Mount Saint Benedict and the Caroni Swamp

We took an organized tour to see a bit more of the area before heading north.  Our tour with Jesse James of Members Only maxitaxi took us to see the Saint Benedict monastery and the Coroni Swamp.

Mount Saint Benedict, or the Abbey of Our Lady of Exile, is a Benedictine abbey located in north Trinidad. It was founded in October 1912, by an order of monks from Brazil, after the Order of St Benedict of Italy.

 

The Abbey complex consists of several buildings, among them a church, a monastery, a seminary, a yoghurt factory, a drug rehab center, and Guest House. The whole complex is situated high in the Northern Range, north of St. Augustine. It is visible for miles around, with its landmark tower and distinctive red-roofed buildings.  We said a few prayers in the church and looked around in the gift shop and enjoyed the commanding views.  Jesse talked us into a private tour of the guest house full of antiques and original paintings.

 

Our next stop was the Temple-in-the-Sea, located on the west coast of Trinidad in the village of Waterloo near the town of Chaguanas. The obvious “uncommon” aspect of this beautiful Hindu Temple is interesting in and of itself, but it’s the history of how the Temple came to rest at such an unusual spot that is truly fascinating.

 

The Waterloo Sea Temple dates back to the mid-1940s when a seriously devout and determined Indian laborer named Sewdass Sadhu built the original version on dry-land. East Indian laborers, initially brought to Trinidad in the 1800s to work the sugar cane fields, had few, if any, places to practice their religion formally up until that time. Sewdass, who ran a small grocery store near his home in Waterloo, purchased a small tract of land from the state-owned Caroni Sugar Company upon which he built the original Temple.

No problem, right?

Wrong.

Seems the folks at Caroni didn’t like having a Hindu Temple around. Upon its completion in 1952, they ordered Sewdass to destroy his life’s work. He, of course, refused, an act of defiance that earned him a $400 fine for trespassing on government land, plus two weeks in jail; just enough time for the government to tear down the Temple.

Sewdass’ story could’ve easily ended right there, but this was no ordinary guy. As soon as he got out of jail, he set about re-doing his life’s work in a place no one could quarrel with. 

“You broke the mandir on the land. Then I will build my mandir on nobody’s land. I will build a mandir in the sea.”

Armed with a bicycle, a leather bag, a couple of buckets and the type of determination most of us could never hope to understand, he started building his next Temple, stone by stone, in the middle of the sea.
  He literally built the whole foundation out of stones that he stashed in his leather bag and buckets, trekked to the sea from God-knows-where on his bike, and piled in this spot, 500 feet from the shore, until he effectively created his own island… by himself!  It took a good 17 years, but Sewdass did eventually realize his life’s dream again before passing away in 1971 at the age of 68.

In 1994, when erosion damaged the structure, the Trinidad & Tobago government stepped in to make repairs, even going so far as to construct a bridge to make the Temple more easily accessible from the mainland.

The Waterloo Cremation Site is also next to the grounds of this Temple and we saw the smoldering remains of a pyre as we passed.

We traveled through several communities and saw other temples and mosques proving that today’s Trinidad is truly a melting pot of cultures.  Just before sunset, we arrived at the highlight of the tour.

The 20 square mile Caroni Swamp is the largest mangrove wetland in Trinidad. It lies just south of capital Port of Spain, on the island’s western shore, where the Coroni River joins the Gulf of Paria. 

The swamp is home to some 200 avian species. The most famous inhabitants are the Scarlet Ibis (Eudocimus ruber), Trinidad’s national bird. During the day they feed in Venezuela, 11 miles away, returning to Trinidad at dusk – a spectacle that has become a “must” on tourist itineraries.  Although we had seen these birds up close on our 2009 trip up the Manamo River in Venezuela, we wanted to see these beautiful birds once more.

The swamp is a maze of channels – some natural and some dredged. It’s not surprising that you can’t just hire a boat and go out there yourself – you could so easily get lost. However, the boat captains do these tours every day and know the waterways intimately. 

Some of the swamp was public land and a couple of locals showed us their catch.

Although Scarlet Ibis might be the focus of the trip, there is a vast amount of wildlife in the mangroves.  Within minutes of leaving the jetty we saw our first wildlife – a five or six foot tree boa, sleeping in the branches of an overhanging mangrove, immediately above the boat. 

We also spotted a few birds of prey and several types of herons and egrets as well as some small 4-eyed fish.  The fish had two eyes above and two eyes below the water.  We saw 2 or 3 caiman trying to blend in. 

After a leisurely 30-minute cruise through the waterways, with our guide pointing out a wide collection of bird species, we eventually arrived at a large area of open water. Surrounded by mangroves on all sides and featuring several islands and mud flats, this ‘lake’ was clearly somewhere special. Making our way across the water, we stopped and drifted, facing a mangrove-covered island backed by the hills of Trinidad’s Northern Range. Once the engines were switched off, it became a spot of wonderful peace and solitude.

Six o’ clock was rapidly approaching and the light was starting to fade. One by one we watched bright red ibis fly overhead and land in the tree tops.

Within a few minutes another flock arrived. Slowly, the pace picked up. So did the flock size. Within ten to fifteen minutes it was a continuous procession of birds, with flock sizes of ten to a hundred birds. White egrets were mixed in with the ibis and they roosted side by side. Virtually all of the birds landed on one central island, turning the green of the mangroves scarlet red.

 

Juvenile Scarlet Ibis are black in color. The scarlet coloring, which comes from the diet of crabs and other crustaceans, only comes when the birds have matured at two years of age. The coloring gets darker as the bird gets older. All the early arrivals were mature adult males. As the procession progressed, a few juveniles could be seen amongst the adults. By the end, juveniles represented the majority; clearly not strong enough to keep up with the adults.

As suddenly as it had started, the spectacle came to an end. Light was fading fast and the tour boats started up, cast off and headed back into the narrow channels of the mangroves. A journey that had taken 30-40 minutes outbound became just 10 minutes or so on the return, showing how one has no sense of direction or perspective in the waterways.

We returned after dark and all agreed it was a good day.

Tom