Chaguaramas is what happens when you drive as far west and north as you can go in Trinidad. If you go too far north, there will be a friendly man with a machine gun with instructions on how to turn around, kind of like in Esquimalt. It took me about a day to learn how to say Chaguaramas properly, also the amount of time it takes a foreigner to correctly pronounce Esquimalt.

This house on Concord Road was where my mom grew up, and is the place where we went for some of our most fortunate summers in our youth. It’s a pretty special place that has seen a lot over the years. There used to be a store in the front where the neighbours would shop and my mother and her siblings would work, as well as my grandparents. This house was a local hub for small business and family alike. Currently my Auntie Bahn and Uncle Dinesh live there, with their two sons Adi and Vikram. We stayed there for the first several nights.
Perhaps the most surreal thing, other than being there, was being there and talking to my friends over Adium via wireless broadband internet and my laptop. A mixing of two worlds that had not previously co-existed for me. I will admit that I was pretty excited to be there with new technology – what can I say? I am a nerd. A lot has progressed in Trinidad, including the tech, so that was cool to see. Also I had been pining to go to Trinidad with a dSLR for several years, as those closest to me can attest.
San Juan is in the outskirts of Port of Spain – close but not exactly the same town, though well connected by roads. To the north is the beautiful Maracas Beach and the mountain ranges. To the south is San Fernando.

my grandmother illustrated by my mom. i’m off to Trinidad and Tobago for the first time in 19 years.