Layover in Trinidad

I'm finally getting around to posting about Christmas vacation. First, I wanted to tell you about our time in Trinidad on the way to South Carolina. We were able to buy tickets much cheaper by traveling through Trinidad and spending the night there. So after Ryan's last final exam on Friday (December 10), we boarded a small plane and headed to Trinidad. The flight was open seating (a new experience for us) and we landed in Port of Spain before we were even scheduled to leave Grenada! Apparently the flight schedules are not too important. We met a few other students who were staying at our same hotel in Trinidad and leaving for Miami on our same flight the next morning, and we enjoyed getting to know them.

The hotel sent a free shuttle to pick us up from the airport, and about 10 minutes later, we arrived at a brand new Holiday Inn. The hotel was gorgeous, and you would never know we were in a foreign country. In fact, what (little) we saw of Trinidad looked very modern. The highway was 6 lanes (compared to the half-mile long two-lane "highway" in Grenada). From what I've heard, Trinidad is much more developed than Grenada, but with that comes a sharp increase in crime. Our one night in Trinidad was uneventful, and we were able to enjoy more modern accomodations than we've been used to for quite a while.

We checked into our rooms, and then met up with our new friends for dinner. The shuttle again took us for free to the Mall of Trinidad which is the largest mall in the Caribbean. A lot of the stores were closed since it was about 8:30 at night, but we found a restaurant that was still open. It was called Bootleggers, but it was similar to a Texas Roadhouse back home. Ryan and I both had the hamburger topped with grilled pineapple, red onions, Monterrey Jack cheese, and a delicious tangy, sweet sauce. It was one of the best burgers we've had in months.



After dinner, we headed back to our hotel room and went to bed, since we had to get up around 4am to catch our flight to Miami. We had a wonderful time with our new friends, and enjoyed seeing a little bit of Trinidad at the same time.