So Saturday morning, before dawn had properly cracked, the limers and I, after coordinating the pick up by cell phone, headed off on a little adventure down South to Mayaro.
SDA, this chick from work invited me on this outing with a few others, and we were really looking forward to it as an escape.
My only experience of Mayaro is from “Green Days by the River” by Michael Anthony. I have never been that far South before, unless Point Fortin counts. At any rate, I’ve never been there before.
We headed off to Sangre Grande first. Maria, who had gone to Barbarossa’s Cooler Fete the night before, slept in the front seat for hours. I don’t think she got up until we were almost in Mayaro.
Driving along the Eastern Coast of Trinidad is beautiful. There is the sea, which you never see until you’re passing through the ‘Nuts. The ‘Nuts are miles of coconut trees that fringe the only vista to open sea that we passed on our way down to SD’s liming spot. The coconut trees grow up and around each other, the wind bending them into seemingly pliable positions.
There’s something beautiful and relaxing about driving through them. I later found out they were planted as wind breaks for an estate deeper into the land out there; but the estate is no more now, and the ‘Nuts keep growing in the face of the Atlantic Ocean and the salty sea air.
We stopped in Mayaro-proper to stock up on food and alcohol, snacks and such. I don’t know why I felt it would be a one-horse town, it definitely wasn’t. It was quite a busy little place.
By the time we got to the liming spot, which was some miles outside of Mayaro-proper, it was almost 11am. We’d been on the road for hours! I know we made a lot of pit stops, but for the most part, the day (and the sun) had already lost it’s momentum.
The rain clouds threatened rain that came and went, we never made it onto the beach until about 2PM, almost 2.30PM. There was however, a great deal of shit talk to keep us all occupied; and laughing.
When I finally close enough, I didn’t like the look of the Sea. The water was dark, so dark you couldn’t see the sea floor, and it was only a few feet deep. Coming from Barbados, where the water is always blue, and you can always see the sea-bed, going to the beach in Triinidad is awlays a lesson in ‘One man’s junk, is another man’s treasure’.
However, the beach was beautiful. There were little spots along the beach where the sea shells washed up in great deposits, and the sharp little shells pressed against the foot, crunching and disintegrating under our steps. I enjoyed the colours; purples, peaches, pinks and whites.
I eventually did go into the water, but I got beaten up against the rough waves, and the water was too shallow to swim properly so I exited the water as quickly as I went in, because there’s only so much of that I could take. My secret is, that I wore a bathing suit without straps and the rough water kept pulling down the top and exposing my breasts… so that was a good reason to retake the shore as well.
So for the most part, I sat on the beach and observed. Observed my companions in this adventure, and the undercurrents between them all, of which they were many. It was the first time in a long time that I’ve hung out with people much younger than myself; and it was good to kick back and just go with the flow of things.
Now SD can say that she took me out (She’s been promising to bring me on this lime for months) and I can say I’ve been down Mayaro to lime. It was a good weekend. I felt almost young again!
I think I picked up and admire, a local who kept asking if I wanted to get my cigarette lit, and who eyeballed me most of the time; I got to know some of these young wings a little better, and had an experience to write about in my blog.
Life is good. I can tell 2004 is going to bring good things.
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