IT’S A WET WET CHRISTMAS IN THE CARIBBEAN

Then the rains came, and the skies weeped and wailed until they finally cried themselves to sleep. I was afraid that Trinidad would flood and I wouldn’t even be able to get TO the airport, much less out of it. Then I watched the weather in the US on TV and felt better, people sleeping in airports while blizzards raged outside. Things could be worse. Still it’s stifling. When it’s not raining it might as well be. At least I got the Suriname visa, multiple entry too, though I had to promise my first-born for it, seems a safe bet, over $100 in ‘reciprocity’ charges, but good for five years of in-and-out privileges. It’s probably raining there, too. That means I can go to French Guiana and return with no extra visa hassles. Who knows? That might turn out to be the highlight of the trip, what with the resident communities of Hmongs and Laos in addition to the Amerindians and ‘Maroons’ typical of the region. I can speak passable Lao and my French is certainly better than my Dutch or my Taki-taki.

Traveling is hard work. Yeah, yeah, I hear you, but it’s certainly not as easy as it used to be, just hop on the bus and wake up somewhere in Mexico. At least I’ve got a couple rooms booked down the line, so shouldn’t have to sleep on the streets. I used to never do that; in the Caribbean region it’s typically required. In Jamaica I had to book before they’d let me through immigration, then the lady from the Health Department actually called a few days later to see if I was OK after my previous stay in a malarial region, i.e. Argentina (?!). Internet makes it easier now, which is good though far from perfect, since these backwater countries can be a bit short on services and logic. I don’t know what a backpacker would do if he got into Port-of-Spain without a reservation. There are plenty of spaces, but how would he find them? This isn’t Gringotenango or Khao San or Freak Street with cheap hotels lining the streets as far as the eye can see. Where I stayed is as close to a hostel as there is, but no one’s there, just a few locals… and me. The prices double for Carnaval.

More and more I see other travelers less and less. That’s what happens when you go to hard-to-get-to locations. Everybody and his brother go to Thailand, Guatemala, Peru, and Nepal. On a regional hostel circuit you might even see the same travelers 2-3 times on a trip. It’s not like that here. Even a place as famous as Trinidad is practically vacant except on cruise ship day. Sure there’s a reputation for violence and crime, but circumstances like that can usually be mitigated with a modicum of effort. I really liked Trinidad until I read an ex-pat’s lambasting indictment of the people, then started seeing the aloofness-bordering-on-rudeness he was talking about. Now I’m not sure. The books say they’re the ‘friendliest people in the world’, but that’s surely an exaggeration. They’re certainly not the quintessential laid-back ‘ey mon’ Caribbean locals a la Jamaica. The place is heavily industrialized. There’s no pervasive skunk smell either; that shit’s very illegal here. What is it about ex-British island-city-states that makes them so uptight? Ahhh, it’s only the ones that dream of industry and capital… I get it now. At least they let it all out for Carnaval. They’re already building little makeshift huts out at the fairgrounds. It’s starting to look like the Neshoba County fair. So why am I so… almost… border-line… depressed?

Maybe it’s because everybody’s drinking and I’m not. There are no Tiki bars or Thai-style R&R joints here like Jamaica, but that doesn’t mean the people don’t drink. Bars are everywhere, but I’m not sure I’d be welcome. There’s nothing worse than drinking alone in a bar full of merry-makers, except maybe being harassed by shit-faced drunks. It’s hard to find a balance. But the taxi drivers seem nice enough. They probably want tips; yeah, right. Maybe it’s the inherent racism of the system here. I’m pretty sensitive to that even when it’s well-hidden, like here, even when it has little or nothing to do with me. You’d have to look pretty hard to even tell the difference between an African and a dark-skinned Dravidian, but they can, you can be sure. “You better get out of here,” a Trinidad Indian I’d previously met told me as I hung out in Congo Square. “They’ll kill you here.” ‘They’ is the key word. Racism is like conspiracy. There’s always a loosely defined ‘they’ and a ‘we’. They didn’t kill me at JSU. They didn’t kill me in Bamako. Why would they kill me here?

Still you gotta’ be careful. They say don’t walk the streets of Port-of-Spain at night. That makes it a little bit hard to drink unless I want to hire a cabbie to drink with me. I’m not THAT hard up, not yet anyway. At least I lucked out and accidentally got a room in the entertainment district. At least looking’s free, and so is music. Alcohol’s not quite the thrill it used to be anyway. The beer’s too strong now. Back when I first started experimenting we’re talking 3.2% THC- I mean alcohol- so plenty of time to build up a head of steam and a bladder full of piss before feeling much of a buzz. But now, with this 6… 8… 9% stuff you find in Amsterdam, it’s like the psychic reverse equivalent of a cheap Red Bull imitation. You gulp one down and by the time you realize what’s happening… it’s too late. You’re on the roof, ready to jump into the swimming pool below. When you finally wake up in ER you’ve still got visions of sugar plums dancing in your head.

