Hiking to nowhere

We have gone out hiking the last two weekends in search of the Covigne River trail.  It should not be this hard to find, but we're 0 for 2 right now.  It's supposed to be a great rugged hike in the national park near us, ending at a waterfall and bathing pool deep in the woods.  Cool, huh?  I'm sure it would be, if we could find it.  We're also thinking this is complicated by the fact that we're in the dry season right now, and so landmarks like stream beds and waterfalls may not actually be there anymore....

Last weekend we did a very hilly 3 hour hike, up to a ridgeline with absolutely no views, due to the dense foliage.  I think we actually found the mythical North Coast Trail, and might have been able to follow it all the way up to some of the northern beaches if we had had time, energy, and more water on our hands.  We did run into a pack of monkey however, which was pretty neat.  We also found some interesting remnants of the American military presence in the park.  Nothing like stumbling upon a creepy ammunition bunker in the middle of the jungle.

Today, after a brief interlude to wander around an old graveyard and church, we found a whole network of trails that led along a dry stream bed.  On the positive side, these trails are totally run-able, and I'd be so excited to do real trails again!  On the negative side, we don't think this was the Covigne trail.   The search continues....

Turkey Day and the TSA

It's that time of year again, when we engage in a time-honored Foreign Service rite:  scrounging up ingredients for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner.   This practice can take several forms, depending on how exotic your current location happens to be.  I rather hope that nothing will top our first post of Mongolia.  In the year before we got there, the community was actually raising live turkeys in the garage of the Deputy Chief of Mission.  Sometimes, I really miss that place.

Overall, we were not in bad shape in Mongolia, because things were so hard to get there that the State Department allowed us to ship a certain amount of food to post, so I carefully planned for enough cranberry sauce, spices, and pumpkin pie filling to last 2 Thanksgivings and 2 Christmases.   I did have to put a bounty out for any form of celery that might have been lurking in Ulaanbaatar, and the community came through with a lead in the end, to my stuffing's relief.   Which brings me to this year....

On the whole, American products are much easier to find here in Trinidad.  Turkey?  It took 3 stores, but we finally snared one.   Cranberry sauce?  If you're wiling to pay $2.50 a can, it's yours!  Canned pumpkin?  That one was proving a bit more challenging.  But one of our friends was heading to the states last week, and he said he'd pick up a few cans for us.

The issues arose when he went to check in for his flight, and was only traveling with a carry-on.  The TSA flagged his bag for liquids and opened it to find our 2 rebellious cans of pumpkin.  Agent #1 was not sure if these cans of pumpkin constituted a threat to our national security and to the plane full of passengers, so he got a supervisor.  Supervisor was also not sure if pumpkin was allowed.  Our friend was asked, is this liquid-y pumpkin filling, or high quality solid pumpkin?  He assured them it was the highest possible quality.  They ran it through the viscosity machine (! seriously, this exists), and determined it could pass.  Victory!  It's the little triumphs that make this life so entertaining....

Tobago Take Two

Sunset over Goat Island and Little Tobago

We've been up to Tobago twice now since we got here.  Though we spent much of those two weekends underwater getting scuba certified, on our last trip we had a chance to enjoy some of the island as well.  Tobago has a completely different feel from Trinidad.  Relatively few people live there, there is little infrastructure, and the water/beaches are much nicer because we're further from the silty Orinoco River currents that hit Trinidad.    We took a day and drove the 15 minutes from Speyside to Charlotteville on the North coast to enjoy Pirate's Bay, one of the nicest beaches in Tobago.  As seems to be the rule here in the Caribbean, we had the place basically to ourselves!

We had a fun mini-hike over a hill and down lots of stairs to the beach.

Backyard bounty

Not only do we have a mango tree in our backyard, it turns out we also have banana trees.  I'm not even sure how many pounds of bananas this is, but I know it's a lot.  Hopefully they ripen at some point....

Run in the Sun

Best race swag ever - doesn't everyone want an ugly sweatband-cum-clock?

Running in Mongolia was hard.  Running in Trinidad is even harder.  This could be why the Caribbean produces so many great sprinters, but has no one above the 400:  you feel ready to drop dead of heatstroke after about a half mile.  I think I have adapted about as much as I am able to after 4 months here, but my family just doesn't run well in the heat, and I am a prime example.    Our running has been pretty minimal since we got here - it's a banner week when I manage to do 4 runs.    All of this is to say that we found ourselves on the start line of a half marathon last weekend rather by accident, and certainly the least prepared that we've ever been before a race.  I blame my boss.

