Trinidad, Asa Wright Centre
An orange dawn over the waterfront of Port of Spain saw eager guests gathered on the dock side for an expedition into the hills of Trinidad’s northern range to see the wide variety of birds that inhabit the lush green forests. As we set off, this multi ethnic Caribbean city was coming awake as students and office workers cued for buses to get to school and work and the rush hour lines of cars coming into the city must have looked enviously as our buses swished by in the light traffic going outwards. Soon all this bustle was behind us as we turned into the hills and wound along serpentine roads that led to the Asa Wright Nature Centre. This oasis of environmental conservation has at its centre a sprawling old plantation house with a large veranda looking down the valley and over the forest. After a sturdy Caribbean breakfast we divided into groups led by very knowledgeable guides who took us through the abandoned cocoa plantation, stopping here and there to point out a bird or unusual flower. Those who made it down into the narrow valley and into the grotto where the unique oil birds live, were rewarded with sightings of the large brown nocturnal birds resting in their nests built into ledges of the cliffs above. It was late morning by the time we were climbing back up the network of paths to the main house and into our vans for the ride back to the ship. There we set sail across the placid Gulf of Paria and cut through the narrow Mona Boca passage to enter the Caribbean Sea and start our course northwards into the Lesser Antilles.
