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Trinidad & Tobago Trinidad & Tobago GEODYSSEY Trinidad & Tobago Geodyssey Geodyssey is not an ordinary travel company. We started life in 1993 as a travel specialist for holidays to CHECK THIS IMAGE AND RESCAN IF Venezuela, for which we developed a dedicated and NECESSARY FROM TRANNY 003 SUPPLIED personal style that many people seem to like. With a ‘fairly-traded travel’ ethos we try to go beyond the Pointe-a-Pierre, Trinidad Pointe-a-Pierre, usual tourist experience, to give you a real feel for a country in the context of a well-organised trip that makes best use of precious time and often modest budgets. It seems to work - we rapidly became the UK’s leading travel company for mainland Venezuela. We concentrate on ecotourism, wildlife and outdoor activities, as well as great beaches and good food. Few of Trinidadhe twin republic of Trinidad and Tobago& is Tobagothe leading nation in the eastern Caribbean. us want to do only one thing with our holiday time, so we provide you with a wide choice. We know a great Trinidad lies only 7 miles off the coast of Venezuela and the South American continent (to which both Trinidad deal about organising specialist pursuits like T and Tobago were once joined). To the north of Trinidad is the Caribbean Sea, to the south the Orinoco runs adventurous treks and expeditions, birdwatching, and into the Atlantic. It is just 50 miles north/south and 30 miles across at the centre. scuba diving, so you can mix these in as well. Trinidadians trace their heritage to many origins. Some have roots among the Caribs that lived here before the arrival When we visited Trinidad a few years ago we loved it. of the Europeans, many are descended from Africans brought to the island in the barbarity of the slave trade, others Since then we’ve been researching, meeting local have european, indian, chinese, or arab backgrounds. Mutual respect, tolerance and the celebration of different people, visiting hotels, seeing the birds and wildlife for cultures are themes that run through the island’s life, centred on the capital, Port of Spain. Here you’ll find one of the ourselves, and testing tours and treks. It’s been great, most multicultural, vibrant and cosmopolitan societies in the whole of the Caribbean. Outside the capital and a few but hard work! Now we feel we can offer our customers small towns, rural communities lead a simpler, more relaxed, rather upright way of life. for Trinidad and Tobago something approaching the Trinidad is for the most part outside the mainstream Caribbean tourist trade of ‘sun, sea and sand’ (though it has each service we offer for Venezuela. in plenty). It attracts instead a variety of visitors interested in wildlife, nature and the island’s rich culture. Walking and This is our first full brochure for ‘T&T’ and we have many trekking are also good options. There are some excellent local beaches along the north coast: crescent bays with quiet people to thank for helping us, especially Rosemarie sandy beaches backed by palm-trees, fishing villages enlarged by a few beach houses and very few hotels, and Thomas, Tony Poyer, Roger Neckles, Andy Whitwell, livelier beaches near Port of Spain serving its week-enders. Wendy Yawching, Sean Robinson, David Rooks, Ian The two islands are among the richest in wildlife in the Caribbean, with a great variety of habitats crammed into their Lambie, Courtney Rooks, Cristo Adonis, and Victor Nixon. small areas, including montane rainforests, freshwater wetlands, mangrove swamps, and coral reefs close by Tobago’s Welcome to Trinidad and Tobago - we hope you’ll love it coast. There is a particularly wide range of birdlife, thanks to the islands’ proximity to South America, and luxuriant too! marine life around Tobago nourished by nutrients from the Orinoco. Trinidad is also notable for leatherback turtles that nest on its northern beaches, and a small population of manatee. Conservation has a long history, with Tobago Gillian Howe boasting an area of rainforest that has been legally protected since 1760. Modern efforts are rather fitful (oil extraction tucked away off the southwest and southeast coasts plays a major part in Trinidad’s economy), but improving as the John Thirtle islands come to recognise their potential for ecotourism. Most visitors to the islands stay on Tobago, attracted by good beaches and a small number of resort-type hotels around its southern tip. December - March are the most popular months. Trinidad is very popular at Carnival (two days before Ash Wednesday) and in the weeks leading up to it. Tobago is much smaller than Trinidad: a fish-shaped island just 26 miles long and 6 miles wide, and lies 20 miles to the northeast - a short 20 minute flight. It is mostly a verdant landscape