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The Scarlet Ibis
Trinidad's national bird, the Scarlet Ibis gets its beautiful colouring from eating foods high in a certain mineral, much like flamingos. Time for another blog spot. There are those whom have been badgering me for some time now to post more of my travels. Now that my last wave of papers and presentations has past, I have the time. I do study and work while I’m down here, but do you really want me to talk about that?
And so I will start with Easter. Carlos, Abbie and I went down to the Wild Foul Trust to stay with my roommate, Isaiah, at his second home. We left Port of Spain for Point-a-Pierre, the bus cost about 65 cents and took us all but 2 blocks from the place, it's a good drive too. We stayed in a nice little duplex on a lake with cayman and tons of birds. His home and the preserve are located within an oil refinery, Petrotrin. I went there the first week I arrived, but this time we had free reign to do as we wished.
Saturday, we hitched a ride to the Trust and went on tour. We snapped lots of photos and had lunch in a big bamboo and palm hut, good times. Mitch, a friend from hall, picked us up and
Isaiah's Backyard
Isaiah had a pretty nice pad, two level duplex, 2 bdr, 1 bath with a nice big common room, fenced in backyard with patio, coconut trees, mango and banana trees and more. Note the black skimmer fishing near the water hyancinth. Isaiah's a naturalist. took us out for dinner that night and showed up the next morning for a trip to the pool. The refinery is a bit like a private country club, once you’re a member you have access to everything. There’s a yuppie clubhouse with gravel tennis courts, a pool and golf course. They’ve been working on it a lot lately, blows Turtleback out of the water, until you see the course. Those have to be the worst greens I have ever seen. But the pool was nice, and that’s what we were there for. Afterwards, we took a drive through some afternoon showers and ended up in San Fernando, the only city in the south. It was a nice drive, ended up back home in time to catch a ride from Abbie’s brother home.
Easter Monday, Steph and Travis and I went up to Mt. Saint Benedicts to hike up the rest of the mountain and explore the forest. Turns out a good majority of it is the remnants of an old pine plantation that the church use to, or still does, watch over. We ran into a group of people practicing some kind of martial art, or it may
White Egrets
A little skittish, these guys took off as soon as we looked at them. There was 30 ft of water between the two of us. have been stick fighting. Never really could tell. There aren’t any dangerous snakes or insects in the area and Trinidad doesn’t have any type of large predators, but there are killer bees. So I kept an eye out as best I could. We reached the summit quick enough and followed a ridge to a point where the foliage became very thick. I stepped in a ways and then a siren went off. I had no idea what was going on, stepped back a ways and looked to my right only to see that it was a bird. Yeah, I know…honestly, it sounded just like a siren. Not sure what kind of bird it was. Things eventually got too thick to bare, we turned around and backtracked, climbed the fire outlook tower where we ate our lunch, and began heading back to hall.
Tuesday, I ended up going with Patrick, his mom and little brother, Charlie, to Maracus. We took the regular maxi there instead of renting one this time; it was quite the adventure. I’d never been to Port of Spain that early in the morning on a regular work day before, that’s one city full of hustle and
Dangerous Walkway!
Only birds allowed out there, everything is built for the wiry old workers to climb around on. bustle. The ride was exciting as always with a bonus tour of the route through the savannah our band played for J’ouvert. Brought back some nice memories. We stopped for gas, which turned out to be fun, Patrick and I pseudo translated what was happening to his mom and brother, who couldn’t understand much of anything that came out of the locals mouths. Must say, I wasn’t any better my first few weeks, especially with my ear infection. Now I just about always get enough to understand what’s going on, if not hear everything. Give me a hard time if you want, but I’ll have you listen to a few songs when I get back, and then see if you understand a single word of it.
After that I really buckled down to write papers, finish up my tamboo bamboo project and GIS project and take a couple tests before my break going into finals week.
The weekend after all that Lauren, Isaiah and I went to Kezia’s farm outside of Arima, just East a ways from where I live. Her parent’s raise pigs, geese and ducks along with having an orange orchard and various other fruit trees.
Lotus Flowers
These flowers are enormous, they have to thin them out in the lake every week or two. The lotus is native to India, so it's a bit of an invasive. The pictures say it all. Shivana, Gayatri and Lennon, along with Kezia, all went to the UW – Madison last semester, so the trip was our last get together before heading home. Her family made quite the meal. Check out the pics. They have an orange orchard (3 kinds), plantains, guava, bananas (2 or 3 kinds, also known as figs), eggplant, calaloo plants, Portugal's, sugar cane, grapefruit, some hybrids, few types of mangoes and more crazy stuff I don't remember the names of. Good times, they sent everybody home with a bag of oranges and mangoes are coming into season again in the back of hall along with sapodillas, a nice fruit that tastes like pear and maple syrup. If everything works out as planned, I’ll be staying a few days at Kezia’s before heading to Tobago for my last two weeks to hang out with a few friends from home and friends made over the school year. I know Kyle, Brett and Jordan are looking forward to heading south after a winter in Duluth. I cant wait myself!
I miss you all, thanks to everyone who’s sent emails and comments about my blog, gives me a little taste
Hawaiian Torch Ginger...
I think that's what it is anyway, the leaves come out of the ground instead of around the stem of the flower and tower over the flower, pretty cool. of home. All in all my semester has been great, I hope my last month abroad proves to be the same.
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