We hadn’t really come up with what we wanted to do here in Trinidad, and looked at a few choices through the ship, but the first couple we looked at turned out to be sold out. (Although in hindsight, after talking with people that were on those trips, they may not have been that great anyways). So we decided to go to Maracas Beach, which was billed as one of the great beaches of the world. Taxiing there on our own was supposedly fairly pricey, so we went with the ship tour, although from the description that was supposed to be via a taxi anyways. Got off the ship and discovered that rather than a taxi they had a small bus for us complete with guide. This did seem to really annoy one couple, but to me it seemed reasonable. It also meant that instead of the unguided trip we expected, we did get some highlights of the city as we drove through, including going by the seven magnificent mansions or whatever they call them. Maybe at one point they were magnificent, but these days most of them are really in bad repair and aren’t really anything worth seeing. Although they did show some signs of there being an effort to renovate them and bring them back to their former states.
Getting to Maracas Beach involves going over the northern mountain range in Trinidad, following some very narrow twisty roads. Not sure exactly how high we got, but wouldn’t surprise me if we cleared 1500-2000 feet, which isn’t really something I’d expect in a Caribbean island. Drop back to sea level and you get to the beach. At first glance it seemed like a decent beach, a little bit of waves. It was pretty deceiving, and to be honest, I’m not overly convinced that it’s a good swimming beach. The waves coming in were coupled with a pretty violent undertow. Standing in anything more than about mid-thigh deep you could really get bounced around by the surf. Cathy managed to get hit with a pretty good wave that took her glasses right off, which needless to say weren’t ever found. (Why she was wearing them at that point is beyond me.) I got hit with a wave that ended up coming in at about 2 feet higher than me and it completely knocked me over, under the water. Was not a real pleasant experience. If you were careful on how deep you got it wasn’t too bad, but even then, you had to expend a lot of energy to stay in place. We had 2 hours at the beach, but that was really more than was needed given the conditions. As for a top beach in the world, eh, I don’t think I’d really rate it there. Personally I think I’ve been to several that I think I’d rate higher.
After that it was back to town to get to the ship. Walked through the craft market outside the port, and we did decide to pick up a small steel drum. Trinidad is apparently where the whole steel drum thing started.
Leaving port involves going down what looks to be a pretty narrow channel. The buoys marking the channel didn’t look to be too far to either side of the ship, and there certainly wouldn’t be room for two way traffic through there. What also struck me is that there also seems to be a lot of wrecks in the area outside the channel. You could see quite a few, which also implies just how shallow the area was, but It really didn’t look like they were making any effort to clean these wrecks up. Surprising, since at least one that we passed was clearly leaking fuel or oil, we actually passed through the slick while transiting the channel and you could smell it from the top deck of the ship.