This weekend we have been very busy with various trips around Trinidad. Yesterday we went down the islands to Monos Island where a friend of Mary and Peter's from the rugby club had rented a house and was having a BBQ to celebrate Emancipation Day. After arriving at the dock in Chaguaramas we got on a small water taxi to go across, travelling round the northern coast of Trinidad through a string of islands known as the 'Dragon's Mouth'. Although we have seen plenty of mountains covered in forest, seeing them from the sea gave us a whole new view of them. When we arrived about 20 minutes later in a little cove, we could immediately tell which house we would be spending the day from the number of people, loud music and smoke billowing from the BBQ. The food, as ever, was amazing - loads of salads, macaroni pie, crackers and dips, meat, banana bread and fudge. After we had eaten to our hearts' content, we danced to the soca and calypso music before swimming in the sea. Once we came home, we ate pizza and collapsed in front of CSI:Miami.
Today we drove to Chaguanas as we wanted to see some of the Indo-Trinidadian culture present on the island. We visited the Temple in the Sea, first begun in 1947 by a devout hindu who had moved to Trinidad from India. This current temple was completed in 1995, as the original was washed away. The temple itself is placed on a strip in the sea. The walkway that leads up to it is fairly narrow, with bushes bearing red hibiscus and white flowers on either side. Along the edge of the walkway in the sea there are several small statues left as offerings and a large number of colourful prayer flags. The temple itself is quite small and white, with blue painted details on the dais. Inside it is simply decorated - a carpeted floor and five statues of the gods.
After we had visited the temple we drove a short distance to the Indian Caribbean Museum, a small but interesting museum (that also happens to be much better organised than the National Museum...) detailing the imigration of the Indian population and the contribution to Trinidadian society that they provided. Here they had a small display of clothes, showing visitors what would be typically worn to a Hindu wedding, something that proved to be correct about half an hour later. We had visited another, very pink, temple in the same area, overshadowed by a 85 foot statue of Hanuman, the monkey god. While we were here, a wedding was taking place and we saw the arrival of the groom, accompanied by music and prayers. After spending a while watching the wedding before it entered the temple, we drove into the city to see the Lion House, built in 1927, where V.S. Naipul once lived.
This week we are continuing to work at the halfway house and for Mary. Love Alice and Hannah.
Sunday, 2 August 2009
Thursday, 30 July 2009
We're sorry about the gap in blog posts! We have now been back in Trinidad for a week, recovering from a bout of dysentry (?!?!?!?) and chilling out with friends and family. We have also started our volunteer work at Our Lady of the Wayside Halfway House for babies and children, run by Living Water Community. The Halfway House looks after a small number of young children and very young babies who have either been abandoned or are unable to be with their parent, and the aim of the centre is to give them the love that might otherwise be missing from their lives. Although our work there can be tiring, it is also really enjoyable - particularly as much of it involves feeding, bathing and generally cuddling tiny babies! We are also helping them to organise ther library, putting our combined passion for organisation to good use...
When we aren't at Living Water, we also help out in my aunty Mary's office, which means lots of great roti lunches! We've definitely been having a lot of great meals here, including a delicious sushi dinner followed by cocktails with lots of my cousins. Today at work, the delightful Mr Beharry came in to talk to me about his memories of wartime Trinidad, in relation to my study of V.S. Naipaul. He was an incredibly lovely and entertaining Indo-Trinidadian gentleman, and it was so interesting to hear his memories of colonial Trinidad, where his parents' generation spoke only Hindi, had no electricity, and there was only one newspaper for the whole of Trinidad.
Last weekend we also had a great day at my godparents' house, where we had (of course) a yummy lunch before going out onto their organic farming estate. The estate is a beautiful piece of forest where you could basically survive on the huge variety of fruits and vegetables harvested there - we ate huge mangoes straight from the tree, and enjoyed the strage, white flesh of cocoa pods. Everything from coffee to cassava is grown there, and we were enticed to go back later this month for some 'WOOFing' (working on organic farms)...
So we have been having a great time in Trinidad so far, and we have much more lined up for this weekend, so we will try not to leave it so late before the next blog!
