We stayed at Mount Hay for the first 2 nights, which was a wonderful, secluded guest house, set on a hill not far from Black Rock. Went spent 2 days just walking about getting a feel for the place and was immediately charmed by the friendliness of everyone. We spent a night at Sunday School which is not to be missed and ate at Sashas stall which was fab.
On the Monday, we were collected by Porridge (a suberb guy) who took us to Castara. Ah the first view of the bay takes your breath away and then down you come into the village, everything so green and vibrant, the multi-coloured blues of the water glistening in the sun's rays.....
We stayed at the Beach House. A beautifully and sensitively built property right on the small beach, set amongst breadfruit trees. We had booked Coconut Heights which is the whole of the top floor, we had looked at the pictures many times on the website but nothing could compare to first seeing the view "WOW" was all we could both say. The balcony/living/dining is huge, with low slung comfy chairs and cushions, there are lamps and candle holders for evenings and a hammock you can hangout in, your are surrounded by mobiles, windchimes and birdfeeders the atmosphere is truly the most relaxing and chilled out I have ever experienced, like an indoor outside room. There are so many little touches, probably because the owners holiday here too. The kitchen is fantastically stocked and many a night one of the locals, Overload, Marvin or Oracle would come and cook the most delicious meals, caught fresh that day and we would spend the evening liming, those rum and cokes go down so easily!
The bedroom was cool and airy and we slept in a woodern four-poster bed which you could cover with a mosiquto net. We even had warm showers.
Porridge and Jenell look after the place and they are truly wonderful people as is everyone we met in Tobago.
We ate at Marguerettes which was lovely, fresh and tastey.
Overload took us on a boat trip and snorkelling to Englishmans bay, but the snorkelling in the Castara at the small beach never ceased to amazed us. The abundance of fish you can see just metres from the shore was always a delight. We saw a baby turtle, squid, barracuda and everyday we would see the stringray that feed in the bay an awesome sight, so graceful. We even had 2 dolphin visit us one morning.
We did hire a jeep for 3 days and drove through the spectacular rain forest along the mountain ridge. We stopped at Speyside to have lunch at Jemmas which was absolutely delicious, our most expensive meal (about $17 each). We actually found everything to be really reasonable in Tobago and had trouble spending our money. We visited Charlotteville and Pirates Bay which we had to ourselves.
Castara also has a lovely little waterfall which you can trek upto quite easily, we had the place to ourselves and the water was so fresh your skin tingled when you got out. Bliss!
We didn't have that great weather, more cloudy/rainy days than sunny. The dry season was very short this year and the rain had come early. And yes it would have been nice to have a few more sunny days but it really didn't matter we had such a fantastic time and a truly wonderful experience of a beautiful country.
And a big thank you to you guyz at mytobago, all your information was the best help I could have had in deciding to choose Castara the place was just perfect for us.
