Category Archives: Caribbean

Piarco International Airport – Port of Spain – Trinidad

Posted on by
2
Piarco Airport, Port of Spain, Trinidad

Piarco Airport, Port of Spain, Trinidad

An occasional series on some of the world’s least known airports, with some practical advice and guidance to those using the airport for the first time.

Arrivals:

If you arrive from Europe and are moving on from the islands just make sure that all the necessary information is included on the landing card. Empty spaces result in questions and if these are unnecessary the immigration entrance process is relatively easy and pain-free. This is the same for any customs declaration.

There is the ability to buy duty-free goods on arrival at the airport, before passing through immigration.

There is a tourist information office immediately to the right after passing through customs. Stays open quite late even at weekends. Can provide details of accommodation if this has not been previously booked.

Exchange facilities are next to the Tourist Information Office as well as a number of fast food places, leading up to the atrium. ATM’s are the other side of the atrium, in the passage that leads to the check-ins for departures.

Local transport:

As with everywhere there is no shortage of taxi’s. Expect to pay a minimum of US$10, for the shortest ride and about US$25 to the centre of Port of Spain.

There is a bus to the city centre that leaves on the hour directly across the road from the arrivals exit doors to the wide world. This runs Monday-Friday only, from 06.30, 07.15 and then at 15 minutes past the hour until 20.15. Cost: TT$4 (£0.40p, January 2013), buy tickets at the video arcade on the landside of the arrivals hall.

If you book a hotel in advance many of them will offer free (or reduced price) airport transfers.

Website:

Click here for the official website of Piarco International Airport

Accommodation:

If you are stuck in Port of Spain overnight, waiting for an onward connection accommodation can be expensive, especially close to the airport. The Piarco International Hotel isn’t as bad as it’s made out to be on the ratings websites, such as TripAdvisor, but is very much overpriced for what you get if you arrive without a prior booking. If you choose to go there make an internet booking before arrival and try to arrange an airport transfer, its only a couple of minutes by road from the airport.

However, there is now another guest house, also close to the airport that has not yet appeared in any of the guide books. This is small, only has 4 rooms, but is only 3 minutes away.

Airport Inn

60 Factory Road

Tel: +868 669 8207

Mobile: +868 678 6327

Email: sitasingh@airportinntrinidad.com

Website: www.airportinntrinidad.com

Single: US$80, Double US$50 per person.

Includes: Continental breakfast, airport transfer and WiFi.

Departures:

Though a small airport and normally doesn’t have a great deal of traffic, check-in can be slow (possibly annoying so) even at quiet times.

For international departures there is no further check of passports, other than that of the airline staff when you board.

When I was there in January 2013 there was an exhibition (as part of Independence celebrations) of the development of the steelpan (what we in Europe know as the steel drums). For the life of me I don’t know why I didn’t take photos, I was there long enough. However, I was given a brochure detailing the development of this distinctive Caribbean musical instrument and if it survives my travels I will provide a pdf version in the future. Watch this space!

The creeping privatisation of public space

Posted on by
Reply

 

Kingstown, St Vincent - bus station transformed into bar and restaurant

Kingstown, St Vincent – bus station transformed into bar and restaurant

It now seems that in virtually every country throughout the world not only is the basic infrastructure of a country being privatised and being controlled by capitalists from who knows where but also public space is being appropriated by a growing army of small traders of every kind.

This was turned into a ‘theory’ of development by one of the arch proponents of monetarism and neo-liberalism, the Peruvian Hernando de Soto, way back in the early ’90s. His argument was that by allowing unfettered and unrestricted freedom for people to enter the market place they would provide for themselves and in the process give a push to the economic development of the country.

This is starting to appear in some of the metropolitan countries but is almost a virus in an increasing number of countries throughout the world. In the European context this is especially evident in Albania, ‘the third world in Europe’. With the destruction of the socialist economic structure the country has virtually reverted to the pre-revolutionary, pre-liberation feudal relationships to production and distribution.

What this form of economy does is use the public infrastructure for private gain and in the process both degrade that infrastructure and deny it to those of the public who might wanted to have made use of facilities created for the benefit of all.

It will come as no surprise that the same is happening in the Caribbean islands where you have some of the richest people in the world rubbing shoulders (but only metaphorically) with some of the poorest.

An example is the bus station next to the market, right beside the sea in the main town of St Vicente, Kingstown, in the Windward Islands.

