Former Location: Port of Spain, Trinidad
With only two days in Trinidad and organized trips with SAS planned for both, my time was limited! Here’s how my time in Trinidad panned out:
Day 1: Energy Development in Trinidad & Tobago
This trip was led by Professor Gerry Johnson (of Colorado State!) for his class on Engineering for the Developing World. I signed up to tag along because it’s closely related to my Energy Resources class. We started at one of the 8 campuses for the University of Trinidad & Tobago. At Pt. Lisas Campus, we heard from petroleum & utilities engineering professors about the history of energy in Trinidad and the future. Trinidad is a net exporter of oil & natural gas and it’s the biggest source of income for the country. We visited the Industrial Estate right near the campus where various refineries and industrial plants were located. This was quite a sight! Huge metal structures, pipes, and storage units rose out of the ground in every direction you turned. We spent an hour just driving around the estate getting a general overview of all the companies that participate in the industrial collaboration.
After our overview, we had meetings at Methanex, a methanol production company, and PG Nitrogen, basically a fertilizer producer. Unfortunately we did not get actual tours of the plants with only 1 hour meetings allotted for each (a tour takes 2-3 hours minimum). For our meetings, we met with HR personnel and chief engineers for each company who gave us an overview of the corporation and the kind of processes that take place at each plant. This was pretty heavy material and I definitely did not understand all of it, but it was interesting to learn, nonetheless. Perhaps the most interesting thing was how essential natural gas was to the processes at both plants on top of their electricity needs.
After a long day of lecture and meetings, we drove the hour back to the ship docked at Port of Spain. On my way back to the gangway, I ran into a group of 3 guys that I knew who were headed to find Bake & Shark for dinner and asked if I wanted to join. I jumped on the opportunity to go out in search of local cuisine and we started to wander to find the main street with street vendors and shops. Being clearly outsiders, we got lots of stares, but as we passed one group of younger Trinidadians (aka Trini’s), one guy from the group started asking us questions so we stopped to chat. He introduced himself as Mike and told him we were on a search for Shark & Bake. To our disappointment, he told us we would only be able to find that at the beach (an hour taxi ride away). Mike recommended other foods and started walking with us on our search. He directed us to one street vendor to get coconut water – the man picked up a coconut from his truck bed filled with them, took three swings of a machete and handed over the coconut filled with water ready to drink. We hung around and chatted with Mike more about food options and decided on Roti. We walked across the street and got Roti from another vendor with pots and a tarp over the back of his truck. The Rastafarian vendor made up a couple vegetarian Roti for our group (I learned Rastafarians are vegetarian) and we each paid 15TT, the equivalent of about$2.50 for more food than I could finish! At this point we had been hanging out with Mike for at least a half hour and he had left a group of his friends to join us. We headed back with Mike to join his friends hanging out on the plaza area that sat in the middle of the street. After we all introduced ourselves, we just hung out for and ended up asking about the culture and lifestyle in Trinidad and answering questions about why we were in Trinidad and what we were studying. Since none of us had phones, a bunch of Mike’s friends asked for our names so they could friend us on Facebook (and by the next day they already had). The group was hanging out until “Pirates of the Caribbean” was showing at 8:30 and invited us to join, so we ended up going. The movie theater was huge, but it only had one theater. Normally two movies are shown back to back, but because it was Movie Tuesday, there was a special and only “Pirates” was showing. It was such a different atmosphere in the theater too, compared to the US. If you saw something you liked (particularly in the previews), we were told to make as much noise as we could, but every time I couldn’t help but laugh. After the movie was over it was about 11:30. Some of the Trinidadians headed home, but several of them walked with us back to the ship to make sure we got there safely. It was such a blast and my best day in Trinidad by far.
Day 2: Mount St. Benedict Monastery
The morning started with a drive through the city, past the parliament building, the president’s house with a beautiful walk-through garden out front (and we did walk right through, nothing like the White House…) and then continued our drive until we arrived at the edge of a town at the base of a hillside. As our Maxi bus made its way around the sharp turns up the steep incline, we passed by beautiful buildings that were part of the monastery complex – the seminary school, the nun’s house, and finally the church and guest house. We were greeted at the guest house by the manager, an incredibly friendly and knowledgeable man that had studied natural history and was now running the monastery’s guest house (functionally like a hotel that anyone can stay at). He knew all about the various beautiful birds found around the monastery and was an avid turtle conservation supporter ever since he was a little boy. After we enjoyed tea on the patio overlooking the nearly untouched valley behind the guest house, we walked up to the church and learned more about the monastery’s history and current use. With only 10 monks left all over 70 years of age and the seminary school recently closed due to lack of interested students, I was concerned what the future of the monastery would be, but the support of the guest house visitors seems to be a great asset and I can certainly understand the draw. The sense of peace about the whole place was wonderful. If you ever get the chance to go to Trinidad, I would definitely recommend trying to stay at the Mount’s guest house instead of a hotel.
After the monastery, we drove back to the ship, grabbed lunch on board and only had about 3 hours until on-ship time. We wandered outside the terminal for a bit and looked at the waterfront. As other busses arrived with students back from excursions, one group had brought a bunch of fresh mangoes from the market. We got to try some and I can say that will probably be one of my top goals at all of the next ports – buy fresh mangoes.
After a short two days in Trinidad, I only got a small glimpse of what the country had to offer but it was a blast. The students I traveled with on the first night were great too and hopefully we will all get to travel together in the next ports as well.
Until Panama,
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