of winding coastal roads that skirt craggy headlands and bays, Tobago 2 Trinidad GEODYSSEY www.geodyssey.co.uk Reservations : 020 7281 7788 Trinidad & Tobago Contents page Regions (and Places to stay): Trinidad 4-5 Port of Spain 6 Tobago 7-9 Small group holidays 10 Independent travels 11 Special interests: Store Bay, Tobago Bay, Store Diving 12 Walking, trekking and cycling 13 Birdwatching 14-15 Venezuela extensions back cover Planning your trip The simplest and best value way to see T&T is to join a unspoilt natural beaches, tiny hamlets, exuberant tropical vegetation, and dazzlingly colourful songbirds. The capital small group ‘Trinidad and Tobago Odyssey’ trip, page 10. city, Scarborough is little more than a small town. Almost everyone makes at least a part, if not all, of his living from farming or fishing - a blast on a conch shell still calls men to pull the fishing nets ashore. The island’s key celebrations If you are planning your own trip your first decision remain the fishermen’s fetes and the year round harvest festivals held when the whole local community works should be how long to spend on each island. For Tobago collectively together to bring in a crop. Even the annual Easter Goat and crab races at Buccoo and the traditional decide then where you’ll stay - you can see the whole folkloric Heritage Festival which tours the island from mid July to early August are genuine local events, not laid on for island from any of the Places to stay on pages 7-9. For visitors. Trinidad your first decision may be what you’d like to do - beach, touring, wildlife, trekking, etc, then plan your Tobago is one of the most important places in the Caribbean for divers, and there is plenty of scope for windsurfing, accommodation accordingly, see pages 4 - 5. sailing, surfing and kayaking too. At Mount Irvine there is an 18-hole championship golf course, reputed to be one of the Caribbean’s best. The cannons at Fort King George and place names such as Englishman’s Bay, Bloody Bay, Man On page 11 there’s a choice of short tours that you can O’War Bay, King’s Bay, and Pirates Bay hint at the island’s tumultuous colonial history of capture and recapture between mix in. We’d encourage you to take one or two tours at the Spanish, French and British. least, as a way of meeting talented local guides and also to discover more about the islands and get to places that It’s easy to explore Tobago by road. All the sights are reachable from anywhere on the island in the course of a day’s may be hard to reach under your own steam. We can drive. We can arrange a hire car for you, but for a real treat we’d recommend you to take of one of our very personable also arrange a hire car for you, or a car with driver. local drivers, like the wonderful Mr Victor Nixon. To be driven by ‘Nixon’ is to be in the company of royalty: every Tobagonian seems to know him, calling him as the car passes, exchanging a few words and a drawled “aaall-right” - If you’ve a special interest in diving, trekking, cycling or the universal greeting on Tobago. birdwatching (pages 12-15) then you can devote the whole of your holiday to it, or just a few days. Both Trinidad and Tobago have wonderful food. On Trinidad the accent is on variety, with creole and european cooking colliding head-on with african, indian and chinese cuisines to create new twists and combinations. Hotels Finally, you might like to round off your holiday with an adopt less varied menus to suit their foreign guests and chicken, steaks, hamburgers, and pizzas are easy to find. Be excursion to Venezuela, details on the back cover. sure to try Tobago’s speciality of curried crab and dumplings at some stage during your visit, and experiment with Trinidad’s street food from the most sought-after vendors. Your protection Musically, Trinidad’s heyday came with the popularity of calypso in the 50s and 60s. Now replaced by soca, one of the You may book with Geodyssey in the knowledge that your most danceable beats, Trinidad’s popular music stays at home and has not found the same recognition as reggae or money is fully protected. rap. But Trinidad’s Carnival still leads the Caribbean in music, costume, dance and sheer partying. The lead-up to Geodyssey holds an ATOL licence, supervised by the Civil Carnival is almost as good as Carnival itself, with lots of practice events - as much fun, and in more manageable doses. Aviation Authority, who make stipulations as to our share capital to help ensure we stay in business and require us to Columbus passed Trinidad on his third expedition; Sir Walter Raleigh called in and raided the main Spanish settlement lodge a bond as surety so that UK clients who buy domestic or on his way to the Orinoco and his search for El Dorado.
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