Hey! We’re going to Tobago! In the sunny Caribbean Sea!

Tuesday 19th November

Our big trip in 2013 was to Tobago to celebrate two significant life events, Mrs TT’s 50th birthday on Christmas Eve and our upcoming 30th wedding anniversary.

We did get married young but being childhood sweethearts, we’d already known each other for quite some time. I must say that it’s been a very good 30+ years too. We’d actually booked this trip 9 months before we went as it was promoted via the Dealchecker website and was such a good offer.

We booked through Golden Holidays (www.golden-holidays.co.uk). They’ve been operating for over 20 years and were faultless.

Tobago is one of the more undeveloped islands and is well clear of the hurricane zone, which can still be active in November. Hurricane season lasts from June to November. That is also the rainy season on Tobago, which is probably why the package was such a silly price. Rain on Tobago, though, is short, sharp and warm. All you need is a brolly!

Travelling to the airport for us is a bit of a mission as we live on the west coast of Wales but I’ve come up with a great solution. We book a family room (more space and you get a bath) in the Gatwick Central Travelodge next to the A23, We drop off the bags at the hotel first and I drive round to the Airparks car park via Charlwood to avoid congested roads. I normally walk back to the hotel from North Terminal as I know the way but the buses (numbers G1, G3 and G7) go every 10 minutes and stop right outside the hotel entrance.

Once at the hotel, if you cross the roundabout nearby and walk towards Horley for a few minutes then cut through the churchyard on the left to reach a wonderful old English country pub called Ye Olde Six Bells which has great food! http://www.vintageinn.co.uk/yeoldesixbellshorley

 

Tobago day 1 – Coco Reef Hotel

Wednesday 20th November

Our 9:30 Monarch flight departure was slightly delayed but only by a few minutes. We flew on a wide-bodied airbus 330, which was only about 20% full. Having the extra headroom inside made for a much more comfortable and less claustrophobic flight. The legroom was OK, the staff very attentive and the inclusive food was excellent.

Mrs TT usually orders a vegan meal, not because she’s a vegan but because she is so fussy. She doesn’t like cheese, which rules out most veggie options and doesn’t eat meat apart from tinned tuna and a bit of plain chicken, which rules out most normal meals. I’m the opposite. I’ll eat ANYTHING, the exception being crab and dumplings but I’ll get to that later. Anyway, we’d swapped seats to give ourselves some more room so her vegan meal was given to someone else, a lovely Tobagan lady going home for the winter. The steward was incredibly apologetic at his mistake and managed to rustle up an alternative from somewhere.

The 9 hour flight was quite tedious but broken up by some quality in-flight entertainment including the film ‘Life of Pi’. We arrived at about 4pm taking the +4 hours time difference into account and proceeded through the rather chaotic airport, first queuing to have our passports checked, then queuing to collect luggage, then queuing to have our customs declarations checked and lastly queuing to have our bags x-rayed.

Our Golden Holidays rep was waiting at arrivals and introduced our taxi driver. We were en-route to the hotel 5 minutes later and at the Coco Reef Hotel in 10 minutes. Super service.
First impressions of the hotel were fantastic being set well back from the road with a snaking drive and fantastic tropical gardens as you approach. You then enter an open air atrium that makes you feel very relaxed and privileged.

We had contacted Eric, the hotel manager, before we arrived as this was a special holiday for us. As a result we were upgraded from a garden view room to a junior suite! We were taken up to our room (no 212) and were delighted to find a plaque by the door specially painted for us saying ‘Turner Suite’. What a lovely touch. We also had a complimentary bottle of wine and a fruit basket!

What a lovely touch – our own room plaque!

Being a corner room, the balcony was a bit smaller but we had a palatial room with a separate lounge area. The view was over the small pool and through the palm trees to the beach. We had a huge bathroom with two sinks and a low bath with a shower over it.

Our room

As we were staying on a B&B basis, we ate in the hotel on the first night. We had one course each, mine a main course only at 129 TT$ (Trinidad & Tobago Dollars). My wife had a starter at 58TT$ as she only wanted a salad. I had a beer and she had a big glass of wine for 38TT$. The full buffet was around 250TT$ I had the fish, which was excellent.

Tobago day 2 – Paradise Found

Thursday 21st November

After a superb night’s sleep on the huge and incredibly comfy bed and we were ready to explore!

The view from our room

Breakfast was fab with lots of choice and plenty of it. Staff could have been a bit more cheerful but they weren’t particularly grumpy, just busy. Omelette’s cooked to order, tasty pork sausages and crispy bacon plus fresh fruit and yogurt were all very nice but the smoked haddock mixture was horribly chewy and eggy breads were tasteless.

