Castara Retreats - Review Page 1
Reviewed by Steve & Jill Wooler in January 2005
In March 2003, posts started appearing in our forum about a new holiday accommodation property in Castara. It had only been open since the start of the year and we were rather puzzled that the public not only knew about it, but were already posting highly favourable comment.
We suspected that myTobago was being manipulated. Why should this new property be getting so much exposure when well-established accommodation in the village was seldom mentioned? We studied each post for clues and ran Internet traces on the computer from which they were posted. There was no pattern. Everything checked out. We had to accept that it was probably genuine comment. The praise continued.
Castara Retreats had arrived; and obviously arrived in a big way. The property was patently finding clear public approval. The reports indicated that the property offered the best accommodation in Castara, and at a realistic price, in stark comparison to some property in the village. Most importantly, Castara Retreats still offered the essential ‘village experience’ that so many visitors seek. We decided to make it the starting point of our 2005 tour of Tobago.
2006 Update
This original 2005 review concentrates on the apartment accommodation at Castara Retreats. Work to extend and improve the small Fisherman's Lodge commenced shortly after we left. In late 2005 and early 2006, two new detached self-contained haiku lodges, Coasthanger Lodge and Birdsong Lodge, were built and brought into service. As fully detached self-contained properties, these are now listed as Castara Retreats Lodges in our Cottages & Small Houses listings. Full details, including a preliminary review of the property, can be found here.
Location
The village of Castara lies midway along Tobago’s Caribbean coast. Excluding the built-up stretch of coast between the airport and capital Scarborough, where more than 85% of the population live, Castara is the fifth largest community on the island.
I don’t know the official population of the village. Castara Retreats overlooks the entire village and I counted glimpses of fewer than 100 properties, including shops, schools, churches and other buildings. I guess the population of the village must be around 500 lucky people.
Castara is a fishing village. There is no industry or formal agriculture. Until recent years, most of the population eked a simple subsistence living, growing their own vegetables and fruit, rearing goats and sheep for meat and milk and keeping fingers crossed that the fishermen would bring in a good catch. Nowadays tourism is playing more of a part. It may be simple, but there are probably more happy faces in the village, and certainly less stress, than most visitors could ever envisage.
Holidaying in Castara, or similar Tobago villages, will not be to everyone’s taste. There are no luxury hotels, no big supermarkets, no pharmacies. The small local shops sell only essentials - essentials by Tobagonian standards. You don’t go shopping for items you want; you go shopping to see what they have. It varies day by day. There are no banks or cash machines and payment by credit card is almost unheard of. Dining choices are limited and the menu invariably the same – chicken, meat, fish or shrimp. There is no such thing as silence; you can’t get away from the crashing of the waves, bird calls, cockerels, car horns, reggae music and countless other sounds of village life. And yet, it is the most tranquil and peaceful place you could imagine.
Castara Retreats is located at the western end of Castara village. It’s hard to miss - the entrance leads directly from the right of the main road. The property sits 40m above the ocean, on a lush steep hillside overlooking the bay and beaches. There probably isn’t a finer viewpoint of the village, bay or beach.
This property is not suitable for wheelchair users or anyone with mobility difficulties. Access is via a steep, but paved and lit, 75 metre path. The owners are buying an adjacent plot of land which will improve access and provide parking.
Castara Retreats is located on the outskirts of the village. It is a five minute walk into the village centre. You can make it to the beach in less than three minutes, although this does involve a bit of a scramble down a steep grassy bank. A leisurely walk to the beach via the main road and village centre takes around seven minutes.
Architecture
The four apartments are contained within two separate buildings: a new two-storey building built in classical Polynesian Haiku style, and a renovated fisherman’s cabin.
The property’s website states that the fundamental design concept of the main building is “to allow man and nature to live in mutual respect”. Is this marketing hype? I think not! For the life of me I can’t think of another property that offers such a successful combination of ‘comfortable living’ with ‘feeling at one with nature’.
Although the skeleton of the main building is made of reinforced concrete, the cladding and everything above the first floor is made entirely of unpainted and unvarnished wood; big solid chunky beams and planks. It feels so natural. The unique vaulted ceiling of Rainforest Apartment gives a feeling of immense space and provides shade throughout the day.
Fisherman’s Lodge, just 30 feet from the main house, is a somewhat different experience. Situated on a bluff of land a little higher than the main house, this red cedar wood cabin offers truly wonderful views of Castara Bay, the Caribbean Sea and the dramatic coastline to the west.
How can one describe the architectural style of Fisherman's when the builders had no concept of what an architect was? It has been carefully and tastefully extended and renovated, but kept as original as possible. First impressions are that it is still a ‘shack’, but it is actually a very comfortable two-bedroom cottage finished to the same high standards as the main house.
The lady staying in the lodge during our stay said that Fisherman’s had brought back wonderful memories of childhood holidays in her families remote cabin, back in Canada.
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