Trinidad and St Vincent
07-14-2011, 11:11 AM
DATA SHEET ON ST VINCENT AND TRINIDAD
My data sheet will be somewhat limited because I didn't slay but I got around a bit and now I feel I have some decent intel on the island. Upon a second trip, I should be able to put in some closer play.
St Vincent is a very mountainous island..and they drive on the same side of the road as the British..which I heard is the case with all of the English speaking Caribbean islands. You cannot fly directly to there from North America or indeed on any international plane. You must take a small local plane via the Liat airline which will deposit you in E.T. Joshua Airport.
The runway for the airport is very small which means the pilot is very good. Upon landing, if he doesn't kill the engine as soon as possible, he will wind up in the side of the mountain. Upon takeoff, if he doesn't pick up momentum as soon as, your ass will wind up in the ocean.
Most people flying there either go via Grenada, Trinidad or Barbados which all have international airports. If you do come via Trinidad and you bring your TnT dollars, forget it. Them shyts are useless outside of Trinidad.
We drove back to where I was staying...a vicious spiralling drive shared with speeding public transport..vans called Ooh Lah Lah with leering Caribbean males leaning out of the passenger end constantly scanning for new punani (although they are very respectful, I never heard any vulgarisms being yelled out or any obscene gestures and I was being ferried by dimes). Ooh Lah Lah vans would overtake you on the wrong side of the road and beep their horns loudly (in.. case someone was coming from the other direction along the RIGHT side of the road)...
The place of stay is on an extremely steep hill...it was like climbing a wall to get to the driveway.
It's been a while since I've been in the tropics and it was nice to hear the cockerel crowing at 4am in the morning. As a foreigner, I was exotic cuisine for the insects and surely
enough, woke up in the morning to find several bites on my arm.
You flag down Ooh Lah Lah and the driver will stop and ram you into a van full of passengers. The fare cost 4 EC (if I can remember). Since it was Carnival season, it wasn't uncommon to hear Vincy Soca on the radio.
SVG doesn't have a traffic light system. A local informed me that they attempted to implement this once but it was abandoned as no one was following it.
By and large, they are decent drivers and they generally honk their horns loudly when taking a mountainous bend so that an incoming driver approaching from the blind spot on the other side will be aware that a vehicle is approaching.
I went to the town centre, hit up the market place and what not. By and large, from what I saw, the women in St Vincent are of predominant African descent (meaning they looked black as opposed to mixed etc)
There are a few Indians and Portuguese scattered through the place (from the days of indentureship).
The point being made is, if you are not particularly attracted to black women, you may want to skip St Vincent.
The national dish is breadfruit and jackfish. Bakes are available. For those more familiar with Jamaican terminology, bakes are the Jamaican equivalent of fried dumplings. I am uncertain if they use the term fried dumplings outside of any other English speaking Caribbean island than Jamaica. If you ask for fried dumplings, you will be met with a blank look.
The local brews for St Vincent is Hairoun (a beer) and Sunset white rum. Sunset is an extremely strong rum, clocking in at about 84 percent and that shyt feels like you can literally run a vehicle with that.
The unofficial language spoken (according to my host) is Creole.
Creole is patois and for those who have been in the company of Jamaicans, it's the same thing except Vincentian patois varies a little bit.
For the most part, it sounds very similar to Jamaican patois and even some Jamaicans can be initially fooled.
I always prided myself on understanding patois but being actually in the islands, I always found myself a step behind when being communicated to in Creole. When I generally hear speakers in the Western hemisphere, they generally dilute the speech with regular English so one can make their way through the conversation based on context.
No such account was made in the island. They were speaking quickly and and I constantly had to ask for a recount on each statement or request made.
By and large, I didn't stay in St Vincent that long enough to do damage (plus I was in the company of extended fam so I tend not to pound out ass while I'm under the scrutiny of fam.
The people are nice (I also have experience from them in Canada). One may get hassled for purchases or gifts (I attended a jam in a local village) and was implored by a burly woman to buy her some rum and rice.
Another local saw me pull some EC out and swarmed me requesting for me to buy rum.
Another cat wanted me to buy his HP IPAQ off of him (battery not included).
The departure tax is 40 ECD (Eastern Caribbean dollars). Eastern Caribbean currency is stronger than the Tnt and one EC will give you about 2.72 CDN (Canadian dollars) at the time of my trip.
TRINIDAD
Trinidad was a different kettle of fish. Again from where I was
staying, it seemed closer to the Western experience many of you lot will be used to.
My inn was very nice.
For those who like the South East Asian look (Asian for my UK peeps), you will enjoy Trinidad. There you get the Indian women without the Indian attitude. The women there are not afraid to grind up on you during a soca fete and seem to mix freely with different groups. You also have a large Venezuelean influx, lots of Syrians (sheet, Venezeuela is but a stones throw away).
Of course these can be mixed with the Africans so you will have variety of looks for those who are not into the pure Sub Saharan African look.
I didn't veer out of Port of Spain (didn't have much intel and I didn't want to be too venturous as I was told to be cautious as Trinis can strip a dude of his chains and what not (don't rock ice nor chains anyway).
The inn owner told me that I need not be concerned with the kidnapping and murdering as that was always drug related. She said that she couldn't remember a time when a tourist had been kidnapped or murdered.
What I noticed with the Trinis was that dreadlocks seemed to be quite popular amongst women and men.