The open air restaurant overlooks the private hotel beach and is a lovely place to eat. There are loads of little blue and yellow birds called bananaquits flitting about and some small black birds that I think are glossy cowbirds hoping to share your breakfast, whether you want them to or not.

The restaurant overlooking the beach

Now for the beach! Probably the biggest advantage that the Coco Reef has over its competitors is the breakwater protecting the beach. Outside it was quite rough but inside it was calm and serene. Some good surf was pounding the nearby public beach but it was flat calm on ours. The sand inside the lagoon has ‘settled’ as well so it’s gently shelving.

We had plenty of choice of loungers and umbrellas as the end of November isn’t peak time being the tail end of the rainy season but I don’t think you’d have trouble finding loungers even if the hotel was packed. The pool was small and rarely used but that’s because the beach was really good.

The beach at the hotel

We ventured out of the hotel to find a cash machine and get some provisions. We found one very close after turning left out of the hotel gate. Not knowing how safe Tobago was, we were a little cautious but we needn’t have been. Close to the hotel was safe enough anyway. A little further along the street was a pharmacy and a shop. We had intended to buy some wine but it was all imported and at least 100TT$ (£10) a bottle. The beer was better at 9TT$ (90p) for a 330ml bottle.

For dinner that night we went to Coco Cafe, which is owned by the hotel but run completely separately (i.e. you can’t charge meals to your room). The setting is great. It’s a bit like an Arabian casbah with a tall wall surrounding it and stout gated entrance. There’s even a greeter on the door to keep out any riff raff. Meals are considerably cheaper than in the hotel. Pizza’s were OK but the bases were a bit scone-like rather than proper bread base and cost between 55TT$ and 65TT$. Cocktails were 35TT$.

The Curve bar opposite looked inviting so we had several rum punches at 30TT$ each before heading back to the hotel.

The hotel lobby

Tobago day 3 – The Island Tour

Friday 22nd November

While we were exploring the area around the hotel the day before we walked a little way along the road to Pigeon Point but didn’t get very far as it was too hot and we were planning to go there later in the week but we did bump into Ellis, proprietor of Ellis Clarke tours, who counts Cofi Annan as a past client. We had intended to do an island tour with the rep but that would have been as part of a group on a modern mini bus. Ellis offered us a much better alternative: Our own exclusive tour in an open Land Rover including some off-road tracks.

Proper Transport – an old long wheelbase Land Rover

Our guide/driver was Michael, who picked us up outside the hotel bright and early. The bright green Land Rover was perfect for sightseeing. Unobstructed views, plenty of ventilation as it only had a canvas roof and we certainly did go off-road on some of the old plantation tracks. One boggy section would have beaten most 4×4’s but our ‘Landy’ got through – just!

Nearly Stuck!

The walk up to the waterfall at Argyll was quite interesting in a touristy sort of way but we wanted more. We clambered up a rough track with a piece of rope to hold onto until we got up to the top tier of the waterfall. The footpath does have a lot of signs explaining what all the trees are.

When given a choice of the ‘normal tourist restaurant’ or ‘something more local’, I think we chose the wrong one. Michael’s lunchtime allowance was meant to pay for lunch at Jemma’s Treehouse Restaurant at Speyside, which is supposed to be amazing. We ended up with a takeaway from someone in Michael’s own village that he probably knew or was even related to. It was tasty enough but maybe not as good as eating at Jemma’s would have been.

Now for the tricky bit: I’d been really interested in doing a rainforest walk and as we drove through the mountain nature reserve, Michael offered to take us through the forest to see the bird life but for a not-insignificant extra fee of 400TT$. We’d even brought wellies just in case! Returning just to do this would have cost an extra 800 to 1000TT$, so it was a no-brainer really (wasn’t it?). In the end Michael was in his element. His knowledge of the bird life was superb. We spent an hour and a half in the forest and saw Blue Backed Mannekin, Sabre Winged Humming Birds, Green Parrots and a Collared Trogon.

Last stop on the tour was Englishman’s Bay, an unspoiled palm-fringed sandy bay with only one shack café/shop. Idylic to look at but the sea was too rough to swim, so we didn’t stop very long. The beach looked like it shelved steeply down into the sea too.

After a busy day, we were quite tired and not particularly hungry. What I fancied was a plate of chips but we couldn’t think where to go for that. We did find a takeaway place near the hotel the next day that would have been fine (see Saturday) but ended up at the beach cafe on the Pigeon Point road run by a very British sounding guy. They fired up the chip pan for us while we had a drink. It was a nice enough place but there were only 4 customers including us.

Tobago day 4 – Rest Day

Saturday 23rd November

After a busy day sightseeing the day before, we opted for a rest day and why not, we were in paradise! A late visit to breakfast and the buffet was sparse. There wasn’t anything missing but given another half an hour and it could have been stripped.

I tried a bit of snorkelling in the lagoon but didn’t see very much of interest. There are some fish around the breakwater and there might have been more on the other side but the surf was quite strong on that side.

We took a beer buying trip to the shop in the afternoon but decided to explore in the other direction. Right next to the hotel on the right is a public beach called Store Bay, with a cafe, some takeaway food kiosks and some tourist tat shops. The beach looked OK but it was rough.

Further down the road is a McDonalds style fast food takeaway and another small shop with some interesting stock. I couldn’t see any beer so we left there and carried on down the main road. Music was thumping out of a bar on the left and felt a wee bit threatening so we crossed the road to another shop/bar and bought some beer there. It was in a big chest freezer and very cold. They also sold some wine at a good price of about 20TT$ or £2 but it wasn’t very nice. It was a flavoured alcoholic drink made to look like wine. They did have some ‘Spanish’ wine for a bit more but we didn’t try that. We bought a bottle of rum and some fruit juice for our own rum punch instead.

That night we went to La Cantina, just outside the hotel grounds. It isn’t as smart as Cafe Coco as you’re sitting under a veranda next to the car park but the pizzas are good, authentic and reasonably priced at about 65TT$ to 80TT$. They were so big we asked for half to be wrapped and took it away with us. That was lunch the next day.

This is the street scene near to the hotel:

The street to the left of the hotel where the ATM is

Tobago day 5 – Pigeon Point and Nylon Pool

Sunday 24th November

A bird of prey centre brought an Eagle Owl to join us for breakfast. He just sat there unimpressed swivelling his head and staring at people with his big orange eyes but at least the bananaquits were absent!

An Eagle Owl visiting at breakfast time

We got talking to two chaps on the next breakfast table to us. They had just arrived the day before. They got talking to the owl’s minder and booked a rain forest tour with him for the next day. I think they agreed to pay 800TT$ for a morning trip.

Our plan was to go to Pigeon Point. We set off early before it got too hot and decided to walk but to take our time as Mrs TT is currently suffering from a very painful foot ligament problem called plantar fasciitis. About half way along the road I could see some clouds rolling over so we nipped under a shelter as the heavens opened. 10 minutes later and the sun was out again.

A typical November short sharp shower

There are some fisherman’s shacks along the road and a garish beach shop before you get to Pigeon Point itself.

Colourful shop-shack on the way to Pigeon Point

The road goes through some well tended parkland and a gateway but no one was taking the entrance fee. We spotted the covered pier that is in all the tourist brochures and bumped into someone selling boat trips, which is exactly what we wanted. Because we had our own snorkel kit, he dropped the price a bit to 100TT$ and told us to come back in at 11am.

We had a wander round and took some photos of the iconic views, then settled down to read a book until our boat trip was due.

Perfect sea and sand at Pigeon Point

A nice shady place to sit at Pigeon Point

The little glass bottom boat took us out over the reef before stopping for some snorkelling. The reef is a bit tame and nowhere near as exotic as the reefs at Sharm el Sheikh. They give you a life vest and throw out a lifebelt on a rope, which you’re told to stay in reach of as there is a bit of current. I saw a couple of cornet fish and a big green honeycomb cowfish. We then went to swim at Nylon Pool: waist-deep, crystal-clear sea but miles from the shore. It was quite strange.

Nylon Pool

We were back on shore by about 1pm and feeling a bit peckish but we’d spent all the cash we’d brought with us on the boat trip, so we wandered back down to the hotel and bumped into Ellis again. He’d brought his son and nephew down to the beach to play. We’d booked another trip with Ellis for this night to go to Sunday School, which is a steel band concert at nearby Buccoo. Both trips were 1,200TT$ or about £120, which we thought was good value.

Ellis picked us up at the hotel at 8pm and took us to Buccoo, which wasn’t quite what I’d expected. There were three street barbeque cafe’s set up along the roadside. We picked one with a fixed price buffet for 38TT$ each with plenty of choice. I had some barbequed fish, which was very tasty. A bottle of beer and a coke from the bar over the road was only TT$16 (£1.60!)
They’ve created a decked area where the steel drums were all set up. Next to that was a stack of amplifiers thumping out some good reggae music. Drinks were a bit more there. I think a tiny bottle of rum, a coke and a beer was about 60TT$.

Sunday School at Buccoo

The steel band started up at about 9:30 with some Christmas carols, which was surreal. Christmas in the Caribbean just doesn’t feel right! The atmosphere, though, was really good and thoroughly authentic. A real mix of tunes were bashed out and they were still going strong at 11pm when we left. I think there’s also a night club that gets going as soon as the band finishes.