EXPLORING THE WORLD: TRINIDAD TOTALLY CAPTIVATES AND A FIREHOUSE VISIT!

Caribbean Princess
Saturday, February 4, 2023
Port of Spain, Trinidad
82F, sunny!

The port of Port of Spain, Trinidad, as seen from
the Sky Walk--the Caribbean Princess

The Port of Spain, Trinidad awoke us this morning. Trinidad and Tobago, together a dual island nation, are the two southernmost islands in the Caribbean chain, just 7 miles from Venezuela. The nation of 1 ½ million people has a high-income economy as deemed by the World Bank. Because of the petroleum industry here, the country’s wealth is attributed to its large reserves of oil and natural gas. The country is not dependent on cruise ships and only one cruise ship at a time may dock here.

Trinidad and Tobago are recognized for the origin of not only the steelpan around 1880, but also calypso music and the limbo! Two Miss Worlds and one Miss Universe were from Trinidad and Tobago! This small nation has also produced several Olympian medalists.

We decided to walk through part of this metropolitan city—the wide sidewalks, respect for pedestrians, a skywalk to cross a busy street, and public art along the way were very impressive. Our only other visit to Trinidad on January 22, 2009, when we met Donna, Lawrence, Brian, Nancy, Colin, Gwenda, and many others who all became great friends. At that time we took a phenomenal tour,

The naiton of Trinidad and Tobago commemorates their 50th anniversary

in 2012 with these cast metal panels depicting various aspects

of their history and culture

Parliament Building

Two more panels on the Parliament Building

Closeup--they are proud of their sports achievements

Traffic as seen from the Sky Walk

The 2030 vision of Trinidad and Tobago

I really appreciate their themes!

www. planning.gov.tt

There were two “malls,” reminiscent of Erie’s downtown mall at 18^th and Peach many years ago. The streets were bustling with tourists, vendors, and wonderful aromas of breads (roti—a flatbread we tried on our first trip here) and traditional foods of Trinidad, like Bake and Shark (fried dough filled with fried shark and various toppings). Sadly, we cannot experiment with different foods, but they smelled good.

The heat was getting to us, so we hailed a taxi to take us back to the ship. TK asked if there was a Starbucks---indeed there was one beyond the ship. TK bought a Trinidad and Tobago coffee cup to go with our wonderful collection of Starbucks cups from the Caribbean, Europe, and the States. Back at the ship, TK walked to the nearby firehouse to maybe find a t-shirt (they did not have one, he gave them an Erie FD patch).

I caught this firetruck returning to its station near the port

It is my pleasure to capture our visit to Port of Spain from Deck 15 overlooking this charming city.

FROM 2009:

Our final stop was a small shop (http://www.legacycarnival.com/) that made and sold Mardi Gras attire. The colors were astounding—feathers of reds, greens, blues, gold, yellows, peacock feathers, like the photo in this post. Women were sewing the intricately detailed headdresses. I was so lucky to try one on and Tim snapped a photo. The shop’s items are sold all over the world and the headpiece I tried on was priced about $300.

From the Jan 22, 2009 blog:

a Carnival (Mardi Gras) headpiece

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After dinner--

Culinary highlight tonight was wild berry cobbler with vanilla ice cream.

After dinner we headed up to Deck 16 for tonight's movie, Tolkien. We both liked the movie and I remarked that I would like to reread The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. Many of the movie's scenes were set in the Somme, a terrible battle of World War I. The war's influence on his writing is obvious.

Preparing to watch Tolkien

with the gorgeous full moon highlighting the night sky

TK's Takes: It was a nice gesture to see "ambassadors" in red shirts as we walked to the downtown area, assuring us we were going in the right direction and answering any questions.