At some time in the recent past the local authorities must have decide to establish a ‘proper’ bus station, making entry and exit of the buses a fluid and organised affair (rather than the organised chaos that is the norm) as well as providing safe and relatively comfortable places for passengers to wait. This included benches and shades against the searing Caribbean sun. That plan must have looked good on paper and the reality was probably quite impressive at the start. But at some time the petite bourgeoisie invaded that space and took it over.

What possibly started as providing food and drink facilities to those waiting for their bus has now developed to such a stage that the people friendly bus shade has been taken over by the traders and woe betide anyone who might want to use those facilities as if they belonged to all.

For what has happened is that the shade has been extended by all types of material, from wooden boards or corrugated sheets of iron to plastic or more substantial tarpaulins. Any number of ramshackle tables and benches have appeared and the prime area has become a mecca for local fast food or rum shacks (those places where the local ‘blow your head off’ 84% rum is decanted from large containers into smaller bottles, depending upon the budget of the customer).

Electricity is needed for these businesses and so what was designed as public lighting has been broken into and the power supply diverted to satisfy the demands of the refrigerators and lighting of these cafes and bars. Gas needed for cooking comes in bottles and they end up breaking the paving stones so carefully placed there in the first place. Rubbish accumulates and this adds to the general degradation of the area. And there is never any investment in repair of this infrastructure, not by the so-called entrepreneurs who are making their profit from them nor by the local authorities, and why should they? Just to see it degraded once more.

This exists in a situation where there is obviously some sort of official sanction of such activity. In the town of Grenville, the second city of Grenada, outside the meat market there is a sign painted on the wall, by order of the health authorities, that vending of any kind is prohibited due to potential health hazards. As you can imagine under this painted notice there was a whole string of people selling a diverse variety of products.

This was not surreptitious trading that you come across in certain places, e.g., outside the Duomo in Florence where the traders selling posters melt into the crowd at the merest hint of the police. In Grenville the meat market is a literal stone’s throw from the local police headquarters.

Now this attitude could be described as churlish, being hypercritical of those people who are merely trying to make a living. This is, indeed, the approach that de Soto takes when anyone criticises his ‘theory’.

But it goes much further than that. In other parts of the world I’ve walked past women sitting at the roadside with a small pyramid of tomatoes (not more than 6 or 7) and that’s all they are trying to sell. I have gone past them some hours later and they are still there. Rather than be a method to reduce unemployment and create wealth these practices only serve to disguise a massive problem of underemployment as well as being psychologically demoralising when hours are spent with no financial reward forthcoming.

But this idea of a ‘free market’ only exists if the powers that be consider it worth while promoting. There was a case recently of a semi-official street fruit and veg stall being given the heave-ho when they were trying to trade just across the road from a Tesco Metro store in the centre of Liverpool.

Now I’m the last person who would defend the right of these Liverpool shopkeepers to challenge the economic power of a huge world retailer but this idea of a ‘free market’ promoted so positively in many of the poorest parts of the world would find itself under attack if it were to challenge the big players.

The reason it is promoted is that, in itself, such activity only feeds dreams that the poor have of one day being rich and has no impact upon the real development of any country. Whilst they live with that dream they don’t think of collective action that might have a longer term impact upon their futures. And as a by-product they degrade what belongs to all making the argument for more investment in the public sector, as opposed to the private, all that more difficult.

Castries – a real town on tourist St Lucia

Posted on by
Reply
View over Castries Bay, St Lucia

View over Castries Bay, St Lucia

Castries – a real town in tourist St Lucia

It wasn’t a place of choice (my flight arrangements meant that I arrived here in St Lucia from Trinidad) but it has worked out well. That’s not taking into account the problem with accommodation in the Caribbean tourist islands. One person staying for one day is almost certainly the worst of all possible combination. Even if available it is expensive for what you get. Nothing wrong just very overpriced. And the place I ended up being told about was about as far from the centre of Castries town as is possible.

But there are very regular and relatively cheap (EC$2 into town centre) minibuses running from all directions and at reasonable frequency (at least during the day time, things get quiet after dark and few and far between after seven).

The minibuses take you into the central market area and you are immediately in a Caribbean town. Although Castries does have the occasional cruise ship tying up (there was a smallish one there the day I arrived) it’s obvious that it’s not for the tourist attractions of the town. Castries is bustling, chaotic and seems to have been designed with no planning at all as no two adjacent buildings share the same architectural style. And with traffic that is generally respectful of the usual road user regulations and very quiet – I was expecting driving on the horn and a life and death struggle for pedestrians in getting around, but perhaps that is a result of my own anti-car prejudice.

