Port of Spain, Trinidad
TRINIDAD & TOBAGO | Wednesday, 17 February 2010 | Views [1708]
Costs pp: ferry from Guiria, Venezuela to Chaguaramas, Trinidad US$92 plus departure tax US$23. Taxi from town the short distance to the port 10vef and remember to keep a couple of bolivares to pay the guy who loads your bag onto the ferry. The ferry departs every Wednesday at 4pm or thereabouts and check-in time is from 2.00 onwards. You can buy your tickets from the 'Pier 1' office in Guiria, any local will point you to it. They did ask if we had proof of onward travel but didn't want to see it.
NZ$1 = TT$4.4, US$1 = TT$6.35.
At Trinidad immigration Carol was required to pay TT$400 for a visa waiver which was a shock to her as she thought she had researched every cost thoroughly, Kent had no problem as he is now travelling on his English passport.
Maxi-taxi Chaguaramas to Port of Spain TT$5, room with ensuite and tv at the wonderfully friendly Copper Kettle Hotel near the corner of Edward and Park Streets (pink building, ph 625-4381) TT$210 or US$35 for a double room. This is very cheap for Trinidad and its a great hotel with very helpful staff and its own reasonably priced restaurant too.
Watertaxi from Port of Spain to San Fernando TT$15, bus back to PoS TT$6.
We arrived after an absolutely freezing ride in the bus at 7am. The airconditioning was set so low that Carol had to wear Kents woolley hat and put her big plastic bag over her legs covered by a blanket. It's just crazy and beyond belief that they would treat their customers so badly, Carol ended up with a bad cold from it. We walked a couple of blocks from where the bus came in to the ferry office and waited outside until it opened about 8.30am. Bought our tickets and left our packs there in the office and went to explore the town. We decided to check the internet a little later when there was more hope of someone replying from Trinidad but miscalculated as there was a powercut which closed down most businesses including the internet cafes. Some food places have generators but not the cafes for some reason.
We managed to change the bolivares we had left for TT$ at a stationery shop on the next block up from the ferry office. We took a taxi to the pier as it is apparently to dangerous to walk even though it is not far and had to wait in the shade there while the people who had just arrived from Trinidad were being processed by immigration. We met a young Polish couple who were also heading to Trinidad on a return journey, they were full of how dangerous it was there and how everyone was so 'black', it was a little embarrassing to be sitting near locals while this woman talked on, maybe she forgot that they speak english too... On the journey they made all sorts of plans with us to share a taxi to town and possibly a room for the night as it is so expensive there then they received a call on their cell phone and disappeared we only saw them again in front of us in the immigration line in Trinidad.
The next day when we rang a Kiwi guy called Richard who lives here on a boat we discovered the Polish couple were there with him and they hadn't told him until I was on the phone that they had met us on the boat. Richard had found us a bed with another Kiwi who is also staying on his yacht and could easily have taken us there last night as the boat is moored right near Pier 1 where the ferry comes in. Ah well, we are lucky we have met mostly kind people on this journey so far. We rang the other Kiwi on a boat whose name is Wattie and arranged to meet him at a local mall.
Wattie is an older guy who has been on the seas since 1995 in his 40 foot yacht called 'Cariad' which he built himself. He is a real character, well read and with a good sense of humour. We spent a couple of days with him on his yacht and got to go out for a sail with an american friend of his, John, who was testing a new GPS he had just had installed on his yacht 'Kijiro'. John is heading off next week on the long sail accross to Micronesia. Wattie is also planning to sail home and is just looking for crew, the journey thru the Panama Canal to Galapagos and accross to Easter Island and thru the Pacific will take 6 months or more. Another day we took a local watertaxi (a huge catamaran) down to the other end of the island to a town called San Fernando explored then caught the bus back. We got a ferry ticket to Tobago for Sunday afternoon instead of Saturday because a girl called Sherry on couchsurfing contacted us and wanted us to come and stay with her on Saturday night and take us around the island on Sunday but she never showed up or contacted us again which was sad.
It's a little strange to be in an english speaking country and to be able to put the toilet paper in the toilet again!
