bleeding for tobago

It was raining when we docked in Scarborough, Tobago. The cloudy weather never let up while we were there, which was a bummer. In the end, however, it wouldn't have mattered--a little injury made it such that I wouldn't have been able to appreciate it much anyway. More on that in a minute.

Our excursion for the day included a short walk through a rainforest to Argyle Falls. You'd think that we'd be bored of rainforests after having seen them on a couple other islands, but I enjoyed seeing each one. They're all different and have different plants and animals to see.





Having a guide was helpful, as she was able to point out well camouflaged wildlife to us. Check out this bird:



Can't see it? Here's the same photo cropped to just the bird:



Check out this tree. See any creatures?



Probably not. How about now?



Those are fruit bats.

This was the first time I'd seen a lot of bamboo growing. It can grow up to 6" a day, which is pretty fascinating. The plants are quite tall, too.





The walk to the falls was pleasant enough. It didn't rain much while we were there, and the rainforest was pretty.



The falls were pretty impressive.



I decided I wanted to get a better photo of the falls from the other side of the river, so I decided to get into the water and walk slowly across. The water was chocolaty brown from all the rain, and it was impossible to see what was in the water. Even though I was walking really slowly, I started to slip on a rock, so I put all my energy into making sure that my camera and gear didn't get wet. I succeeded, but my leg wasn't so lucky:





My fall hurt really bad, but I figured that since I was already in the water, I might as well pass off my gear to someone and continue swimming. Fortunately, my wounds didn't get infected in the silty water. I never did get that better photo of the falls, either.

The walk back to the bus was slow and painful. There was a small office/shop by the parking lot, and they gave me a couple of alcohol/disinfectant wipes to use. And the locals, bless their hearts, thought my fall was hilarious. The two guides that had been with us at the falls giggled quite a bit at my misfortune.

We bought a couple of snacks, some ranch chips and cheese puffs, and then got back on the bus so we could head back to the ship. I wanted to see some of the town so we walked around for ten minutes or so, and then I decided I couldn't handle the pain in my leg. We stopped in a small shop, got an ice cream cone (cherry coconut ice cream--really good), and then headed back to the ship so I could sit around and do nothing the rest of the day.



As much as I didn't want to go anywhere, we did end up going to the final formal dining event that evening. Becca had lobster and I had filet mignon, so it was a good meal. And, as is always the case on the final formal night, they did their big baked Alaska presentation. That was the only dessert I ate on the trip, and it was pretty good. I also had a good time screaming like a girl when they were doing all their announcements and applause for the chefs and restaurant workers.

It's unfortunate that we couldn't see more of Tobago. It was the cleanest of the islands we visited and while the people were friendly, they weren't aggressively in our faces trying to sell us tourist crap, as had often been the case in the other islands (particularly Grenada). Still, Tobago seemed very small and it didn't seem like it would be an interesting place to spend more than a few hours. I'll give it a B- and say that I wouldn't go back.