tobago virgin no more

this past weekend i took my first ever trip to tobago.
ever in my life.
kinda ridiculous actually.

my coworkers, who are more foreign than me (most of them) had already been to tobago 2 or 3 times since the school year started. i had not made the obligatory pilgrimmage to check out the sleepy island that is the appendage to the "new york" of the caribbean.

friday:
left school at 145 in order to get ahead of the 2pm rush hour traffic that builds up around town. imagine trying to get to mississauga from scarborough, but the only way to do it would be to take danforth straight into town... or at least to the lakeshore.
that's pretty much what we're dealing with here.

get to the airport at 330, plenty of time to check in, find my friends who had arrived 30 mins before, and chow down on some royal castle.
we go through security. they decided to step back out to rituals. the flight is scheduled for 430. it boards at 415. and takes off at 423. no announcements were made. i dialled them frantically as i watched the propellors start up, then listened to the airline rep guy give some crap azz excuse about why we couldnt take the 20 m walk across the tarmac.

get into tobago, on the next flight (5pm). get picked up. check into our room down the road after having bought supplies at the corner store. yolande's in crown point. you gotta stay there. we all crashed on the bed and stuffed ourselves full of... CITY TV!! it was so nice to see scenes from toronto, and to feel sorry for all those poeple in jackets and sweaters.

finished the night with some crappy chinese takeout while watching the grey's rerun and the raptors game [good show, boys!].


saturday:
get up freakin early without an alarm. i blame the new surroundings, and the random roosters that started crowing at about 5 - raising me to consciousness. we were up, dressed, and fed by 8 and at the beach by 830. it was a 10 min walk down the road.
scored beach chairs and an umbrella cus we were the first [losers] at the beach.

it was a bit surreal to see the chairs and umbrellas set up in neat triads, patiently waiting for the tourists to arrive. the quiet anticipation of the empty chairs is mirrored by the gently bobbing tour boats anchored 100ft away in the sea. you know its not a local beach when...

after a lot of floating, chatting, tanning, and avoiding getting fleeced/hit on by the local guys looking to make a buck on the stairs, we pack it up and head out on a boat to No Man's Land for lunch.

lunch consists of veggies, fish or chicken, rice and all the drinks you can handle. all this flanked by (for) entitled [white] tourists who assume that one of the women in our group is included as a tour-servant. obviously skin colour denotes class and intent. i wouldn't have let that go nicely.

several glasses of spicy rum punch, and a heavy coke and puncheon later, i was feeling lovely. after more floating, chatting and philosophising, we get into the boat to head back to the main island (tobago). upon reaching the dilapidated jetty shaded by the huge mangrove stand, we find a white trini doing brisk business in fileting fish. right there. in front of us. pretty fascinating.

shower, sleep and tv later, its 1230am and time to look pretty and walk (again) down the road to the nearest remaining club-lime spot. the good spot had been closed down (due to club owner politics) so we went to this spot instead. and it was, as we had been warned, second-rate. it was still good for a dance or two.

had my first dance ever with a man with a pot-belly. he was sent to be a our guard/chauffeur, so i knew we had to be nice. he had taken a shine to lil bitty me, so i spent the better part of the 3 hrs we were there pressed up against his protruding stomach. i tried to imagine if that's what kelvin would feel like as a fat guy. if he happened to get fat. its not even soft fat like women get. its hard, harder than a preggo belly. this was more than a little disconcerting. and i was quite sober so i had to work VERY hard not to look miserable. he even asked if i was ok. there's no nice way to say "your belly pressed against makes me want to go home," so i lied and said i was fine. and while he was very nice and not grabby at all, he was nowhere near as cute as kelvin either. compounding my misery. men dont do subtlety.

get home at 4 [after he drove us back doing -no lie- 25km/hr. you can do that in tobago]. asleep by 430am.

sunday:
who were we fooling trying to plan to be up early for another sunrise beach trip? HA!
took our time getting up, getting ready, and getting packed. headed out to a restaurant near the airport for breakfast (walked again). annoy the waitress by making my own breakfast combo. apparently substitutions are taboo in tobago.
after the leisurely brunch, we had 1.5 hrs before i had to check in at the airport for my stupid 145 flight. we went for a drive around part of the island. i couldnt resist the urge to purchase another sheer wrap. maybe i'll do something with it...
and maybe not

220, back at piarco. looked for my car in the blazing heat. sweated for the umpteenth time through my shirt. felt sleepy as all get out.

thought, tobago was WICKED! gotta do that again ;0)