Port
of Spain, the capital of my beautiful republic of Trinidad and Tobago is home
to the Emperor Valley Zoo. Once again we
were presented with a period of schlepping, our daughter this time, to summer
camp and wanting of a time waster, lollygagger, shooting the breeze
moment. Well our daughter claimed that
she had no interest in the zoo, as she was all zoo’d out, having visited
several like locations stateside. Our son,
on the other hand, is absolutely intrigued by animals, and in his mind the
promise of adventure.
If I
may, I would like to indulge you a little, on my island’s history and some
facts on the capital city of Trinidad.
Port of Spain, even though our nation’s capital is the third largest
municipality on the island of Trinidad, placing after the southern location /
city of San Fernando, where I reside, and the central location / city of
Chaguanas. The city of Port of Spain is
our hub for commerce, retail and administration, and serves as the financial
mecca of the Caribbean. Two of the
largest banks in the region find home in Port of Spain. This city became our capital in 1757 preceded
by ‘San Jose de Oruna’ (Saint Joseph).
Cumucurapo (place of silk cotton trees) was the name of the Amerindian
fishing village where Port of Spain was founded.
The
Emperor Valley Zoo is located right next door to the Botanical Gardens in Port
of Spain, Trinidad and occupies 7.2 acres, utilizing the original foliage and
flora of the area. It tries to capture a
wilderness atmosphere and appeal by keeping the woodsy effect in its pathways,
fences and buildings. The name came from
the Morpho or Emperor Butterfly that is indigenous to this valley. The Zoological Society of Trinidad and Tobago
which was founded in 1947 brought this zoo into existence in 1952.
We
pulled into the parking lot and was greeted by the parking attendant to whom I
said “d pahken fuh d zoo is here?”, and he replied “yes”, pointing off to our
left. We pulled in and parked and my
husband approached said attendant for the parking ticket, I do not know what he
said to the attendant, but whatever it was, it gave the attendant the
impression that my husband is a ‘foreigner’.
My husband could actually walk to the home he grew up in (where his dad
still resides), in Belmont from the zoo.
I think it was his GA ‘new’ bred southern hospitality “Thank you sir”
that did the trick. The parking
attendant chuckled and said “you must’ve lived outside”. So I asked “wheh is d entrance?”, and he
pointed us in the correct direction and my son’s adventure began.
We
paid for our tickets (“leh me geh two adult, one chile an’ ah senior citizen
please”). We entered. I looked at my mother and her face lit up
when presented by the first exhibit, I wondered to myself, who is going to
enjoy this more, my son or my mother? It
was sweltering, and although I donned a pair of shorts, I knew that sweating
would prevail shortly. I pursed my lips,
letting my top lip hover over the bottom and blew, expelling air and making a
non-whistling air sound, nothing but hot air warmed my chest, but I did it
again and again, hoping to find comfort.
We saw
turtles, ocelots, goats, ducks, hogs, tapirs, birds, lions, snakes, reptiles,
owls, monkeys, an alligator, an otter, butterflies, flowers, fishes and
foliage.
In writing this blog, I
re-awakened my son’s enthusiasm by asking him for reminders on animals and the different
species that we saw at the zoo. He
walked over to my computer and looked at some of the photographs captured and
said “mom, you write about the pictures you take? I like that”. I smiled and said “yes son, it helps us
remember exactly where we’ve been and what we’ve done”.
I do
not like the smell of animals, in retrospect, when reading novels and the
author describes the pungent smells of the wild, I can only imagine it smelling
like the zoo and worst. I cannot fathom
the fear felt knowing a dangerous predator was lurking around. Imagine after saying all that I am still
interested in hiking trails, I guess I will have a good ‘pooyah’ at hand, and
know how to use it. Truly though, praise
God I was born in this era and not of the wild wild west, because I wouldn’t
have made it at all. I can move like
Keanu Reeves in the matrix when I see a wasp or any of the bee family. As a child we had an estate, it was a citrus
estate with cocoa and coffee. My father
would sell citrus by the hundreds to the local grocery stores and to some of
his co-workers. One day my mother,
sister in law and I, went to the estate to secure some oranges. Well in typical teenage fashion, I found that
they were taking too long to come up with the requisite oranges and sauntered
off to get it on my own. I came upon a
tree laden with ‘valencia’ oranges, this by far was one of the sweetest oranges
on the estate. I was thrilled, what a
catch, I can get all that we need off of this one tree (I thought). I climbed this tree and started picking. Well before long, I knew why this tree was
laden. On this tree was a huge ‘maribone’
(a wasp that causes fever and swelling in its sting) nest, and of course it was
awakened by my thrashing about the tree.