What happened was this:  On a rather slow Friday 3 weeks before the race, my boss came charging into our office and said, "Let's go sign up for a half marathon!  What else do we have to do?"  My colleague and I could not muster up an objection to this, so.... we signed up.  Like a good wife, I roped Andy in as well without his knowledge. 

3 weeks later, we were standing on the starting line at the University of the West Indies at 6 a.m., feeling rather anxious.  At least I was.  Already at 6 here the sun is full up, and we had heard that the course had not a scrap of shade on it.  As an out-and-back, the first 6 miles weren't bad, but we all started to cook as we turned around and headed back under the brutal sun.  Thankfully, the race was well run and had lots of water stops.  Everyone was dousing themselves with bottles of water at each stop.   I was so tired it was tempting to stop and walk, but the longer you remained on the course the more time you spent in the sun, so I kept going.  There were a fair amount of men out racing, but much fewer women.  I ended up 9th among all women with my slowest half marathon time ever, so that tells you something.     As generally awful as the race felt for all of us, by the next day we were already planning for more races.  No one ever said that runners were rational people....

You Only Live Twice

View of Fleming's house on Goat Island

We were on our way out to sea just off the coast of Speyside, Tobago, buffeted by the wind, our boat rocking in unsteady seas.  Our guide, Tanja, was a Swiss master diver with a penchant for adventure; she had lived in Egypt the past four and a half years and was there during the revolution last spring.  She had only been doing her job, and now she was pointing out to us a private house on the island directly across from the hotel room where we spent the past two nights.  There was a legend that came with the large white mansion on Goat Island with its private access to some of the best coral in the world.  Supposedly, it had once been owned by none other than Ian Fleming, the famous British former intelligence agent who went on to write about, you know, that other famous British secret agent.  We would do our first training dive in the same waters Fleming used to snorkel for his daily exercise.

Ecstatic fails to describe our excitement on learning this tidbit.  Could our introduction to scuba diving take place in a more perfect location?  The house dominates the seascape off Speyside.  We had wondered if it had a story as we drove up in the dead of night a couple days before.  And even now, with the roof caving in and the dock falling to ruin, there was an allure to the place, as if there were secrets there lurking beneath the crumbled facade.

Author looking out toward Goat Island from Speyside Inn hotel room

Reality never measures up to the heights of fantasy.  It turns out (according to this website) there is no actual evidence Fleming ever owned Goat Island, but that the idea is more a local legend.  Fleming's more famous estate, Goldeneye, is located in Jamaica.  However, for as little as $3 million, you could own some of the legend that is Bond in Tobago.  The  house is apparently for sale (or at least was in 2006 according to this website).  Personally, I think I'll go with the local legend on this one.  The house looks straight out of a James Bond thriller.  I can picture Scaramanga running through the trees with his golden pistol or Honey Rider emerging from the surf in that famous bikini.  The underwater scuba fight from Thunderball could have taken place in the water just off the shore.

So if anybody asks; yeah, we went diving at Ian Fleming's house.  But don't tell anybody; that's top secret.  And I'll have that vodka martini shaken, not stirred.

The Spice Isle

Andy enjoys his private beachfront.

Grenada is known as the spice island, with many nutmeg and cinnamon plantations covering the hills.  Though after getting walloped by Hurricane Ivan much of the land has been switched to heartier cocoa plants, you simply can't beat the name "the Spice Isle."    We absolutely loved it there.  Andy has already covered our hiking adventure, and I've detailed our brush with running celebrity there, but there was much more to our trip.  Mainly, day after day of nearly empty beaches with soft sand, clear waters, and great snorkeling.  Some of our more memorable moments of the trip:

-  Andy saw an octopus while he was snorkeling, and learned that accidentally kicking a sea urchin really, really hurts.  The last spine finally came out of his foot 2 weeks later.

-  Conch is yummy to eat.  We had conch roti at a great little restaurant right on the harbor.  Yum.

-  Give up any hope of road signs (or at least, accurate road signs) while you're on this island.  We got lost for about an hour on our way home from St. George (usually 15 minutes to our hotel).   Two days later and after consulting several maps, we still have no idea exactly where we were during that hour.

 In fact, every moment that included views like this was memorable.  Can't wait to go back!

