Trinidad was just such an amazing trip. It wasn’t perfect though- one of the more frustrating incidents was our Maracas Beach day. We’d cleared the whole day, woke up early to prep and load up a dozen people, and headed off in a caravan to drive around the island to Maracas.
As we stopped for snacks and pictures at the overlook en route, we realized that the grey morning mist looked atypically thick. It was still cloudy when we unloaded and sent our driver off, and that mist promptly turned to rain. Fortunately, the rain was warm, so we decided to stick it out, make the best of it, and just have lunch first.
Maracas is known for its shark-and-bake, a Trini fried fish sandwich. Richard’s is legendary, and has always been our favorite. But we had time to kill as we waited out the storm, so we had a progressive lunch and ate at Daphne’s as well. It was yummy, but Richard’s was still my fave- I adore piling my bake with spicy slaw, salted cucumbers, mango chutney, and plenty pepper sauce.
I had used my Silhouette to cut vinyl labels for some covered sip-a-mugs, figuring they’d be useful at the beach, and they were! We used bits of soca lyrics for the personalization, and they made for vacation-long jokes on very handy cocktail cups.
The sun didn’t come out, but it did dry and warm up a bit post-lunch, so we were glad. We walked the beach for a while, and eventually meandered in to wade in the water (and compare tans). Erin won… David lost, as if anyone’s surprised by that.
The water was really pretty nice, and I do hate crowded beaches, so it wound up working out okay, all things considered. It just made me sad that the views were so dreary, because Maracas is stunningly beautiful on a clear day, and I wish I could share that with you.
After a while, storm clouds rolled in again, so we decided to cut our losses before another drenching. I called our driver Kevin, and got him to come pick us up earlier than we’d planned.
And of course, we made a stop at the the fruit stand on the way home from the beach. So much fresh local produce, as well as sugarcane juice, freshly pressed by the friendliest vendor.
We shopped and made friends, until Kevin rounded us up and home we went, to rest up before that night’s fete.
loveRavayna