Love Hannah and Alice
When we aren't at Living Water, we also help out in my aunty Mary's office, which means lots of great roti lunches! We've definitely been having a lot of great meals here, including a delicious sushi dinner followed by cocktails with lots of my cousins. Today at work, the delightful Mr Beharry came in to talk to me about his memories of wartime Trinidad, in relation to my study of V.S. Naipaul. He was an incredibly lovely and entertaining Indo-Trinidadian gentleman, and it was so interesting to hear his memories of colonial Trinidad, where his parents' generation spoke only Hindi, had no electricity, and there was only one newspaper for the whole of Trinidad.
Last weekend we also had a great day at my godparents' house, where we had (of course) a yummy lunch before going out onto their organic farming estate. The estate is a beautiful piece of forest where you could basically survive on the huge variety of fruits and vegetables harvested there - we ate huge mangoes straight from the tree, and enjoyed the strage, white flesh of cocoa pods. Everything from coffee to cassava is grown there, and we were enticed to go back later this month for some 'WOOFing' (working on organic farms)...
So we have been having a great time in Trinidad so far, and we have much more lined up for this weekend, so we will try not to leave it so late before the next blog!
Love Hannah and Alice
Sunday, 19 July 2009
We arrived in Coro yesterday morning at 6.30 in the morning, and were greeted with a blast of hot air in the bus station - a welcome change from the icy temperature that the night buses seem to be so fond of. Coro is a small, hot city in the northwest of the country, the first capital of Venezuela and one in which the colonial roots are still very visible in the architecture. We took a taxi 'La Casa de los Pajaros' or ´the House of the Birds', a small and unique posada that is owned by an architect and is a beautiful building made up of two airy courtyards filled with plants and rooms placed around, brightly coloured wall paintings and a kitchen with a tree growing out of the floor. It also had a tortoise.
After we had showered and changed, and feeling very much like brand new human beings, we set off exploring the city intending to spend the day in a 'museum spaz'. Sadly, this did not occur as easily as we had hoped as two of the museums were undergoing refurbishment. Next to the disappointingly bare Museum of Ceramics, we found the House of Windows - an old colonial mansion that housed a collection of items preserved from a Sevillian family who moved from Spain in the nineteenth century. Our favourite room contained a tall, four poster bed that had steps to climb onto it and was surrounded by a dark red material. We did not like it as much once the bat, the latest incarnation of the house's previous owner we decided, flew at our heads... After our narrow escape from the bat, we continued our exploration of the town admiring the old mansions with their light, airy courtyards before returning to our posada to eat and discovering some incredible, trashy thriller novel on the shared bookcase, which we MUST finish before we leave tomorrow evening...
This morning, we woke up early with the prospect of a day trip around Falcon state. Our guide, who we still don´t know the name of despite spending nearly 11 hours with, drove us north to the Peninsula Paraguana into a unexpected desert area lasting about 30 kms and consisting of endless sanddunes. After spending some time wandering around on the sand and feeling slightly as though we were in Dubai rather than Venezuela, we returned to the car and continued our journey north. Our next stop was the shrine of Anima de Guasare, a small building with an inside festooned with photos of cars, families, children, houses and graduation ceremonies. Apparently, in 1912 during a period of famine and drought a family died on this spot on their journey from Punto Fijo to Coro. Now, many people visit this site to ask a favour of the spirits of the family, promising to leave a gift of a candle or a photograph of their request should this favour be granted.
Once we had left the crowded building, we drove a short way until we reached a nature reserve called Montecano that contains several species of plants found nowhere else in the world. We walked for about an hour along a trail that led us through trees strung with a plant called barba de palo, a kind of funghi or algae that creates a symbiotic relationship with the plant that it grows on. These trees gave the whole area the feeling that we were walking through the setting of a fairy tale, or an elven glade in 'Lord of the Rings'. We left the reserve and set of to Pueblo Nuevo for lunch, our guide delighting us when he not only found out the name and singer of our favourite reggaeton song, but also bought us the pirate copy of a whole CD!
From lunch, we got back in the car - not nearly as bad as the jeep from Los Llanos, especially as there were only two of us, the seats faced forwards and there was aircon... We drove for about forty-five minutes until we reached the coast and a lighthouse at the northern point of Venezuela. From here, we took the same road back a little until we stopped at the strange, pinky purple lake we had passed on the way up. The salt lake, pink from the amount of sodium in the water, is home to many flamingoes, who come here to eat the large number of shrimps that get trapped here every morning by the retreating tide. The lake is incredible - the pink water contrasted with the bright blue sky and all around the edge there were large, white salt crystals in chunks. We spent a long time attempting to take pictures of flamingoes through a pair of binoculars, but to no avail. Afterwards, we set off to the beach for a short swim before heading back to the posada.
