Thursday, November 16, 1995 - Trinidad

Day of adventure! I rode the 8:30 bus downtown to get my reciprocal ham license. (You have to get one for each country you go to if you want to transmit.) I might never use it, but it was an interesting experience getting it. Walked down Abercromby Street, looking for number 17. By chance, my eye just happened to alight on a small painted sign on the side of a building. It said "Telecommunica- tions" and pointed down a short, dark alley. I walked to the end of the alley and came to a glass door that also said "Telecommunications" so I went through it and climbed four flights of stairs. (Trinidad is like Europe in that it considers the second floor to be the first floor, etc., so the third floor is what we would consider the fourth floor.) Came to another glass door, but this one didn't have anything written on it. Went in and told the man at the desk I was looking for Telecommunications. He said I'd come to the right place. When I told him I wanted to apply for a reciprocal amateur radio license, he pointed to the man at the next desk and said to see him. That gentleman was reading the morning paper and seemed totally nonplused when I asked for a reciprocal license and handed him my documents. He studied them for five or ten minutes and then left. Twenty or so minutes later, he returned with an application form for me to fill out. I did so and handed it to him. He took it to his secretary to have her type something up. I might mention that everything he did was with the greatest slowness and deliberation, so that this entire process took at least ten times as long as it should have, but he was pleasant enough once he got over his initial shock. In due course of time, the secretary brought in the paper she had typed. He studied it carefully for several minutes, signed it, and gave it back to the secretary to make a couple of copies. This done, he folded the original, put it in an envelope, and told me to take it to Excise and Wireless in the Customs building on the corner across the street. I thanked him and walked back down the four flights of stairs. When I got to the Customs building, I showed the envelope to the man at the front desk and told him I needed to go to Excise and Wireless. He said it was on the fourth floor. Since that would be the fifth by U.S. standards, I was glad there was an elevator. But when I got off at the fourth floor, the woman at the desk said that was the wrong floor. She thought Excise and Wireless might be on the second floor. Rather than wait for the elevator, I walked down. On the way, I met a man in uniform who knew where the place was and took me right there. I had to walk through a large room that had piles of cardboard cartons stacked in it. The Supervisor of Excise and Wireless was very nice. She was also efficient. She gave me a form to take down to the cashier on the first floor. I went down there, paid 14.40 TT's, and returned to the second floor. The supervisor promptly gave me my reciprocal license. Mission accomplished. My next project was to go out to the airport. I walked around looking for a maxi that might go there. Asked several people, but no one knew. Finally a came to a street that was full of red-and-white maxis. I never saw so many minibuses in one place in my life. There were three lines of them stretching the entire length of the block. There must have been more than a hundred. I went up to a man in uniform who appeared to be a dispatcher. Now if anyone should know which bus to take to get to the airport it's the dispatcher for the bus company, right? Wrong. He walked over to a bus and asked the driver. The driver told him something in Triniglish. The dispatcher told me to follow him and started walking along the line of buses. Suddenly, a woman came running up. I don't know if she was a driver or what, but she was very nice and knew where to go, so she took over from the dispatcher. She led me to the corner and down a block. Then she hailed a maxi, told the driver where I wanted to go, and told me the bus would take me to Arouca, where I could catch a taxi to the airport. I thanked her and got in. To my surprise, the surrounding towns turned out to be part of a megalopolis. We went from town to town without a break in between; I couldn't tell where one town ended and the next began. Passengers kept getting on and off, and the driver forgot about me. When we got to Arouca, we crossed a wide, busy street that I figured was the road to the airport. Sure enough, a few minutes later, the driver noticed me and asked where I was going. When I told him the airport, he realized he'd gone too far, so I got a free ride to Arima and back to Arouca. At the busy road, he pointed to a white cab and said to take it. The fare from Port-of-Spain to Arouca was only 3.50 TT's. From there to the airport was another 2 TT's. This airport, this international airport, has to be seen to be believed. The Mexican airports were twenty-first century by comparison. This airport looked as if it had been a cow pasture that someone had laid a strip of concrete on and thrown up a few buildings. The hangars looked like barns with pointed roofs. There was a Kentucky Fried Chicken stand, an ice cream stand, and several shops. I no sooner got out of the taxi than the waiting taxi drivers asked me if I wanted a taxi! Since only two airlines come in here, it was very easy to find American. (The other is BWIA, which I think stands for British West Indies Airlines.) There was only one clerk at the desk, so I asked him if I could get the ticket reissued in my name, but he said it couldn't be done. The ticket could be used only by the person it was issued to; otherwise, it was totally worthless. That was really disappointing. I sure would have liked to use that ticket. What a bargain that would have been -- all the way to Denver for $100! I wandered around for a while, looking the place over. Saw two drinking fountains, but neither one squirted more than an eighth of an inch, so I gave up and bought a cup of ice cream instead. It was delicious and quenched my thirst for a while. When I looked as if I was ready to leave, the taxi drivers leaped up again. These were private taxis, and the drivers wanted $20 U.S. or 116 TT's to take me to Port-of-Spain! I told them I'd only paid 5.50 TT's to get there, and I'd go back the same way. Then they showed me a route taxi, so I took it to Arouca for 2 TT's. Only waited a couple of minutes for a maxi back to Port-of-Spain. On the way back to Peake's, I got out at West Mall to buy a few groceries. Also bought a tube of Gamma Benzene Hexachloride at the drugstore. That's supposed to zap chiggers and similar beasties. In the U.S., it can be bought by prescription only, but here I had no problem buying it over the counter. When I got back to the boat, Roy was feeling some better. He had gone over to the IMS boatyard and liked it a lot better than Peake's. We walked over there together so he could buy a board at the carpentry shop. He also wanted me to see the yard, but I told him I didn't care where he hauled out, because I'm going to California for two months. He bought a six-foot board of nice mahogany to repair the mizzen mast.