Because it was getting later in the day when I arrived in town and because the place is not devoted to tourism the first problem was getting some money to buy a beer (or something else alcoholic). This is going to be a possible major issue during this trip as I will be landing on many different islands. I don’t know how many different currencies I might need during the trip but at least now, being on one of the islands that’s part of the Eastern Caribbean currency union I shouldn’t have too many problems. This covers the Grenadines, St Lucia and quite a few of the islands as it goes north-west in an arc from here. I was moneyless in Trinidad, not bothering to get money as I was only there for a matter of hours.

Anyway,back to Castries.

When I arrived it was after 16.00 and the place was full of schoolchildren of all ages, the different covered uniforms signifying school and level, as well as people starting to leave from work. Know nothing of the economic situation of St Lucia, apart from the dominance of tourism (at least in certain parts of the island), or of the levels of unemployment but there was definitely a feel of people doing their shopping on their way home.

Hadn’t eaten since on the plane the day before so a search for food was necessary. There was little street food as I assume that gets more of an affair later on in the evening so the fare was provided by a Chinese run fast food/bakery. St Lucia isn’t a cheap place to eat, I don’t think, the most basic and cheapest of dishes (which was more than enough for me at the time) costing EC$9 (about £2.10) so cheaper than the UK but not like Latin America.

But it had also been almost 24 hours since a drink and had identified a suitable bar earlier on my walk around the grandly named Castries City (the grid area of streets that form one of the oldest parts of the town). On the corner of Jeremie Street and Peynier Street there is a collection of three, one room bars – all open on to the street – right next to each other. All looked busy with people drinking both inside and out.

I choose one at random and asked for what I thought was one of the local beers. One of the local brands is called Piton (named after a couple of prominent volcanic peaks further south from Castries) and they produce what is called Piton Malta. I thought that this was a darker beer but imagine my horror when I discovered it was non-alcoholic. I nearly died of shame and hoped not too many people had noticed. However, by the time this had been disposed of I had realised what most people were drinking.

And that was the white rum. Now this was in a unlabled bottle and was being drunk by the gallon. I assume that it was a local, home-made variety. This is true fire water. It burns when it goes down and is way above the alcoholic level of the likes of Havana Club, which is a suave drink in comparison. You could also tell the strength of this shot as if iced water, available to hand on the customer side of the counter, was either added to the measure to make it a long drink, or a cup of that water was taken immediately after the shot was taken down in one go. As that was the way most of them were drunk. In, ask, pay, drink, go. And at EC$2 (£0.47p) a go, as opposed to EC$4 (almost a pound) for the soft drink, what would you choose.

I took my time as part of the exercise was to watch what was going on. Some like me were there for a longer time, taking more than one drink. At the same time there was a lot of movement. At times the place was almost full and then all of a sudden all but a few stalwarts remained.

But it was a friendly bar. I was the only white in there and as I was sitting on an extremely uncomfortable bench (too high and with no padding) close to the slot through which the money was taken and the spirit dispensed all had to come close to me. Many with a nod some offering their clenched fist to which I had to place mine. I’m sure there’s a name for this greeting but I’ve never heard it.

Either a hard physical life or too much of the rum but whatever the cause the ravages of time were shown on some of the faces. Mainly men, but a few women. Of all shapes and sizes, especially the women, some of them are big. And also with a huge variation in skin colour, showing the mixed racial history of the Caribbean islands.

I was quite happy to have stayed there longer than I did. As well as the white rum a popular drink was what was called paf (at least assume that is how it is spelt). This was a mixture of the white rum and another liquor which made if much smoother but personally I preferred the kick of the white rum, which lost its shock value after a few shots. This paf was recommended by Silvester, one of the more-than-one-drink patrons. And as he drank more and the movement in and out of the bar diminished as the town itself got quieter he came and sat next to me.

Now I’ll drink with anyone but for some unknown reason (to me) I always seem to meet the ones that want to preach. Silvester almost literally. I got a diatribe about god, the one and only true father, and love. He even ended up reading my palm and going so far off the mark it should have been statistically impossible. I thought we were having one last drink and he would go, but no. So I got him one last drink and went.

But I plan to go to that, or one of the other bars, tomorrow. I should have some time free before the voyage officially gets to start. Definitely my type of drinking hole.

So my first post from the warm and sun-drenched Caribbean, the sound of the waves lapping against the shore just below the balcony of my over-priced (but OK) accommodation for the night, a handful of yachts sailing off-shore and a slight breeze moving the leaves of trees and bushes I don’t recognise.

The ship has arrived in port and now off to find my home for the next 7 weeks or so.