Trinidad and Tobago
When
Dec to April
Price
From 2 100€ excl. flights
(based on 2 people sharing)
How long
5 nights
Ideal length
The Caroni Swamp reserve, a mangrove wetland at the gates of Port of Spain, welcomes thousands of scarlet ibises every evening at dusk, coming to roost for the night and gradually turning the green trees into a bright red blaze visible from the observation boats that ply the channels. This bird, Trinidad's national emblem, shares the bill with Maracas Bay, the island's busiest beach where bake and shark, a fried sandwich that has become a local culinary institution, has been enjoyed for generations.
The Caroni reserve, Trinidad's largest wetland, protected since 1953, owes its daily spectacle to the spectacular scarlet colouring of the scarlet ibis, a bird whose vivid hue comes from the carotene-rich crustaceans it eats in the mangrove's brackish waters. Every evening at dusk, thousands of individuals converge from surrounding feeding grounds to roost together in the same trees, a collective safety ritual that offers boat-borne visitors one of the Caribbean's most striking ornithological spectacles.
Maracas Bay, about thirty minutes along a winding road from Port of Spain through the Northern Range, remains Trinidad's busiest beach, lined with a row of stalls that have served bake and shark for generations, a sandwich made of fried shark and fried bread topped, according to individual taste, with a dozen sauces and condiments. This dish, which has become a genuine Sunday culinary institution for Port of Spain residents, embodies on its own the island's laid-back gastronomic identity.
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A Lodge on the Edge of the Caroni Reserve
A simple lodge on the edge of the Caroni reserve, rooms overlooking the mangrove channels, a convenient base for the dusk boat outing.
A Villa Overlooking Maracas Bay
A villa overlooking Maracas Bay, a terrace with views over the bay and the surrounding Northern Range, within walking distance of the bake and shark stalls.
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