Well I do not know how I did it, but I came down the ten (10) to fifteen
(15) feet that I had climbed, promptly and ran through the brush, making
several summersaults and flips, trying to evade and lessen the bite rate. I did get stung, but not by as many as I would’ve
had I ‘dilly-dallied’ around. Adrenaline
is a power house, I am living proof. My
mother and sister in law heard the commotion and came running to see what had
transpired, only themselves to be confronted by angry maribone swarming around,
looking for me, hiding in the bush. I
run from cockroaches, lizards and birds (lol, a parakeet came into the house,
and I screamed and ran out the room), I am definitely NO nature buff (said
parakeet is now in a cage in the living room – a whole different story).
Off of
my tangent and back to the zoo, and talking about birds, the zoo houses some of
the most colorful and pretty birds that I have ever seen. We saw the Trinidad
Motmot, Macaws, the Scarlet Ibis, Pelicans, Guineafowl, Ducks, Toucans,
Flamingos, and more.
Walking
down monkey avenue (as I’ve labeled it), my son said “there is the chimpanzee”,
and I said, “I do not see it”. He said, “you don’t see that chimp in the corner
there with his face like this?” and he made his face similar to the chimp, and
low and behold I then saw the chimp. I
had him make that face again, just so that I can photograph it. We had a good laugh and continued down
looking at the ‘pink swollen bam-c’ monkeys, howler monkeys, mandrills, spider
monkeys, to name a few. My son also
wanted to know why the monkeys’ backsides were pink and swollen, to which I had
absolutely no answer and quite a perplexed look on my face.
All
this walking and monkey business made us hungry, but, as I said, that smell,
that pungent odor, I could not eat in such surroundings. My son however had no problem buying
something at the cafeteria and sitting and devouring said something. I decided that a nice beastly cold beverage
would be all that I needed and got me a mango slushy.
We
left the zoo and walked over to the Botanical Gardens, and as luck would have
it a shower of rain came down. We
quickly sheltered under some thatch huts made for picnickers. We made our way back to the car with thoughts
of grabbing some pholourie at the Lady Young Road overlook. The same parking attendant when presented
with our parking ticket to get the cost of parking, laughed again at / with my
husband. Again he was guilty of the “have
a nice day sir, and thank you, ‘preciate it’.”
The parking attendant had pure confirmation on his face, yes indeed that
man is foreign. Nothing could be said to
deter him from his calculated conclusion.
It’s a wrap. Off to run an errand
and back to the science center to pick up our daughter from her day of ‘Gamers
World’.
Here
are some of what I captured (including my son making a chimp face).
Enjoy!
--NorDean
Canvas
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| Turtle |
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| Ocelot |
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| Ocelot |
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| Pelican |
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| Wild Hog |
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| Wild Hog |
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| Tapir |
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| Owl |
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| Parakeet |
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| Mimicking chimp |
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| Chimp watching us |
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| Scarlet Ibis |
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| Scarlet Ibis |
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| Alligator |
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| Blue Macaw |
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| Blue Macaw |
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| Flamingo |
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| Flamingo |
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| Butterfly |
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| Ginger Lily |
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| Ginger Lily |
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| Balisier |
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| Macaw |
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| Otter |
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| Botanic Gardens |
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| Botanic Gardens |
© 2013, Odette M. Lawrence and NorDean Canvas. All rights reserved. The use and/or
duplication of this material without the express and written permission
of this blog’s author and/or owner are unauthorized and strictly
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