Tomorrow, we will spend the day in Coro before getting the night bus to Caracas for our final day in Venezuela. We are both excited to see Nelson again.
Love Alice and Hannah.
After we had showered and changed, and feeling very much like brand new human beings, we set off exploring the city intending to spend the day in a 'museum spaz'. Sadly, this did not occur as easily as we had hoped as two of the museums were undergoing refurbishment. Next to the disappointingly bare Museum of Ceramics, we found the House of Windows - an old colonial mansion that housed a collection of items preserved from a Sevillian family who moved from Spain in the nineteenth century. Our favourite room contained a tall, four poster bed that had steps to climb onto it and was surrounded by a dark red material. We did not like it as much once the bat, the latest incarnation of the house's previous owner we decided, flew at our heads... After our narrow escape from the bat, we continued our exploration of the town admiring the old mansions with their light, airy courtyards before returning to our posada to eat and discovering some incredible, trashy thriller novel on the shared bookcase, which we MUST finish before we leave tomorrow evening...
This morning, we woke up early with the prospect of a day trip around Falcon state. Our guide, who we still don´t know the name of despite spending nearly 11 hours with, drove us north to the Peninsula Paraguana into a unexpected desert area lasting about 30 kms and consisting of endless sanddunes. After spending some time wandering around on the sand and feeling slightly as though we were in Dubai rather than Venezuela, we returned to the car and continued our journey north. Our next stop was the shrine of Anima de Guasare, a small building with an inside festooned with photos of cars, families, children, houses and graduation ceremonies. Apparently, in 1912 during a period of famine and drought a family died on this spot on their journey from Punto Fijo to Coro. Now, many people visit this site to ask a favour of the spirits of the family, promising to leave a gift of a candle or a photograph of their request should this favour be granted.
Once we had left the crowded building, we drove a short way until we reached a nature reserve called Montecano that contains several species of plants found nowhere else in the world. We walked for about an hour along a trail that led us through trees strung with a plant called barba de palo, a kind of funghi or algae that creates a symbiotic relationship with the plant that it grows on. These trees gave the whole area the feeling that we were walking through the setting of a fairy tale, or an elven glade in 'Lord of the Rings'. We left the reserve and set of to Pueblo Nuevo for lunch, our guide delighting us when he not only found out the name and singer of our favourite reggaeton song, but also bought us the pirate copy of a whole CD!
From lunch, we got back in the car - not nearly as bad as the jeep from Los Llanos, especially as there were only two of us, the seats faced forwards and there was aircon... We drove for about forty-five minutes until we reached the coast and a lighthouse at the northern point of Venezuela. From here, we took the same road back a little until we stopped at the strange, pinky purple lake we had passed on the way up. The salt lake, pink from the amount of sodium in the water, is home to many flamingoes, who come here to eat the large number of shrimps that get trapped here every morning by the retreating tide. The lake is incredible - the pink water contrasted with the bright blue sky and all around the edge there were large, white salt crystals in chunks. We spent a long time attempting to take pictures of flamingoes through a pair of binoculars, but to no avail. Afterwards, we set off to the beach for a short swim before heading back to the posada.
Tomorrow, we will spend the day in Coro before getting the night bus to Caracas for our final day in Venezuela. We are both excited to see Nelson again.
Love Alice and Hannah.
Friday, 17 July 2009
WE have just got bak from our four day safari in Los Llanos. We started the trip with a horrible winding journey in a kind of jeep through the mountains, on which I actually threw up... Luckily it got better as we stopped at a condor station to see some condors - huge, majestic vultures that are emblematic of the Andes - which are being reintroduced in Venezuela as they were at one point extinct. We also went for a walk through the mountains, where it was actually freezing cold and very misty and atmospheric! We ate lunch in a little wooden restaurant high in the hills, where we enjoyed delicious trout, a speciality of Merida.
After a lot more driving we eventually arrived at our first posada in Barinitas, a town near Los Llanos. Here we got to do white water rafting which was so fun!! ALice even got to go in a little canoe to get the action up close! We got very, very, very wet and screeched a lot as we tumbled through the rapids. Once we had dried off and calmed down, we had a delicious meal of Llanos beef.
