Tobago November 13
It has been many years since I have been to Tobago. My old family once spent a Christmas and New Year in Charlotteville, on Man o’ War Bay. I swore I would come back someday. Today we will get close but only as far as the village of Roxborough. “Congeniality Trip #2: Buccoo, Tobago“ is how it was pitched to me by Hazel at school, and I immediately forked over the $1800 TT, or about $275 USD, including two nights at the Reef View Apartments in Buccoo, our base camp for exploration.
There is only one ferry currently operating between the two islands of this nation. The new ferry doesn’t fit the port. One ferry has been re-tooled and is working just fine—in Greece. For reasons unexplained, the fleet of water-taxis have fallen into disrepair, neglected for years, until they are sold to faraway ports. Public pressure finally caused the port authority to acquire a new state-of-the art vessel, but it is too big for our facilities. Unless you are willing to swim to it, the ferry is useless, so the capital city is stuck with one sketchy ship, requiring registration weeks in advance for the 2-hour crossing. Fortunately, there is air travel.
Before Venezuela unraveled, the Caracas hub provided regular flights between Port of Spain and Crown Point. Now only one company, Caribbean Airlines, makes the 20-minute puddle-jump to Tobago. Flights leave every hour, but this is a slender connective thread for a struggling nation. Should Caribbean Air go belly up, and should our last ferry go down under, the two island ecosystems may just go their separate, disconnected ways.
The differences between the islands are already pronounced. Bio-geographically, the Caribbean islands begin with Tobago—Trinidad, meanwhile, is an ancient South American peninsula. The geologic plates, the terrestrial biota, the culture, accents, and vibes are all separate. If Trini faces exude chilly indifference toward strangers, Tobagonians beam with warmth, welcome, and curiosity. Trinidad’s million come from many points of the globe, the vast majority by force, which is a curiosity in itself; whereas, Tobago’s 80,000 descend almost entirely from an African ethnicity that fought its way to freedom. The dialects differ in slang and accent, Tobago English being more representative of Dee Islunds. Trinidad’s urbanity versus Tobago’s pastoral mood proves the starkest difference—one embeds glass shards in security walls, the other does not even lock the doors. The crime and the grime, the testiness and the meanness, the post-colonial angst that characterize the big island—these are absent on Tobago. Life is seen as simple on the little island, where all are welcome to share the bounty. Consequently, tourists do not visit Port of Spain but to catch the next flight to Crown Point.
Buccoo is 15 minutes from the airport. It is the friendliest dog-village I have ever visited. After nine, the tiny downtown has more dogs than people—skinny, with scars and limps, tails wagging, eyes pleading. These survival adaptations draw me toward them in a way naturally-selected for both of us. A reddish hound dog with a rib cage as exposed as a beach girl’s Bamsie, takes me to a Soca DJ leading a couple dozen enthusiastic dancers in a parking lot. I think my hound buddy wants me to ask the dancers for some free food, although he doesn’t say as much.
In the center of town, an illuminated grandstand overlooks an oddly elongated sporting pitch, a narrow grass track headed by whitewashed wooden starting gates. The facilities are remarkably well tended considering there is only one major event held here per year—the Easter Tuesday Goat Races. 2019 will be the 94th running of the obstreperous animals, and, despite the ridiculous idea of watching “jockeys“ in white shorts and plaid vests chasing goats with a stick, Tobagonians take the sport seriously. Bets are placed, inside information is coveted, studs sell for a fortune, and the crowds rally from all over for the occasion. Goat racing is said to be Buccoo’s answer to Carnival, yet the winin’ debauchery does not begin in earnest until after the event, at a dancehall called Sunday School, where the blood of Christ is served with bitter spirits on the rocks.
It is hard to imagine a throng getting excited about goat-racing. Horses and greyhounds may cherish their work on the track, pleasing the master with a job well done, but no one would ever accuse a goat of singleminded commitment to excellence. If anything, the sound of a starting gun is likely motivate an escape, and some races do indeed end prematurely when one rogue darts diagonally and takes out the field. Like Nascar, it may be that most spectators attend goat races simply for the spectacular crashes.
My friend Ferdy notes that the restaurant across the street, a nice one with outdoor seating, is serving goat. This might be the ultimate incentive for a goat to strive for more, and perhaps become one of the lucky ones that retires to a stud farm. But this is only if the goat wins the race. In a field of losers, we find dinner. This might even be the ulterior motive for “jockeys“ whipping them with sticks—not for the straight sprint to the finish, but for meat tenderization.
Within a half-hour, our rented van traverses the mountainous spine of the island, from the western Caribbean side to the eastern Atlantic side, and the seaside village of Roxborough, a former cocoa estate. On the way, we pass Mount St. George Cemetery, in which the sign points down from the edge of the coastal road, as if one simply hurls the copses off a cliff. Life in these little towns are muy tranquilo, evening noise curfews are self-enforced, the limin’ is mellow. The few businesses are in various states of closure, and some effort is required to locate the working kitchens. Lunch today consists of: stewed eddo, dasheen, and potato, served in calabash bowls; dirty rice containing wild game with incredibly tiny bones; and, the national favorite, curried crab and dumplings, served in a savory yellow sauce. No one starves here. The dense dumplings alone could feed an army.
In the interior of the old estate, bamboo and almond retake the terrain, and the cocoa trees go wild. The green-yellow fruit of Cocoa Theobroma look like acorn squashes and jut straight out of the tree trunk. Parrots find the gooey white pulp irresistible, creating a scourge for the farmers, in a fading chocolate economy. From one branch, a Mot Mot dangles its bulbous blue tail feathers like a grandfather clock. An agouti hops around the underbrush imitating a Teddy Bear. A central attraction is Argyle Falls, the tallest on the island at 54 m, with a series of terraced drops, finally plunging into a 20-foot pool, although the murky green water hides the true depth. Trailhead admission is $30 TT for citizens and $60 for everyone else. My alien status is confirmed with a glance.
Back at basecamp, the Buccoo Reef is steadily dying, as are all reefs, but only those with a history here can tell. To the first-time visitor, this coral reef ecosystem is as pristine as the first day of creation. Departing on a double-decker wooden boat with a glass bottom, I grab a snorkel but fail to find fins, resulting immediately in mishap—blood in the water. I have kicked a star coral (fortunately not a venomous white-tipped red coral), and my toes have suddenly become chum for saucer-shaped parrotfish. Since the law prohibits even touching the coral, my offense is undoubtedly deportable.
“Crappo smoke yuh pipe, Red Man,“ says Captain Phillips (no relation), examining my superficial wound as if he has seen it a thousand times before. His kind eyes say that Red Man is not a pejorative.
“I beg your pardon?“
“Soak in the salt whoot-ah.“ The toothy boatman spits on my foot when he talks, reciting the standard treatment for abrasions, somehow under the mistaken impression that the sea is a sterile environment. Not yet, Cap, but give it time. Across the wide cove is a desolate stretch of beach and jungle called No Man’s Land, which requires swimming to reach. Soon Sandals Resorts Complex will begin construction there of an exclusive, all-included community, with gates and white linen, in the next stage of paradise’s ruin.
Before it all ends, we lounge in Nylon Pool, a giant sandbar at the edge of the reef. The shallow water is as blue as a berry, the sand as white as cream. The name is attributed to Princess Margaret, who famously described the water as being as “clear as a pair of nylons.“
The saucy royal was clearly speaking the proper language, to which Captain Phillips toasts, with a shot of rum, his irrepressible love of life, and especially women: “Monkey know which tree to climb.“ There are not yet monkeys on Tobago.