Guest Report

[Terry Nevard]

BLUE MANGO CASTARA TOBAGO

We visited Colin, Rachel and Trinity at Blue Mango March 2010, our original idea for this holiday was to tour Tobago, having been twice before, staying a couple of nights at each destination, once we visited the website for Blue Mango we had to change our plans, we fell in love with this unique property straight away and just knew we had to stay there, as it turned out we decided to stay the whole two weeks and we are very glad we did. We appreciate the other units on site are very good but, if you get the chance stay in Sea Steps, this very special house has won us over with it’s quirky build it is certainly a one off, sitting above it’s own beach it is the envy of all who stay in Castara, true it has not got an easy access and if you have trouble of any kind in walking it may not be for you. The sound of the waves rushing against the rocks below your bedroom is wonderful, you soon get used to the noise, or you can do as my wife did and sleep under the stars in the hammock provided in the open lounge area ask for a mosquito net. We can not praise Colin & Rachel highly enough, nothing is to much trouble you only have to ask, as the old saying goes if you do not ask you do not get. For the first four days we did nothing but relax, swimming off the beach was easy just walk down the steps provided, access to the other two beaches is easy, either swim or walk. Going to the village for shopping is just as easy and the facilities in the village are very good, one large supermarket with numerous small shops that sell just about everything, if you have any trouble in getting anything go and see Mrs Walker in her shop/bar near the Coffee House. The eating houses are good in the main village you have the Coffee House, see Chevron as he can also help with fishing trips and tours, and just opposite Margurites and on a Friday night a must is Shirvans bar for the BBQ, there are other places like the Naturaluist, the Almond Tree and D Lime but we did not get to try them out so can not say if good or not, we enjoyed our meals in the Coffee House and Margurites, also The Coffee House has a BBQ on Saturday night. Of course we must not forget our very own Rachel with her Clay Oven which is now up and running providing local caribbean food every night with Friday night being dance night to live music when available, most enjoyable. If you want to go liming, the local of meeting up for a drink and a chat, just join the locals in the bar at the top of the hill near Blue Mango, you will be in for an interesting evening especially if the two ladies called Doris are in, get to know them as they have a wealth of information and one even runs a garden nursery which is very interesting. Take a walk to the waterfall along the river bed up past the football pitch for an early morning dip in the water below and swim with the many fish. The time will fly by, up at 6am to watch the Pelicans fishing, go for an early morning swim, breakfast and more bird watching, also by this time the fishermen will be going out to the boats, now time for another swim before going shopping, back for lunch time swim and eats, rest during the heat of the day, swimming/snorkelling during late afternoon, back for a quick cup of tea before going down to catch the sunset and a last swim around 6.30pm. Of out for the evening and a lime before and after your meal or cook in and just enjoy the real peace and quiet Sea Steps offers you as you will not hear any local noise except the sea.
The time may come when you want to explore the island as we did so just see Rachel or go down to Taylors on the small beach to arrange your car hire and you can get to all the local sandy bays plus a trip to the capital Scarborough can be enjoyed , whilst talking of the small beach, here you have The Boat House restaurant which is not run by locals, this becomes apparent when they have the Wednesday BBQ with live steel band and African band music with a meal included, the price for this is very expensive and to be honest we did not enjoy the meal as it was obviously cooked using cheap ingredients and was completely tasteless, the only good thing is if you can drink enough rum punch this is included in the price but, at 400tt$ against the very modest 80 – 100tt$ of the other BBQs you can see what we mean. By the way Chevron does include rum punch in the price of The Coffee House BBQ. If you want a holiday with all the trimmings do not go to Castara, if you want something completely individual, different and definitely quirky it can only be the Blue Mango and Sea Steps.

Well Colin & Rachel we sincerely it will not be to long before we are back in Castara and staying with you and Trinity, hopefully she will have quietened down by then, for another fabulous holiday, we can not thank you enough for the efforts you went to to ensure we had a great time and we promise you the hammock, (Colin provided us with a hammock to bring back to the UK) will be put up and used so that Sandy can lay back and think of Tobago, Castara and all the wonderful people we met on this trip, thank you