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Published: October 24th 2011
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Prayer Flags
There are many Hindu living in Trinidad and you can see numerous prayer flags flying such as can be seen at this residence. Magnificent, lush, green, wet, alive, elegant, relaxing, serene, and vivid are all words that could be used to describe our trip to Asa Wright Nature Reserve in Trinidad. We signed up for an overnight trip to stay at the Asa Wright Nature Reserve. The trip began on Saturday, October 15th at 9:30 AM when we climbed into a van driven by Jesse James, Trinidad tour guide supreme. We heard Jesse’s name from other cruisers hundreds of miles before we even got to Trinidad. For the cruising community he is Trinidad’s number 1 ambassador. His business, Members Only, caters predominantly to cruisers. His primary business is providing transportation to shops but he also is a source of information and assistance - everything from where can I get this part for my boat to emergency medical assistance. The other major part of his business is organizing tours like the one we went on to Asa Wright. He drove us for 2 ½ hours up into the northern range of mountains, answering our questions and teaching us more about Trinidad. He explains the things that we see, but he also is more than willing to answer questions from explaining the school system, property taxes,
What was being grown here?
Jesse wanted us to guess what was growing on the cultivated vines on the mountainside. None of us guessed that it was the christophene. minimum wages (currently is 9 TT per hour which equals $1.50 US). He is even brave enough to touch on politics!
Now back to the trip. We arrived at Asa Wright Nature Reserve around noon with only one short stop to pick up food for later. The nature reserve is at the head of a valley that runs up into the mountains. It was a coffee and cocoa plantation built over 100 years ago. The plantation house is built at the top of the valley looking south out toward the mountains and into the low lands of Trinidad. Our first task was to eat the lunch Jesse had picked up for us, local delicacies of aloo pie (potato pie), sahamee (made of lentils and challoo, a large leaf grown locally), and bignanee (eggplant). After checking into our rooms (we were fortunate enough to have a room in the main house which was constructed over 100 years ago) we had a short guided walk into the rainforest to get a small taste of what was in store for us. It is obvious that the guides are well trained and are eager to share their knowledge with you. The trek into the
The main house
The hallways of the main house were covered with photos of numerous birds and the study had photos of when Prince Charles visited. rainforest was well worth it as the guides not only pointed out the birds but also teach you about the flora and insect life. The biggest problem was being overwhelmed with all the new names and not having a notebook handy to be able to remember them all. We were shown the leaf cutter ants and how they are able to snip off a leaf in seconds with their pincers, the magnificent tropical flowers of the forest and the numerous birds that make this place their home. Luckily for us the video camera has a better zoom than our regular camera so were able to capture many of them complete with the sounds that they make. Now to sort through them and make sense of which one is which! The rain did catch us while on the trail, but fortunately there was a shelter that we could wait out the worst of it. Even with the heavy cover of the forest, the rain was amazingly heavy and the trail quickly became a river of sorts. We made our way up the to the house again and enjoyed watching the numerous birds that were visiting the feeders while we sat on
Asa Wright Mission Statement
The Asa Wright Nature Reserve truly lives up to its mission statement. the veranda. The hummingbirds were even brave enough to fly in to their feeders even when we were sitting only a foot or two from them. At 4PM we were treated to “tea” served with sweet breads, 6PM was time for a rum punch and then 7PM for a 3 course meal.
The next morning we were up early to see the sunrise and waking up with the birds. Time went by quickly while bird watching until our breakfast was served at 7:30AM in their very elegant dining room. Bob was in heaven with bacon, individually prepared omelets and papaya with lime. The guided tour started at 8:45 and lasted until 11:00AM. The main trail is extremely well kept and it was easy walking. Someone in our group thought it would be great fun to go over to see where the old hydroelectric generator used to be. This gave us a taste for what the trails become very quickly when not constantly maintained. The vegetation rapidly takes over any place there is a spot of sun. It was amazing how dense the jungle is with vegetation. At one point without knowing it several of us stepped into an ant trail
What luxury
The room that we stayed in was much bigger than our boat! The true luxury was having a hot shower as the evening was cool in the mountains. As you can see the ceilings were very high – we guessed 12 feet tall. and picked up several very small, very nasty biting ants. Luckily we weren’t far away from a waterfall and some took advantage of soaking their feet in the cool fresh water and alleviating a significant amount of the pain from the bites. The noon lunch was another 3 course meal which we thoroughly enjoyed.
Jesse was to pick us up at 2PM for our return to our boats. With all the rain we had received there had been quite a few landslides due to the rains. We were all enjoying ourselves so much we almost wished Jesse wasn’t such a good driver so we could stay another night. No one in our group were “birders” but this place really made converts of everyone as it was a truly lovely place to spend a weekend. All of us said we would definitely enjoy coming back to enjoy what Asa Wright has to offer - nature at its best!
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