The next day we set off in the bloody jeep again and headed for the plains, entering Apure state. It started to get a lot hotter and a lot flatter, with vast, green plains and an endless horizon, dotted everywhere with beautiful, white, angular cows, the main livestock raised by the Llaneros. Finally we arrived at our camp, a very rustic place in the middle of nowhere, shaded by two enormous mango trees where the mangoes fell like grenades with terrifying thumps in the night! On our first afternoon there we were taken by our jokes giude, Howard, on a boat trip through the marshy river, where we saw snakes, beautiful birds, caimans and huge, pink river dolphins blowing air. It also rained torrentially, and my hands and arms went numb for hours! After the usual delicious dinner, we went to sleep in our big dorm, where the ludicrously touchy feely Spanish couple had somehow managed to stick two beds together, making us rather anxious about any non-mango-related bumps in the night..
The next day we went on our first safari out into the plains, where the guides managed to catch an anaconda for us to touch! The anacondas are huge, muscular constrictors, and we could see an awkward lump in the middle of this one where it had just swallowed its lunch! We also saw herds of adorable capybara, enormous guinea pig-like rodents with big fat bums which I fell in love with! Howard told us that if a llanero girl has a nice arse, they call it a 'capybara butt'...
In the afternoon we went horseriding, and I was given the most mental horse who just wanted to gallop the whole way, so that was lots of fun (I really want to start riding again now). We trekked through the marshy land in burning sun, and saw a cute anteater sleeping in a palm tree. Again, we saw hundreds of species of incredible birds, including neon scarlett ibises, brightly coloured falcons, the world's oldest breed of bird, and the world's biggest stork.
That night a joropo band (a kind of Venezuelan blue grass with a harp, cuatro and maracas) came to play at the camp, and all the guides got drunk and the women went round dancing withevery available man. Afterwards, with our questionably compos mentis guide, we went on a night safari. Alice and I rode on planks on the top of the jeep, watching caiman eyes glowing in the water. This crazy guy waded into the pitch black water with bare feet and only my crappy torch as a light, and snatched up a baby caiman, which Alice and I held with glee! We also saw another anteater, and another crazy guy got out of the jeep and chased it until the anteater reared up with its arms splayed and did a kind of lairy defenive dance, in the style of, 'come and have a go if you think you're hard enough'. So funny, and completely unexpected!
The next morning we got up with heavy hearts at the prospect of another day in the godforsaken jeep... Luckily we were rewarded when we returned to Merida with a lovely meal out with our friends from the posada and the trip, followed by cocktails in a rammed, improvisatory bar that seemed to basically be someone's living room. We are having one last day in Merida before (hopefully) heading to Coro tonight.
Love Hannah and Alice
After a lot more driving we eventually arrived at our first posada in Barinitas, a town near Los Llanos. Here we got to do white water rafting which was so fun!! ALice even got to go in a little canoe to get the action up close! We got very, very, very wet and screeched a lot as we tumbled through the rapids. Once we had dried off and calmed down, we had a delicious meal of Llanos beef.
The next day we set off in the bloody jeep again and headed for the plains, entering Apure state. It started to get a lot hotter and a lot flatter, with vast, green plains and an endless horizon, dotted everywhere with beautiful, white, angular cows, the main livestock raised by the Llaneros. Finally we arrived at our camp, a very rustic place in the middle of nowhere, shaded by two enormous mango trees where the mangoes fell like grenades with terrifying thumps in the night! On our first afternoon there we were taken by our jokes giude, Howard, on a boat trip through the marshy river, where we saw snakes, beautiful birds, caimans and huge, pink river dolphins blowing air. It also rained torrentially, and my hands and arms went numb for hours! After the usual delicious dinner, we went to sleep in our big dorm, where the ludicrously touchy feely Spanish couple had somehow managed to stick two beds together, making us rather anxious about any non-mango-related bumps in the night..
The next day we went on our first safari out into the plains, where the guides managed to catch an anaconda for us to touch! The anacondas are huge, muscular constrictors, and we could see an awkward lump in the middle of this one where it had just swallowed its lunch! We also saw herds of adorable capybara, enormous guinea pig-like rodents with big fat bums which I fell in love with! Howard told us that if a llanero girl has a nice arse, they call it a 'capybara butt'...