So the first night, I went out looking for action. My first port of call was a club called 51 degrees, on ciprani rd (which was walking distance from my hotel)
I dressed up accordingly and went out but the look of the club seemed a bit snooty for my liking (especially on my dolo) so I looked around for another club which the outdoor burger vendor
had recommended for me. After failing to find the other club, I resorted to return 51 degrees.
Cut a long story short, I was refused entry because I wasn't wearing a shirt (was rocking a non logo tight t with trousers and Stacey Adams shoes) but the bouncer told me the club closes at 5am (current time was 11pm).
I walked home to change and rest up for a bit.
Returned and a new bouncer told me that no more general admission was being allowed.
Fcuk em, I went back home (didn't like the look of the club anyhow).
Again, rolling solo made me a bit slow in terms of putting my bid in but I tried to drop it on a waitress in a restaraunt Sweet Lime where I had my dinner before I made my exodus later on that night.
She was making excessive eye contact and I guess she may have taken my smiling for suckerism.
I asked her what was going on (what was happening for the night), trying to lure her out for some pounding.
She told me to come back to the restaurant when she was finished with work. No can do. That's a lap dog request.
I rolled out later on that night to Coco Lounge on Aripitas Avenue. Admission was cheap (60 TNT which = 10 dollars).
Drinks were about 20 TNT (for shots) or for a bottle of guinness which I made my regular knockback for the night.
Some nice big butt Trini lizard tried to squeeze into the one seat chair I was sitting in. I let her in and thus I made my play. Strangely enough, she seemed distant although responsive (largely a stream of one word responses) and I was uncertain when a guy (who she quite clearly attended the club with) came up and gave her an ice cream soda which he bought and vanished.
Also, the language barrier (Trini accents are thicker than I thought) meant that I had to ask for constant repeats.
I put the play in for what she was doing afterwards but I didn't get any feel for that so the night was done.
Moved in on some Indian/Syrian mix later on but was rewarded by her man moving in strongly to openly establish his property so I decided to just kick back for the evening.
I had no idea who was single in the club and rather than risk catching some 'licks in me rass', I thought I'd kick back and wait for a sure thing or just enjoy what I got.
Zero occurence for the night.
Final night, Sabo Latino.
Arranged a pickup and drop there. Entry was 60 TNT dollars (10 bucks) or 100 dollars (16 dollars) for open bar.
I paid the 100 and entered.
There was nothing latin about Sabo Latino on a Tuesday (maybe always). It was packed full of blacks and the music was purely dancehall and soca but mostly dancehall with a slight selection of top 40's.
The barkeep was a very surly dread who sullenly pushed the drinks across the bar when requested. Vodka, white rum, dark rum, carib.
No smiles.
Upon arrival (around 11:30pm or so), everyone was lined up against the walls like rats in a flood. I chuckled internally at the fact that no one was doing anything on the dance floor.
I noticed three uniformed police officers armed just hanging in the club all night. I wasn't sure if they were on duty or there to deter any foolishness since a few Trini women were swirling and twirling around their bodies at times.
Towards the end of the night, I concluded that they were there on duty.
I could feel that I stood out, reeking of foreigner so I decided to join the flood movement in my own way, by drowning myself in booze.
I bought some fries after drinking my fourth, fifth? vodka and a braided black Trini lizard appeared.
"I can have some?" she sang in soca. I didn't understand what she said and had to ask for a recount.
Once understood, I said "Yea sure" and scanned her frame. She was limber, cute face and definitely worthy of a pounding. I always feel it's my duty to put in proper work when in a third world country because locals tend to see us Westernised cats as soft and feeble (including the women). However, I was hesitant because I've heard the women can be sly (checking for another dude while they are blatantly there with a man) and again I was dolo.
As the night moved along, people started to liven up and guys started to grind up with women etc. However, as a previous poster mentioned, they seemed to know each other as I saw a few mystery approachers get shut down by some lizards there.
I put in some approach on some lizards posted up on the walls but it was largely discarded so I just kicked back and drank looking for openings.
These lizards were grouped off and I couldn't see any eye contact.
I moved on another lizard and she twisted her head to look at me sharply so I thought "fcuk it" and kicked back.
Later on, the same Trini lizard who had bummed some fries off of me appeared again and wrapped her body around me like a rope.
She was 'wining' on me something wicked and I wanted to wait a bit before asking..but the language barrier was a mutha.
"Whey yuh fram, farrin?" she asked which translated to "Where are you from, are you a foreigner?"
"Yea", I said after my usual recount request.
"American?", she asked.
"Nah, Canadian" I replied.
"Yuh cyan fine de rydim but you gwan fine it", she said twisting herself around my body.
TRANSLATION: You are not dancing to this music properly but if you stay in this country, you will pick it up.
And then she vanished.
Fcuk! My last chance to plant something in the Eastern Caribbean... gone!
Around 3:30am, I was done with dancing. I was almost staggering drunk and even with the presence of the police officers, I didn't want to seem like a mark so I decided to chill from the alcohol and call for my ride back to the hotel.
OUR NEW BLOG!
http://repstylez.com
My NEW TRAVEL E-BOOK - DOMINICAN REPUBLIC - A RED CARPET AFFAIR
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00K53LVR8
Love 'em or leave 'em but we can't live without lizardsssss..
An Ode To Lizards
