visited by exotic birds and eating mangoes and bananas off the trees. Afterwards, Michael and Jacinta drove us up Mount St. Benedict, where there is a turn-of-the-century monastery. We had a delicious afternoon tea, enjoying the cool mountain breeze and the glimmering views of the valley laid out below us, again feeling very peaceful and apart from the everyday bustle.

As usual we've also been busy in Port of Spain, which is very much all hustle and bustle. But we managed to find a break from that, too, in Ellerslie Plaza when Alice and I decided to take advantage of the super cheap beauty treatments here and have a proper girly day! So we treated ourselves to haircuts and waxes, and then, feeling very glamorous, a spot of shopping and ice cream in the Haagen Daaz parlour.

We finally made a trip to the famous Maracas beach - more a national institution than a place to swim - and Alice got to taste the much raved about shark and bake! The beach was, as ever, perfect: warm water with terrific and terrifying waves, pale sand scattered with palm trees, and sheltered by magnificent green mountains. We both enjoyed piling our shark and bake (fish in fried bread) with every sauce available (ketchup, garlic, tamarind, chadon beni, pepper..) and then devouring them in the sand. We had so much fun in the sea afterwards, jumping over and under waves and getting tumbled like little kids by the huge ones. When we got home, we had a really nice, big family gathering with my cousins and uncles

Yesterday we made it out to Asa Wright Nature Centre, a beautiful place hidden in the rainforested hills, which is one of the top places for birdwatching in the world. We learnt that Trinidad and Tobago has the highest density of biodiversity in bird species on the planet; this was illustrated to us by the huge variety of birds we saw just sitting on the veranda drinking tea - at least twenty species or more. The most exciting were the different varieties of colourful, iridescent humming birds which hovered right before us sipping sugar water, so that we were able to see their furiously beating, tiny wings in a blur, and even their thread-like tongues darting out of long beaks. Unfortunately it was raining torrentially, so many of the birds in the forest were hiding when we went on the trail, but we still got to see the rainforest, complete with rain! Also, I finally got to taste a termite (something I'd wanted to do in Venezuela, so I can tick it off my list) - it both smelt and tasted overpoweringly of carrots! And when we got home from Asa Wright, we went to our last party and ate our last Trinidadian roti!

Today we are making one last trip out to see Caroni Mangrove Swamp. Then tonight we fly out to Tobago, for a gloriously girly week of cocktails on beaches! Which will be fantastic, although we will be very sad to leave Trinidad and our family (Alice has been adopted) here.

Love to all, Hannah and Alice