A couple of days before we would port in a
specific city a crew member named Daniel would give a presentation on the best
sites to see, activities to do and reasons why ‘this particular city’ is SO
dangerous. Our take-aways from his presentation on Trinidad included
a must stop at the Steel Drum (pan) competition in Queens Park Savannah, the
fact that they use TT$ for money and to hide all of your valuables.
Trinidad
and Tobago is where the Steelpan was born. A steeband consists of
metal oil drums cut to different depths, with the flat top dived into sections
which are hammered and tempered to give wide range of notes when struck with
the rubber-knobbed end of a short stick. Since 1963 there has been
an annual steelband competition called Panorama and there are 4 categories of
steelbands which consist of minimum and maximum number of players for each
category. The steelbands are graded on general performance,
arrangement, tone and rhythm.
In order to make it to Queens Park Savannah in time for the competition we decided to take a cab from the center of the Port of Spain, Trinidad. Jesus told the cab driver where we needed to go and he proceeded to tell us it would cost $20 US. Jesus immediately crinkled his face and said with disbelief, “$20???”. The cab driver spontaneously cut his price in half and said, “Fine, $10 US”. That sounded more reasonable to us. When we arrived at the ‘Big Yard’, another name for Queens Park, we tried to buy tickets to Panorama and were delighted to find out the tickets only cost $2.50. We didn’t realize they actually meant $250 TT’s. At this point it took us at least 2 minutes to divide this number by 6 for the conversion to US dollars and agreed it wasn’t worth $41 US to see the competition.
 |
| Click here for a quick video of the steel drum band |
Another
couple from the cruise ship saw us walking away from the park and encouraged us
to slip into the park on the right side where the steelbands were practicing
for the competition. The sounds of the pans/drums were alluring and
you could feel the beats pulsating into your core. The local people were enjoying dancing,
drinking and being friendly to us foreigners.
One gentleman who stood out to us was in his mid 50's and he had on a purple polyester suit, a top hat, white gloves and a large malt beverage inhand. He took turns holding us closewhile we danced to the magnificent sounds in the air. (click here for a quick video of the man in purple)
Next, we
decided it was time to eat. We didn’t
realize that so many places would be closed because it was a Sunday. Luckily, a police woman suggested a local place
which served up a tasty buffet. Our
quest for some Sunday Funday drinks was equally difficult to find. Most of the locals said bars were closed on
Sundays but eventually some pointed down a main road and said we wouldn’t want
to go into the one bar that was open. Of
course that is exactly where we wanted to go.
At first blush, I must admit that the bar looked pretty sketch. From what we could see it was very narrow,
kind of dark and it had bars ‘on the bar’.
The locals inside gave us a look that would make most tourists flee the
scene. We agreed to take our chances and
order some beverages.
Within 5
minutes we were escorted to the deserted back of the bar by an employee where
there were fans blowing some much needed chilly air. The half toothless employee wanted to know if
we were having fun and enjoying the bar.
Once we cooled off we walked back to where the action was taking place
and immersed ourselves into the scene.
The locals loved dancing with us and couldn’t get enough pictures of us with
their tiny flip phones. They were asking
us about FaceBook (which we eventually understood its power of uniting the
world on one social platform) and one gentleman was begging me to come back and
visit. At least this is what I gathered
through his broken English. I told him that would be no problem as long as he
paid for ALL of us to return. He was so
confused and a rather large girl who had taken a fancy to Jesus had to explain
my answer to him. We were so delighted
with their acceptance and treatment of us that it was difficult to leave our
latest Sunday Funday scene, however, the captain had instilled an unhealthy
level of fear of being left behind in a foreign land.
In
closing there were 3 life lessons during our time in Trinidad:
1.
Almost anything in life is
negotiable.
2.
There is a fine line between following your gut and throwing caution to
the wind.
3. If given the chance people can pleasantly
surprise you - so, give them the chance to do so!
No comments:
Post a Comment