{{!gwi}}

pot of gold?

A "kissing plant" at the Asa Wright Nature Center, Trinidad.

My 'scenery' today is inside. It's past time to change the plates. Can't believe that we are down to the last four months of the year already. Seems that I just put up May, June, July and August. Three weeks of September got away from me.

Ghost Town.

Jodi-

I was on a bus tour of the northern end of Trinidad a couple of years ago, and the last stop of the day was the Asa Wright Nature Center that Jim showed. However since we had run late on several of the previous stops on the tour, we had literally 10 minutes at the Asa Wright Center.

Arrival: 2:38 P.M.

On the viewing patio of the nature center:

Seeing Birds:

As well as a two-foot long lizard

and a mountain crab

And back on the bus ready to leave at 2:47 P.M.

We then had to race back to the ship halfway across the country by 4:00 P.M. or be penalized.
We first had to wend our way down out of the mountains ...

and drive halfway across the the country...

In traffic like this...

right at the time school had let out ...

and managed to reach the ship at 4:00 and 13 seconds!

The trip was one of the best on our month-long voyage around the Caribbean, but I really thought we'd die or crash or at least kill some school child on the manic race back to the ship.

Ocho Rios, Jamaica: waiting till the last minute to get back on board the ship.

Glad I'm watching from my balcony :o)

Great shots everyone!

Bob, I really enjoyed your Trinidad photos and story, thanks for sharing! Those birds are beautiful!

Asa Wright is a fabulous spot. It is a long way from town and the drive up (and down) the mountain is perilous as Bob said. We were there in the morning, so we had lots of time to get back to the ship. I cannot locate the picture I took of a long line of leaf-cutter ants, and many had 'escort' ants to keep lazy ants from stealing the prize pieces. It was amazing to see. And, the sounds...

They do offer over-night lodging with meals. To return to really become part of what is there is so tempting. It is just so far away.

I encourage you, as I am sure Bob would, if given the opportunity, go the Asa Wright Nature Center.

We loved Trinidad. The people there seemed genuinely happy to see us, as compared with Nassau, Bahamas where they only seemed happy to see our money. Since we were traveling on the Semester at Sea ship and my wife was teaching on the ship, one day's shore trip was a class "field trip" to the University of Trinidad and Tobago where they ended up taking about as many pictures of us, as we took of them.

It is a bird lovers paradise with the Asa Wright Nature Center which you should probably allocate much more than 10 minutes to see, as well as the Caroni Swamp Bird Sanctuary, and several other sites for birds.

This is one of the leaf-cutter ants that Jim referred to: