Sunday, November 20, 2011

Our next exploration program

If we are unsuccessful exploring for oil here in Trinidad, I think I may have found my next exploration program - searching for valuable items on the beach.

These two were up at Maracas Beach recently.

B.

Knollys Tunnel



We were out scouting a new drilling location a few weeks ago. On the way out there, we went by the only man made tunnel in Trinidad. It was built in 1898 for the train line from Cunupia to Tabaquite. At this time, Cocoa was King and the cocoa estates in the Tabaquite region were heavy producers. As a result, the railway system was extended to allow these estates to move their produce to market.
Knollys Tunnel was named after Acting Governor Courtney Knollys and operated until 1965. We drove through the tunnel and it was in remarkably good shape AND full of bats!

B.

A fishy trade agreement with Canada

Located in the local grocery store...... B.

Meet out little Flames fans

Hockey season has begun.

Both granddaughters, Sienna and Rebecca are ready to cheer on the Calgary Flames.
Sienna likes the cozy sweatshirt look..... and Rebecca goes for the 'pants are optional' look...

B.

Just over the wall

My office in Marabella is tucked into a mixed neighborhood - businesses, residential and retail. Over the wall of our parking lot lives this little guy. He is tethered but he does get around. He is also very cautious so I needed a telephoto lens to get his picture. Cute little guy.


B.



Tropical growth rate

The rate at which things grow down here is incredible.
You even have to be careful about where you place your billboards as nature can overwhelm your message.... B.

Getting ready for Christmas

Petrotrin's Pt a Pierre refinery all lit up for the Christmas Season......

.....and every other night of the year.

B.

Remember Kes?

As the country starts rolling out the costumes for those that play mas here at Carnival, the popularity of Mimi's favorite Soca artist is apparent all over the country.

He is bigger than life on billboards everywhere....
B.

Rainy season flooding...again

Time to get back to blogging.....






We went off to Maracas Bay for a bit of a break on Saturday. After a quick trip to PriceSmart (the local Costco) to buy a new microwave for the office, we drove up to Maracas. The rain had started but the weather can often be very different on the other side of the Northern Range so we continued on to Maracas.




When we got there, the rain had stopped but there were dark clouds off in the distance. We lasted about an hour when the rains came. We packed up our stuff and drove back to town. While were at Maracas, Port of Spain got hammered by a huge rain storm.



The rains had left quite a mark on parts of the the city.


This is a 15 ft wall that was built just 6 months ago along the back of the Country Club (an old club owned by our neighbor). The flood waters from the rains pushed the wall over onto the road. It happened maybe 30 minutes before we drove by.

A bridge near our apartment was damaged resulting in gridlock that took us 90 minutes to drive what usually takes 10 minutes.

Along the way, there were stalled cars that had gotten flooded out and lots of folks out inspecting the damage. Locals said they hadnt seen flood damage like this in 35 years. As we drove past the collapsed wall, the streets had water running across them. This is the access to the parking lot of an RBC bank. The security guard is there to prevent anyone from driving in to use the ATM. The parking lot had over 2 ft of water in it.





We woke up Sunday to a beautiful sunny morning. The newspapers were full of flood damage homes, roads and....walls. The raining season continues for another 6 weeks here. It has become a soggy place to live.

The damage to the wall has actually become very political. It's design was initiated by the previous government, built as part of the redesign of the busy intersection around the corner by the current government and now the blame game begins - was it poor design, poor construction or just a nasty flood that would have knocked down anything in its path?




B.