In the afternoon we went horseriding, and I was given the most mental horse who just wanted to gallop the whole way, so that was lots of fun (I really want to start riding again now). We trekked through the marshy land in burning sun, and saw a cute anteater sleeping in a palm tree. Again, we saw hundreds of species of incredible birds, including neon scarlett ibises, brightly coloured falcons, the world's oldest breed of bird, and the world's biggest stork.
That night a joropo band (a kind of Venezuelan blue grass with a harp, cuatro and maracas) came to play at the camp, and all the guides got drunk and the women went round dancing withevery available man. Afterwards, with our questionably compos mentis guide, we went on a night safari. Alice and I rode on planks on the top of the jeep, watching caiman eyes glowing in the water. This crazy guy waded into the pitch black water with bare feet and only my crappy torch as a light, and snatched up a baby caiman, which Alice and I held with glee! We also saw another anteater, and another crazy guy got out of the jeep and chased it until the anteater reared up with its arms splayed and did a kind of lairy defenive dance, in the style of, 'come and have a go if you think you're hard enough'. So funny, and completely unexpected!
The next morning we got up with heavy hearts at the prospect of another day in the godforsaken jeep... Luckily we were rewarded when we returned to Merida with a lovely meal out with our friends from the posada and the trip, followed by cocktails in a rammed, improvisatory bar that seemed to basically be someone's living room. We are having one last day in Merida before (hopefully) heading to Coro tonight.
Love Hannah and Alice
Monday, 13 July 2009
After our last blog, we set out on what we had planned to be a quiet, chilled out meal. How very wrong we were... We ended up in a small cafe with an insane waiter who was determined to use us to practise his English insisting, with many leaps, bounds and smiles that we let him take a photo of us before asking seriously "do you LIKE it??" and the question "Do you love me?!". After we returned, slightly hysterical from our experience, we chilled in the posada with Chris and the group of English boys we had termed the 'GBG' or 'Guide Book Guys' in Caracas due to their helpless, bewildered and disenchanted manner as they wandered blankly around Parque Central.
The next morning, we woke up early to go horse riding in the Andes. After a slightly traumatic journey involving a taxi driver who had as little idea of where we were trying to go and an exhausting uphill walk, we arrived at a beautiful, isolated farm. Jackie, the owner of the farm is originally French and passionate about his job. We set off, me slightly terrified of my first time on a horse, along the narrow, winding mountain trails. The scenery was breathtaking with lush, green mountains interspersed with the clouds that drifted between them. We stopped for lunch once we were out of the valley - homemade cheese, bread and salad, before setting back along the same route. When we arrived back at the farm, Hannah spent a while bonding with the cat whilst we chatted with the Spanairds who had accompanied us before beginning our return journey. When we had finally returned to Merida, we ate dinner at a restaurant in the south of the city which was probably the classiest place we`ve been so far! We had the best salmon we've ever tasted, and literally buckets of pina colada whilst a jazz band played in the corner. We followed this up with more cocktails in a slightly less classy place called Bananas...
Yesterday we visited Heladeria Coromoto, in the Guinness Book of Records for having the most flavours of ice cream - including meat, beer and shrimp! And now we are just about to leave for a four day safari into Los Llanos, the plains of Venezuela...
Love Alice and Hannah
The next morning, we woke up early to go horse riding in the Andes. After a slightly traumatic journey involving a taxi driver who had as little idea of where we were trying to go and an exhausting uphill walk, we arrived at a beautiful, isolated farm. Jackie, the owner of the farm is originally French and passionate about his job. We set off, me slightly terrified of my first time on a horse, along the narrow, winding mountain trails. The scenery was breathtaking with lush, green mountains interspersed with the clouds that drifted between them. We stopped for lunch once we were out of the valley - homemade cheese, bread and salad, before setting back along the same route. When we arrived back at the farm, Hannah spent a while bonding with the cat whilst we chatted with the Spanairds who had accompanied us before beginning our return journey. When we had finally returned to Merida, we ate dinner at a restaurant in the south of the city which was probably the classiest place we`ve been so far! We had the best salmon we've ever tasted, and literally buckets of pina colada whilst a jazz band played in the corner. We followed this up with more cocktails in a slightly less classy place called Bananas...
Yesterday we visited Heladeria Coromoto, in the Guinness Book of Records for having the most flavours of ice cream - including meat, beer and shrimp! And now we are just about to leave for a four day safari into Los Llanos, the plains of Venezuela...
Love Alice and Hannah
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