April 2007 Trinidad/Tobago Trip Report In April of 2007 we paid a visit to Trinidad and Tobago, two islands located just off the coast of Venezuela. This is the story of that visit. Part I focuses on Trinidad where we stayed at an ecolodge called the Asa Wright Center ("Centre" if you are a Brit), Part II focuses on Tobago where we did a combination of diving and nature tours. Part I Getting to Trinidad is rather easy due to the non-stop flight from Atlanta, GA to Port of Spain, Trinidad. We have to transfer a good bit of gear from our dive bag to stay under Delta's strict 50 lb weight limit, but are able to avoid any fines. We land in the evening and endure a long customs line at the Trinidad airport (all of the customs paperwork is filled out by hand). This airport does feature free wi-fi; you'll get a great signal in the international concourses and a mediocre one in the domestic areas. I'd read that Port of Spain is fairly sketchy so we avoided it completely and opted to stay at the Asa Wright Nature Centre, a nature reserve located in the hills near the small town of Arima. The Asa Wright rep is waiting for us at the airport (he had no sign but knew our names) and helped us load our luggage into his beat-up car and then we drive up into the hills. Along the way he points out sights of interest and we catch our first glimpse of the Trinidad phenomenon of "liming", a tradition of hanging out with an alcoholic drink outside on the street with your friends. He explains that there are many different types of liming (river liming would be another example). I ask if liming looked upon negatively by Trinidadians and he said no. He also points out some avocado trees growing along the road and the bamboo guardrails by the road drop-offs. We arrive at the Asa Wright Centre around 10pm and are shown to our simple and basic room. A chap from the front desk helps us with our bags but doesn't stick around for a tip. They have tea and garlic bread as waiting in our room as a late night snack for us. @ 5am I awake to the sounds of birds calling loudly outside the screen porch of our room. I get up and pull back the curtains, reveling a lovely rain forest view from our room. A black bird with a bright yellow tail I later identify as Crested Oropendola flies by. Crested Oropendola, Asa Wright Center, Trinidad We walk over the main house of the lodge (dating from Victorian times) and sit on the verandah. There is a large group of English birders already gathered; they are looking through their "bins" (what they call binoculars) at the spectacle below. The Asa Wright staff has stocked up several bird feeders with bread and fruit; this attracts quite a colorful crowd of birds. We consult the used copy of Ffrench's "Guide to the Birds of Trinidad and Tobago" we bought off Amazon.com to determine what we are looking at. If a bird i.d. stumps us, many from the English group are quick to help us. The most common birds seen here are the Blue-Gray Tanager, the Palm Tanager, the Green Honey Creeper, and the Crested Oropendola (who maintain a colony of nests high in the trees about 50 feet from the verandah). There are also several agouti, a large rodent like creature that wait under the feeders for scraps. Blue-Gray Tanager, Asa Wright Center, Trinidad Green Honey Creeper, Asa Wright Center, Trinidad Consulting Ffrench on the veranda, Asa Wright Center, Trinidad After breakfast, we are lead down the trails on a complimentary tour by an Asa Wright guide. I had read that an owl called the Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl is often seen here and when I ask her about it she quickly points one out to us resting on a tree limb above the trail. It is nesting nearby and we will see it in the same spot over the next few days. This owl is rather shy though and never sticks around long enough for me to take a decent photo of it. On the sides of the trail there is a creepy buzzing noise, the guide tells us it is the call of cicadas. We continue down the tree and hear the loud "bock" of the weird Bearded Bellbird. Yes, this bird has an actual beard, although scientifically they are known as wattles. She points out several high up the trees, clear enough to see in our "bins" but not close enough for a photograph. The males call in their territory throughout the day and the calls can be heard for miles. It gets pretty hot in the afternoon so we retire back to the veranda until the lunch bell rings. It is communal dining & we are seated with an elderly couple that is touring the islands using their 50-foot sailboat. This sounds like a nice life! We swap stories about visiting the Galapagos (see my trip report from Nov 2006 here ). At 1:30pm, our driver comes to collect us for a visit to the Caroni Swamps. Along the way we stop at a waterworks facility and see many birds, including the Savannah Hawk (a pair), Southern Lapwing, various egrets and herons, Yellow-Throated Spinetail, and the saucy little Pied Water-Tyrant. There is also a caiman (similar to an alligator) lurking about in the water waiting for a bird to get careless. On the way out of the waterworks we also see the magnificently colored Yellow Hooded Blackbird. Pied Water-Tyrant, waterworks, Trinidad The driver continues the journey and we end up at the Caroni Swamp with enough time to slather on the sunscreen (getting "yucked-up" as my wife refers to it) & visit the restrooms. We jump into a large boat with about 30 other random folks, thankfully the Asa Wright guide advised to us to sit in the rear so we can hear the captain's commentary. He also gives us a cooler filled with rum punch and doughnuts (an interesting combination!). If you do this tour be sure to bring sunscreen and a rain jacket, as the boats are uncovered. As we get underway the captain stops to point out a potoo in a dead tree. This nocturnal bird hunts at night but during the day it perches upright on a tree stump and is very hard to see as it looks like part of the tree because it stays so completely still. Potoo, Caroni Swamp, Trinidad The captain sees our birding book by Ffrench and passes it around the boat to let the other passengers (mostly locals and cruise shippers by my guess) see a plate of what the potoo looks like in flight. An American woman sitting in front of us seems amazed that we thought to bring such a book on vacation with us. I spot a flash of red through the mangroves and the captain confirms that it is a Scarlet Ibis. This is the national bird of Trinidad. Soon we see hundreds hidden in the mangroves. The boat pulls out into an open area and ties up in order to watch the ibis return to roost as the sunsets. The island across from us is green with foliage but soon it looks like a Christmas tree as thousands of brilliant red flocks of Scarlet