Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme were yesterday’s news in Grenada, the Spice Island, so appropriately enough we docked this morning in Scarborough, fair capital of Tobago. The island got its name the indigenous Arawak (also known as Taíno) word for tobacco, which they liked to roll into fat cigars. (The other major Caribbean indigenous group, the Carib, are now memorialized in the brand name of a popular Caribbean beer.) Given that the two major pre-contact groups are now known for smoking and drinking, it makes one wonder what vice a third such group might have contributed to the mix.
Tobago also is the answer to the following trivia question: what is the only place Latvia ever colonized? Well, not Latvia specifically, but the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia, as present-day western Latvia was known in the 17th century. I won’t go into all the details, which are mired in conflicts between Protestants and Catholics and between England, Spain, and the Netherlands, but Tobago was a Latvian colony from 1654-1659 and intermittently thereafter until 1689. Today, the brief Latvian heyday on Tobago is commemorated in a couple of place names and a monument.
Thus ends today’s history lesson. To get a sense of Tobago, I took an off-road 4×4 tour, which started decidedly on-road at a local resort whose golf course is frequented by caimans (small crocodilians). It was a pretty swanky place, so I have no idea how they afford the membership fees – perhaps they’re used to retrieve errant golf balls.
From the resort, we headed high up into the hills to Greenhill Falls – yes, yet another waterfall; I figure if I’m fated to have cataracts I’ll opt for the scenic kind – which was beautiful but running a bit brown because of torrential rains this morning.
Our tour vehicles were pick-up trucks, and the guide gave us a choice of riding in the bed for the off-road portion of the tour, which headed from the falls deep into the rain forest. I’ve made it 68 years without that experience and figured I should go for it. Who could have predicted that the hips, knees, and butt of someone of my vintage might object?
Here’s where I have to thank the rain gods: after 30 minutes of jostling, jouncing, and jolting, the tour leader decided that we risked getting stuck in the soupy ground if we plowed further up the trail. I and my two equally superannuated “bedmates” leapt (well, limped) at the opportunity to get back inside the truck.
After reversing course we stopped at an abandoned sugar factory, where our guide gave us a brief history of sugar production on Tobago and the reasons it failed. It turns out that after emancipation, when factory owners had to start paying their labor force, the economics of sugar production didn’t make sense and the factories had to be shut. Justice is sweet! (Another factor: people figured out how to make sugar from beets, which was a much safer and less expensive process, not that the factory owners cared if their workers occasionally lost hands to the cane crushing machinery.)
Heading back toward the ship, we stopped briefly at a beach, apparently for the privilege of paying a dollar to use the facilities – and to be plied with the obligatory tour-ending rum punch.
I’ll bid Tobago a fond farewell: I got a good feel from the island and really enjoyed my conversation with our driver, who was full of fun facts and good humor.
Tonight we sail to Barbados for the end of the first half of the cruise. I hope the bridge doesn’t have to deal with any troubled waters on the way.
