When I left DC to fly to Port of Spain, it was shortly after DC got a hideous snowstorm. I would not say DC handles snow well in the best of times, and this was definitely not the best of times. There was a substantial amount of snow followed immediately by sleet, leading to an impenetrable ice crust over all the fallen snow. When I left for the airport three days later, the roads and sidewalks hadn’t really been cleared. My walk to the metro was a bit harrowing, and packing so that I didn’t have to lug around a huge coat and snow boots yet I didn’t freeze on my way to the airport was a careful balance. Once I got on my plane and started heading south, it was a huge relief!
I landed in Port of Spain shortly after midnight and met up with my friends. We had rented a car so that we could properly explore the island. Once we had a good night of sleep and had found some breakfast, we headed out.
Our first stop was the Asa Wright Nature Center! As it turns out, we should have made a reservation before we headed out, as that is apparently required. Instead, we had to park outside the gate, call their main office, and hope they would let us in, so…. my pro tip would be to plan better than us. Thankfully, they did have space.
The Asa Wright Nature Center was the one place from Trinidad and Tobago that was in my Lonely Planet 500 Ultimate Places book, which is why we started there. It’s a nature preserve that is particularly well-known for birdwatching. It has over 250 species of birds there and we certainly saw some cool ones during our visit. I’ve always particularly loved hummingbirds and we saw a lot of different species of those.
We also did a light hike out from the property. If the ground hadn’t been so muddy, we probably would’ve gone farther. It sounds like they also have guided walks and tours of the property, which would’ve been cool if we had been a little more strategic about our visit.
I had a nice visit to the Asa Wright Nature Center, and I would recommend it as a half day trip out from Port of Spain, especially if you coordinate it in advance to go for one of the tours. I thought it was a good way to see another side of Trinidad besides the city – the drive out to Asa Wright was stunning, and I liked our time birdwatching.
We headed back into the city and went to a lookout point that unfortunately was mostly closed off, but we did find an angle where you could mostly see Port of Spain. Trinidad is very interesting relative to the rest of the Caribbean. It is substantially less touristy, and it’s one of the wealthiest countries in the Caribbean because it’s mostly focused on industry. The majority of that comes from natural gas and oil, and then there is a lot of shipping that goes through the Port of Port of Spain (which is so funny to see written, by the way). You can see that port in pretty much every picture I have of the city’s skyline.
We met up with a few friends for drinks at a rooftop bar, then we headed back into the city to go to Queen’s Park Savannah. It was time for Carnival!
Trinidad is known for its Carnival, and while we weren’t there for the main weekend of it, it actually has quite a few more events than just the two days before Ash Wednesday. The events go on for about a month! I know it wasn’t the full experience, but I was glad to get at least a taste of what Trinidad has to offer during Carnival. I’d love to go to the main event – I firmly believe that Trinidadians can throw some of the best parties in the entire world. I’m not sure I can keep up, but it does seem like it would be fun to try.
The next day, we headed to the beach! This is truly the point where I was so thankful that we weren’t in a particularly touristy part of the Caribbean, because it was such a chill, relaxing day.
We stayed until sunset and then headed back into the city. We met up with a friend of Matt’s for drinks. One brief aside. When Latifeh and I ordered cider or beer, they served it with a straw and carefully wrapped a napkin around it. Although I thought it was strange to serve beer with a straw, I assumed that was just how they served it. But then when the men also ordered beer and they came out normally, I realized this was just something they were doing for us as women! I found it rather charming.
The next day, it was time to head to the airport!
I definitely enjoyed my time in Trinidad. Outside of coming back for the main part of Carnival, I have also heard great things about Tobago and would be interested in going there – that seems like more of the natural beauty side of the country, and has a little more tourist infrastructure from what I’ve heard. On that note, off to Guyana!