Ibis fly low across the water to roost in it. Quite a sight to see! We polish off the rum punch and give some of our spare doughnuts to the local young kid sitting next to us as well as one to the captain. On the way back through the swamp the captain points out a tree boa hanging from a tree and the local lady sitting next to us almost has a heart attack (she must suffer from ophidiophobia- fear of snakes) and runs across to our side of the boat in terror. Scarlet Ibis, Caroni Swamp, Trinidad The following morning we set out with an Asa Wright guide to check out the oilbirds at Dunstan caves. It is a short hike as the cave is located on the Asa Wright property. We are lead in groups of 3 into the dark cave. Our guide turns on her flashlight and illuminates groups of oilbirds perched in the ledges above our heads. Several in the rear of the cave are flittering about making their spooky cries. These birds spend their days in the dark caves, maneuvering by means of a bat-like sonar device found in their ears. For night flying the birds depend upon their large, highly light-sensitive eyes. In the olden days, Ameri-Indians used to harvest their fat young chicks and boil them for torch oil, hence their name. Flash photography is forbidden in the caves so getting a decent photography is tricky. If you have a digital camera you'll want to turn up the ISO to 800 or greater and bring a telephoto lens. The guide noted that the oildbirds temporarily abandoned the cave about six years ago because too many folks were visiting, now the Asa Wright Center only allows guests that stay 3 nights to visit and limits the times the caves can be accessed. Oilbirds, Asa Wright Center, Trinidad While on vacation you will usually encounter one obnoxious tourist or two and on the oilbird trip an ancient American lady who was dressed in full safari gear fit the bill. I had first noticed her on the verandah with a huge backpack that she wore everywhere, not wanting to leave it unattended for a second (crime really is not an issue at the Asa Wright Center as many of the British birders leave their $600+ scopes on the porch unattended while eating lunch). She pushed her way ahead of everyone on the trail and insisted on being the first into the cave. A Brazilian guy on the tour with us had to remind her not to pick up souvenirs in the forest to take back home and then finally lost patience with her and give her a loud reprimand when she shoved her way to the front of the line one time too many. She told me I ruined her chance to get a photograph in front of the cave because I took too many shots of it, even though she could have easily remained behind afterwards to take some. Oh well, I simply ignored her. Later in the afternoon after relaxing on the porch and watching several flocks of noisy orange-winged parrots fly overhead, my wife and I walk down the trail to observe the White-Bearded Manakin lek. A lek is a display dance a group of male birds do in the hopes of impressing a female. We first heard the buzzing noise of the manakin wings beating, then saw the lek in a clearing just off the trail. The lek was moderately active, with about 4 or 5 males hopping around, snapping their wings and hoping for some action. I felt bad for some of them, as the "Neotropical Companion" by John Kricher (a recommended book for this or any trip to the Neotropics) notes that many males will never get a chance in life to mate as the females are quite picky. We also randomly come across a forest crab hiding behind some twigs, he was quite irritated when we paid attention to him and snapped angrily at my wife. I have seen plenty of crabs on the beach and while scuba diving, but never realized that they can live in the forest. White-Bearded Manakin, Asa Wright Center, Trinidad Forest Crab, Asa Wright Center, Trinidad The evening we jump into another car and a driver takes us to beaches of Matura in an attempt to see Leatherback turtles nesting. Along the way he notes he has been to India and likes watching the women come out of the train stations, a rather odd fact to share. He stops along a dirt road near the beach to show us a male Red Howler Monkey leaping through the trees. We arrive at the beach, have our packed dinner and a beer, and then wait for the sun to set. Around 7:30pm, the turtle guides arrive and set off in opposite directions of the pitch-black beach armed with radios. Around 8pm they radio in several sightings: 5 have been spotted crawling up the beach. We are led to the nearest one and the guide puts a red filter over his flashlight and we watch the 6-foot turtle dig a hole for her eggs. I've seen a leatherback underwater while diving in the Bahamas but it is quite a new experience to see one on land out of its element. After a careful excavation with her rear flippers, the hole is complete and the turtle begins lying it's eggs. The guide removes the red filter from his flashlight and begins scanning the turtle for chips with a reader. This turtle has a chip implanted that indicates that she laid eggs on this beach in Trinidad a few years ago. The guide explains the turtle is in a trance during the egg laying process and I can take some photos without disturbing it if I wish. I take some pictures but wonder if this theory about the trance is really true. Regardless, the whole process is fascinating to observe and hopefully the turtle is not disturbed too much by the human presence. While we are leaving, one of the guides notes that a turtle further down on the beach is digging up another turtle's nest. There is nothing they can do to prevent this. Leatherback Turtle in an egg-laying trance (the only time photos are permitted), Matura, Trinidad The following morning I wander around the trails of the Asa Wright Center by myself for a bit to take some last photos before we depart for Tobago. I see lots of birds, including a Streaked Xenops, the beautiful Ruby Tropic Hummingbird, and a Double-Toothed Kite. On one trail I hear what sounds like the yelping of a puppy dog and look up and see a Channel-Billed Toucan high up in the trees. It hangs out for bit before flying off. Channel-Billed Toucan, Asa Wright Center, Trinidad We check out of the Asa Wright Center. We really enjoyed our stay here and would recommend it to anyone that has even a passing interest in wildlife and nature. We are driven back to airport and check in at the Tobago Express ticket counter. It appears our dive bag is over the weight limit for the airline but the workers are cool and don't charge us a fine. In the departure lounge we nosh on a veggie burger topped with pineapple and then make the very short flight (15 minutes!) to Tobago for Part II of our trip. Part II of the report focusing on Tobago can be found by clicking here .