For Christmas 2012 all 22 volunteers holidayed together on the Caribbean island of Tobago. The week turned out to be pretty fantastic.
The fun started at the airport on the first leg of our journey: as we waited to check in, 2 of the volunteers from Region 9 still hadn’t turned up and hadn’t been heard from. After they arrived – fresh from their travel up the country – we had great fun with the immigration gates who wanted $4,000 from each of us (a total of about £270) for the privilege of leaving the country. After much umm-ing and ahh-ing, the border agents were persuaded to waive the tax on account of our return tickets and volunteer status.
The flights were reasonably uneventful, save for the brilliant quote we heard from a member of the Trinidad & Tobago customs officer: “nah, it’s okay, just hide it when you go through”. 😮
Once we’d arrived and settled in (FYI: Candles in the Wind Guesthouse is an excellent place to stay in Crown Point, Tobago) we set about having a really quite fantastic week…
– On the first full day we went on a glass-bottom boat tour of the coral reefs, stopped to snorkel in the Caribbean and then stopped for a dip in the Nylon (sp?) Pool.
– The eve of Christmas Eve was spent on the beach, watching the waves, sharing pizzas among friends.
– One day was devoted to going on a shopping trip around Scarborough, which has some pretty nice shops. (I’m thousands of miles from my mum, sister and girlfriend and I’m still getting dragged about clothes shopping!)
– 4 of the volunteers used the first half of the week to train and obtain a basic certificate for scuba diving.
– Christmas day itself was spent on a party boat doing more reef tours and snorkeling, but this time accompanied by music, dancing, all-you-can eat food and a BBQ on the beach afterwards.
All in all, an excellent week!
Photos:
Apologies for the small number of photos; I left my camera charger in GT and had to be quite conservative with photos.