Heroes in their own town

Watching Olympics coverage from the vantage of another country is quite interesting.  We are spoiled here in Trinidad being so close to the US that we get many US channels and programs, including NBC.  Imagine our surprise when we sat down to watch the (tape-delayed) opening ceremony on NBC up popped a message, the gist of which was, "Flow cable usually can get away with providing you this pirated NBC feed, but the Olympics are so important that NBC has blocked us for the next 2 weeks and... sorry."  Thankfully, we did find a local Trini station that was carrying the Games, but that coverage came with issues of its own.  Most of the time, we believe they were giving us the BBC coverage, which had great commentating and covered a lot of events that NBC never bothers with.  However, they also only ran the coverage live - so anyone who actually works during the day was mainly out of luck.  And there were no recaps or repeated coverage of big events, so rather than, you know, maybe attracting viewers by showing a major marquee swim event, we had endless runs of track cycling, fencing trials, and other... less-than-scintillating events.  However, the coverage really became absurd when we moved into the second week of the Games and Track and Field was on.   The Trinis are nuts about sprinting, mainly because it's the only thing they've ever medaled in and is the only aspect of Track and Field that gets any prestige here.  If you think the US is bad in that regard, I invite you to come here.  So, whenever a big sprint event (100-400 only, and no hurdles) came up, the Trini broadcasters would take over the British feed and start commentating.  Not only was the commentary distracting and ill-informed, but heaven help us if any events happened to fall after the sprint event.  They apparently didn't have the tech ability to return the feed to the British, so they'd have to try and comment on events like the 1500, which was way out of their league. 

Anyway....  Imagine our delight when Trinidad came up big and won gold - in the javelin.  They had NO IDEA what was going on.  They were delighted to have won, but the headline in the major newspaper the next day announcing that Trinidad "had the best spear thrower in the world!" highlights how little anyone here knew about the event.  And they kept spelling it "javlin".   Anyway, this poor kid, Keshorn Walcott, is now a national hero, was given a road, lighthouse, mansion in downtown Port-of-Spain, a couple of million dollars etc....  They hoopla was insane.  To top it all off, the government declared on a Sunday evening to give us all the following day off, to celebrate his victory in an event 99.9% of Trinis had never heard of.   One of our friends noted that as Americans, we should conversely take another 40-odd days off to celebrate all of our gold medals.  It was just madness.

400m Gold medalist Kirani James

The scene was repeated in neighboring Grenada, where Kirani James upstaged the Trinis by winning a gold medal in the 400.  This also gave Grenada the best medal-to-population stat of the Games, with one gold medal for a country of 100,000 people.  Not too shabby.  We were highly amused when we arrived in Grenada a few weeks ago and were met with a huge sign at the airport announcing "Welcome to Kirani Country!'  and then when heading into town we were enjoying the views along the new Kirani James Highway.   To top it off, during a lazy Sunday in the capital city of St. George we ran into the great man himself having a photo op.  That, I have to admit, was pretty cool. 

I just hope that in 2 years, when the Winter Olympics in Sochi come up, that they'll even be shown here.  Do you think winter games get any viewership in a Caribbean country?  Jamaican bobsled team, anybody?

Chaguaramus

Chaguaramus (shah-ger-AH-muss) is a national park located quite close to Trinidad's capital of Port of Spain, and an easy 20 minute drive from our place.  That's good, because for all of the positives of this island, there is very little good space for outdoor recreation.  Roads, even the best roads, are really only wide enough for 1.5 cars, and don't even get me started on the lack of sidewalks.  So it's great to escape to Chaguaramus for some running, swimming, or hiking.  In fact, it was one of the very first places we were taken to when we arrived.  We've been doing a fair bit of running there - a favorite 10 mile mountain run in particular - and also probably about 5 trips already to Macqueripe Beach for snorkeling, but very little hiking.

Views of Venezuela out over Macqueripe.

The cathedral

We did get out for a small hike a few weeks ago, when in desperation after a day of just teeming rain, we took our car and a friend across a flooded road in the park and did a hike down what was that day a stream bed.  We did get some great views of Venezuela when the sun came out however, and swam in our hiking clothes at the end of the hike, which is always fun.  But for 3 months now we've been planning to do the poetically-named Bamboo Cathedral trail.  It's a favorite of both locals and the embassy community, and we were both pretty happy to finally get to it today, even though it was raining, again, of course.    The actual bamboo cathedral part was quite picturesque, and the rest of the "hike" (up a paved road) was pleasant if tame.  We got to the top of the trail to an old rusty US Army satellite dish, and couldn't believe we were at the end already.  We wandered around forlornly a bit, realized that we were in pretty good shape, and headed back down to go swimming.  Hopefully we'll get up to some adventures there yet.

