the fast food of Trinidad, a fruitful experience...

Jon and I went for a little drive one evening to take in the sights, sounds and tastes of the true Trinidad. We drove into St James town and bought a couple of Stag and Carib beers. Both were nice, although not having had one for 40 days makes it a little bais. As I mentioned before the town was hectic, with taxis and buses everywhere stopping at anytime so the "Hari's" and "Main road" driving experience came in handy. It was all abit overwhelming for us sailing foke though, so we headed for the solitude of the higher ground. Basically we just picked a road that headed into the hills and drove up it. Evenutally we hit what can be only described as the "white boys hood", right up in the hieghts. It had a boom and plenty of big dogs, both of which, funnily enough were quite forthcoming. The vegetation was very tropical and jungley and made an ideal spot for our beers. They all went down like homesick moles. On route back to the harbour we had a very interesting stop involving some coconuts. We pulled in at Chris and Matha´s fruit stall back in town. This proved to be, well, a very "fruitful" experience. These stalls are kind of like the Macdonalds of the islands which probably explains the islanders fine physic. I say this because while we were there, experiencing our first semi ripened coconut, I noticed that a number of customers, mostly regulars by the Chris´ banter, stopped and didn't take the various fruits away to eat it. Instead Chrsi would wash and peal them while the customer stood in the stall, chattered and chowed away. This was a very common occurence over our half-hour indulgence. Good business ethics, I tell you, returning loyal customers. I also learnt there are three types of coconuts - semi ripe, ripe and mature. Semi ripe is still a bit green but the water inside, once sliped open very skillfully using a tool like a machete, was clear and semi sweet. There was very little of the white interior in these. The ripe ones are more greeny orange and their insides contain a sweet milky juice with a tender white substance similar to yoghurt. Once the juice is finished you use a piece of the shell as a spoon to get the yoghurt bit out, mmmm. The mature ones are the hard small furry nuts with mature coconut juice inside and the hard white coconut fruit everyone knows. All equally fantastic for my first real coconut experience. We purchased 20 for the trip to Panama. O no, dribbly guts.