Okay, I exaggerate, but you get the idea. I can’t exactly ‘hold my liquor’, though I never get shit-faced. I just stop. What’s so great about ‘holding’ it anyway? If you can ‘hold’ it, then why not just forego it? Getting a buzz is the idea, right? Actually all was fine until I got gout. That hurts like hell, believe me. Not coincidentally I believe, I started having bad reactions to beer, two-day hangovers and such; not wine or whiskey mind you, just beer. Since I decided to forego it, the gout attacks stopped. Problem is, I’m hesitant to drink anything now, and a good red wine is sometimes hard to find anyway in cheap bars. I’m still groping my way through the darkness. But that’s hardly depressing; that’s good news. If I were to drink a six-pack I’d probably be homicidal if not suicidal. I rarely got that far. So why the doom and gloom?

It’s Christmas time, that’s why. Christmas is like candy; it’s sweet but not necessarily good for you. Christmas is for kids, all the toys and free money and unrealistic expectations. I like the Christmastime shows on Nat Geo and the Hitler Channel searching for Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Darwinci code- I even like the Christmas carols- but not all that other stuff. Strangely enough, the symbols are all the same here, Santa and snow and midnight madness at the mall. The Christmas carols are even all the same familiar ones, including John Lennon, like some vast American conspiracy to dominate. The rain lets up enough for the plane to take off finally. Good-by Trinidad. I liked your food at least, even the ‘black pudding’ you tricked me into eating. I was expecting some rich chocolatey local confection and got blood-sausage chitlins; serves me right I guess, being born in Mississippi and all.

Welcome to Guyana. It’s the last link in a circum-Caribbean semi-circle of British intrigue that starts in Jamaica and the Cayman islands. Though the largest of the lot and a full-fledge South American state, it’s probably the poorest also. Georgetown is the perfect picture of a colonial capital going down on itself. In memory of my Thai wife who can’t pronounce the English name ‘George’, I affectionately refer to it as ‘Joshtown’, anything but Jonestown, which happened not so many years nor kilometers away. It still makes the news here. For those of you too young to remember, thirty years ago some nine hundred US citizens committed mass suicide in Guyana under the influence of a bad Elvis impersonator.

At first glance after dark Georgetown reminds me of nothing so much as… Vientiane, c. 1995, though in the light of day I’d say maybe Dakar. Lonely Planet says the market is ‘edgy’; I’d say it’s psychotic. Imagine a bus terminal and a market sharing the same space, accompanied by the sounds of barkers barking and horns honking. Their accents are pretty thick here too. You could almost imagine you’re speaking Creole. You almost are. Sometimes it’s nice to get a decent hotel in a weird place, so I do, complete with wi-fi, though not much cable TV to be had, just some Bollywood stuff, al-Jazeera and some American leftovers. I check out the zoo by accident, but the market’s the real zoo. I walk long distances as is my habit, making notes of cultural anomalies. ATM’s are all the rage, lines stretching around corners, notable considering that as of the latest Lonely Planet there were none. I check out various types of food, similar to Trinidad’s, but coffee’s non-existent.

Two days of that and I push on, straight across the new Berbice River bridge at New Amsterdam on its first day open for business. It was big news, the ribbon-cutting and all. I was expecting some concrete engineering marvel along the wild northern coast of South America. Alas and alack, the damn thing’s made of aluminum, bolted together like a child’s erector set, probably bought from US army surplus, riding about five feet above the water’s surface. I hope it’s low tide. It took ‘em two years to complete; the US Army could’ve assembled it and been killing people on the other side in less than two months, if not two weeks. They seem proud of it, so I suppress all laughter and sarcastic comments. I wonder if it’ll hold until my return.

Looks like I’ll ride out Christmas Day here somewhere in Guyana unless I happen to find easy passage straight through to Paramaribo in Suriname. I only hope I don’t get shut down with nothing to eat or drink. The Chinese should take care of that. So I get stuck at the border with Suriname- Corriverton, Guyana- Christmas Eve… and the place is hopping. They don’t decorate silly trees here; they party. There’s a little carnival midway set up on the main drag through town, and disco speakers are stacked all up and down the sidewalk blasting away at ear-splitting decibel levels. Liquor or beer, choose your weapon. It could be a long night, but at least the place isn’t shut down. Dutch-language TV from Suriname may have all the standard Christmas carols, but the street is different. Borders are the weirdest places in the world; just look at TJ. They run right through a lonely place in your mind. All the world’s fumbling schemers are here, the Indians the Chinese the Muslims and me. I guess I’m home for Christmas. Pray for rain.