I keep expecting a velociraptor to charge out of this foliage.  That would be an adventure.

World travelin'

When we went to Grenada last weekend, besides having a great time, I also managed to actually fulfill one of my New Year's resolutions - to visit 4 new countries this year.    Australia, Thailand, Trinidad, Grenada = success!   And we still have 4 months to go in the year.  I'm already plotting to possibly hit Barbados, Dominica, Guadeloupe, and Martinique by the end of the year, so stay tuned!  Of course, my other resolution was to write at least 3 blogs a month....  I better get writing.

Slog up Mt. Qua Qua

On the way up.  Mt. Qua Qua is just out of view.

Living in the Caribbean has been an adjustment for us.  I hate to admit it.  Feel a little guilty, even, because it often feels like we are actually on vacation.  But it’s true.  Beaches a short drive away; scrumptious seafood bursting with spice; warm temperatures every day.  Ever since we moved to Trinidad, I have yet to wear a pair of long pants unless a formal event dictates I do so.  Even in the evenings shorts are more comfortable.  Our winter coats and wool sweaters gather dust in the closet.  With life being so easy, you would think we have everything, yet we have done very little hiking since our arrival.  And we live to hike.  When we were in Mongolia, a stunning vista was a mere hillside scurry away.

Grande Anse Beach, one of many stunning beaches in Grenada

That brings us to Mt. Qua Qua, one of four “high peaks” in Grenada, three of which are named.  We visited Grenada over the long Labor Day weekend.  The beaches there were some of the most beautiful I have seen anywhere, but we felt the need to get away from the sand, at least for one morning.  So, on our first morning in Grenada, we took an early breakfast, loaded the rental jeep, a little beat up Mazda, and set off for Grand Etang National Park.  We had a paragraph in a guidebook and some unlabeled roads on a map for a guide.  Unfortunately, our guidebook failed us.  One of the signs we needed was in the wrong place.

We drove around a bit, but did manage to find the visitor’s center where a helpful guide pointed us in the direction of the trailhead.  You can’t miss it.  A few moments later he shouted at us from his position sitting on the porch of the center.  We needed to walk further.  In our exuberance to hit the trail, we had turned in to examine a small clearing in the woods.  The trail was further down the road.

The trail was well-marked, at least the beginning

The trail was deceptive, and not just where it began, which was actually well-labeled with a signpost.  It appeared well-groomed at the entrance, but we had walked only a short distance before running into our first and major obstacle on the hike.  Mud. Thick, gloppy, cement-like mud that encased your shoes and coated the lower legs of your pants.  The hike quickly turned into a slog.

By the end, our shoes and pants were encased in mud

There were fun happenings on the trail, as well.  We saw numerous geckos, the trail was framed  by large palm fronds, and there was the shocking sighting of two large, stray dogs that appeared around a corner on the way down inches from my face.  When we did finally haul ourselves to the top, a task that took just over an hour, we could see views of the ocean on both sides, as well as a lake formed by a volcanic crater.

There were some great views along the way and thick foliage.

Taking in the views at the top

There is always time to stop and smell the flowers

But we were tired, and when we slogged our way back through the mud slop and to our car, we happily drove to the beach.  It was something, though.  Mt. Qua Qua.

Trinidad by Google Queries

We've now been living in Trinidad for just over two months, and are settling in.  We're having a good time so far, particularly with the beaches and the local cuisine. Some things have been easier than expected, some harder, but it has all been different.  Neither of us has ever lived in a climate like this, and so we've been learning a lot.  I had a laugh reviewing the Google searches we've done since we moved here, and thought I'd share some.

 1.  How do you open a coconut?
I've gotten pretty good de-husking the ones that fall from our tree out back.

2.  What is the best way to cut up a pineapple?
I hate pineapple, but it's so good here I'm coming around to them.  Yum.

3.  What is the best way to cut a mango?
 Mango tree out back!

4.  (Shortly following question #3)  Mango allergy?
Turns out, mango sap is closely related to poison ivy.  Not fun.  :(

5.  How to make a pina colada?

6.  Giant African Snail???
Apparently, we have an infestation of them in our neighborhood.

7.  dark fish with bright blue spots?
We've been having lots of fun snorkeling at a local beach.  Turns out, the fish I saw was a Yellowtail Damselfish.

Looking forward to many more discoveries over the next 2 years!

