Caura River 

Posted on by marissafh

“Come, let’s take a drive down to the Caura River,” hubby tells me.

Even though I’d been down to Trinidad and Tobago several times, there were still places and attractions (like the Pitch Lake – ‘the biggest and only pitch lake in the world’, they boast) that I haven’t been to.

It was raining every now and then, sometimes gentle showers, sometimes pouring rain.  But the boys were getting restless inside the house.

So we went driving towards the river – on winding roads that got narrower, and uphill, with sharp turns and s-turns …

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Thankfully, we didn’t meet many vehicles from the opposite direction … and the ones we did meet were cars, so we would just drive to the edge of the road as much as we can, with just enough room to let one another pass.

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The clouds were low over the mountains.  I thought it would be cold, but surprisingly, it wasn’t.

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They told us there were three parks along the river.  They had cleared up the land along the river and fixed it up with picnic tables, for those weekend ‘river limes’, or just somewhere to sit and relax.

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We decided that we would go to the last one first, and then stop off at the other two on the way back.  And met up with this … the end of the road …

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Well … so much for the third park!  Maybe they didn’t finish clearing up yet to make the third park … Nothing to do but turn back 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Mayaro Sunset

Posted on by marissafh

On our last evening in Mayaro, hubby wanted to walk along the beach.

Actually, I think he wanted to see what Tin was up to.  Tin and his cousin had asked if we could leave later.  They had picked up a friend during the pick-up soccer games on the beach, and he had spread the news that he found a new friend – one from overseas! – and so a ‘lime’ on the beach was planned.  ‘Lime’ is their slang for just hanging out.  ‘We just liming’, they say.

It was a nice evening, and with the sun setting and the gentle sea breezes, we walked first down one side of the beach and then back up and past where we started.  There was no colourful sunset that night.  We were on the wrong side of the island.  We would have to drive down to the tip and around and up to the west.

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The waves were quiet. The patches of sunlight would warm us as we walked, and the breeze would cool us down.

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Off in the distance, we saw a fishing boat coming in with the day’s catch.  We went to see what the catch of the day was.  The vultures were ready as well – even the one-legged one!

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Others were ready as well, planning out their dinner, haggling with the fishermen for the price.  We may have thought about fresh fish for dinner as well, but nobody really felt like cleaning the fish.  We were also not prepared for any major cooking, and the kitchen unit we were staying in only had the basic utensils, and we had to be heading back to the city.

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We rounded up the boys to head back in and wash off the sand.  We were all packed and ready, and we didn’t want to be driving in the dark too long.

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I don’t think I was ready to drive back either … but all good things come to an end …

And so we left Mayaro with good memories, and will surely be back again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunrise Mandalas

Posted on by marissafh

I sat on the beach, waiting for the sunrise, and got restless.  There was only so much experimenting I could do with the camera settings – if I got one decent photo of the sunrise, then good.

So I started drawing in the sand.  IMG_4300

I had always wanted to draw something in the sand as a souvenir or memory of our stay on the sand.  I thought about the footprints in the sand, when the boys were still young, but they couldn’t-wouldn’t stand still.  They didn’t sit long enough for the date-and-place scribbles either.  I figured I would know from the photos where we were, anyway.

I didn’t think about just drawing anything, and certainly not about mandalas, even though I had been doodling and drawing those since I was young.  So now, I try to remember to draw simple mandalas on whatever beach we are on.

Which reminds me – when going through old, old photos from an old chocolate tin can, I knew that if I flipped the photo over I would see my father’s or mother’s writing on the back, identifying the date and place of the photo taken.  Good to see my father’s writing once in a while – big, bold strokes.  My boys’ writing is small and cramped, no matter how many times I tell them to write bigger.  Anyways … I digress again.

I continued to draw in the sand as the sun came up over the horizon, stopping now and then to take pictures.   Unconsciously, I had also drawn a sunrise on the sand.

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How cool is that! Actually, I didn’t know what else to do, and the squiggly lines started out with another design in mind, that just went on its own.

Inspired, I drew another mandala.  But then the sun got hotter, and it was time to go in for breakfast.

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Yes, it was a good sunrise. 🙂

 

Mayaro Sunrise

Posted on by marissafh

“Ooohhh, Mayaro has beautiful sunrises”, I was told by SIL.

Ok, great … and that means getting up and out by 5:30am …. *sigh*  I’m on vacation … I need my sleep … Oh well … I was woken up at a little after 5am the next day.

“Hurry up”, hubby tells me, “the sun is coming out, and it’s not going to be sunrise for long.”

And so I was out on the beach by 5:30 am … on a cloudy morning :o)

“The sun is going to come out right there,” says hubby, pointing out to the horizon – the same spot where thick clouds were covering the sky over the horizon.

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Really?  Are we going to get a sunrise, I asked.  Of course.  The sun always rises.  I roll my eyes.  It didn’t look it, with all the clouds.  I started drawing on the sand, while waiting for the sunrise.   IMG_4300

But just like the sunsets, the sun was coming up fast.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The clouds parted a little, at just that spot where the sun was rising.

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Great timing by Mother Nature.

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“Now, wasn’t that worth getting up at 5am?”

 

 

 

A Drive to Mayaro

Posted on by marissafh

After the soccer camp in Trinidad and Tobago – that’s what I’m calling it – for Tin, it was hard work – we spent a couple of days at a seaside town called Mayaro.

I enjoyed the drive down – once we were out of the narrow streets with people and cars all over the road.

I loved seeing the tall coconut trees on either side, specially on the sea side.  It was hot outside, but the air was cleaner and fresher.

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There’s fewer trees now, hubby says.  Apparently, both sides of the road was thick with coconut trees before.  I forget which it was – a fire or a flood – that damaged the land and the trees.  So this is still in the process of rebuilding the thick grove they used to have.

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The sea was frothing at the shores.  Don’t know if you can see it in the picture here, but those white bubbles were not waves breaking on the shore.  Perhaps it was because of some storm system off the shores, or maybe it was pollution, but apparently, when the sea is frothing, they say that the sea is cleaning itself.

Somehow, I liked that.  The phrases come to mind … wash it off … cleanse itself … wash out all the pain and sorrow … flush out the toxins … The sea is cleaning itself, by pushing all the pollution and toxins to the shores …

Wait … but that means that the shores and the land are now polluted?  Or will it be absorbed by the soil, and all is well?  Isn’t it ‘wash out to the seas’,  wash off something?

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I guess it works either way for Mother Nature.

Wash off or wash out … Whichever works best for her.