2 Swim the World?

Naturally enough, after having moved to a tropical island, (more on that soon - we're very behind in blogging!) I've been thinking a lot about swimming.   Specifically, I've been comparing the wonderful beaches here with some of the very questionable places I've jumped into in my travels overseas.  So, for fun, I pulled up a retrospective of the good, the bad, and ugly swimming spots we've encountered.

Russia, Moscow River, 2006

We encountered a massive heat wave in Moscow when we took our first trip together there in summer 2006.    To escape the heat we went up to Moscow's famous "beach", Silver Forest, located on a bend of the Moscow River.  Disappointingly, we discovered that there was no sand; everyone was laying out on towels in bare dirt under the pines, and the river was... how to put this diplomatically... disgusting.  Browny-green, lots of floating trash, etc.    We were so hot we dipped in to our necks, but no further.  We still shudder to think about this decision.


Iceland, Blue Lagoon, 2009

 April in Iceland, swimming outdoors in a geo-thermally heated pool... bliss.












Ukraine, Dnieper River, 2009

Similar to Russia above, we were in Kyiv, it was beastly hot, and all of the locals were getting in the river!  We knew that the river has radioactive silt, since it's downriver from Chernobyl, but we calculated that swimming once or twice wouldn't kill us.  We haven't grown any extra limbs yet!







 Mongolia, Khokh Nuur, 2011

We went camping at this spot where reputedly Chinggis Khan was crowned back in the 1200s.  After a run, the lake was the only way to get "clean".  We looked around for any wandering horsemen, and then did a quick rinse off. 








 Mongolia, Khuvsgol Nuur, 2011

We really wanted to go swimming in this lake, the 2nd deepest in the world and so pretty.  Unfortunately, even in July, it was also really cold.  The locals told us that the ice had only just melted the week before our arrival.  Instead, we entertained ourselves by timing each other to see who could stand in it the longest.  I think I won with a time of 2 minutes.












Australia, Shark Beach, 2012

We did tons of great swimming in Sydney, but this beach wins just for the name.  It's located in Sydney Harbor, rather than on the coast itself.  It also was apparently a favored place for sharks to munch on (or at least scare) local swimmers. Hence, the net.  It made me feel better, but when snorkeling I was pretty afraid of what I might see on the other side....







Australia, Wineglass Bay, 2012

Even after a quick and strenuous hike up and over the mountain saddle to reach Wineglass Bay in Tasmania, we were still not nearly ready to get in the water.  The only guy managing to swim had a full-body wetsuit.  Too bad, as the location was perfect!








Thailand, Karon Beach, 2012

The beaches in Phuket are such a cliche, but for good reason.  Palm trees, soft sand, and an ocean like bath water.  If I hadn't had pneumonia I may have enjoyed it more, but Andy spent hours every day in the water.









Trinidad, currently!

And that brings up from memory lane up to the present.  We've done 4 beach days in the last 8 days, so we're doing our best to soak in everything we can here.  We've come a long way from the Moscow
River....

Home Leave by the Numbers

Home!  With the added bonus of spring.

The goal of home leave for the Foreign Service is that it keeps officers from "going native" and encourages (actually, requires) us to spend a chunk of time in our own country in between overseas assignments.  I had wondered before actually starting my leave if it was really necessary in today's day and age.  After all, I'm able to skype with my family every week, read US newspapers and magazines online daily, etc.  

However, in practice I found that home leave was not only enjoyable, but did feel useful.  It had been a year and a half since we had been in the US, and while we certainly thought of our home country fondly and often, it was all rather abstract.  Now, after four weeks of family, friends, and lots of driving and eating all over the Northeast, I do feel much better re-acclimated and in touch.  And lest you think that we have just been wasting time relaxing during this period....

# of weeks of home leave:  4

# of people we spent a period of real quality time with:  at least 29 (possibly as many as 41; it comes out different every time I total it up.) 

# of times we changed overnight locations:  9

# of different places we stayed:  6

# of miles put on our rental car:  close to 1,000

# of different locations I ran at:  6

# of mountains we hiked:  3. 
We did Hunter Mtn. in the Catskills with Andy's brother Luke, a very good sport, as the day we had chosen was relentlessly pouring rain.  So we hiked up a sheer ascent for a lovely view of a cloud and some nice whipping winds.

 We then took in some nice views from Millbrook Mtn in the Shawangunks, and then did Mt. Mansfield in VT with two of my brothers. 

# of games played:  at least 7, including disc golf, hide & seek, volleyball, croquet, and lots of games of Settlers of Catan!

# of times we thought we might actually lose it if we spoke/heard/thought one more word about Mongolia:  more than once.

Glad to be back!