Trinidad and Tobago

No one?

<bump to get it off the unanswered list>

Those faraway places with the strange sounding names, but I've been to neither.

I thought they'd been called west indies because of the trade route everyone set off on - and the assumption that they'd reached India (for the same reason native americans were called indians). Maybe theywere. But, there was also an importation (sort forced like) of Indian labor. Those Indians have still maintained their culture, at least to some degree. So, there is a mix of native, portuguese, indian, african and english (maybe spanish) people on the islands.

AND, clear blue water and white sand beaches.......

I haven't - but have wanted to - probably not much help, but I did read that the have a carnavel time (again not sure when it was as it was a while ago I did some research on them).

They made it to the World Cup.


So...
are you considering a vacation or a new career in piracy?

I know a lot about these islands but only from books as I never been there.

However what I know is that it seems worth the travel there, which I'll do one of these days. That way I'll do one more "port" of Spain.

V S Naipaul is from Trinidad and has written about it...

Maybe I'll get there someday, George, either as tourist or pirate.

Living in Toronto, most of what we know about Trini is the interaction of the drug gangs there and in Toronto.

I've got a number of co-workers from both islands. While they're happy to go visit family, none of them want their kids to back to live there. Serious gang/drug/weapons/poverty problems.

The CIA factbook doesn't get too much into the drug/violence business, it does mention that it is a stopover spot for the drug trade and that pot is grown there. https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/td.html

The islands have a poverty rate of around 20%, canada is about 16% and the US is around 12% (according to the cia factbook, canada's low-income line is calculated in a different way than other countries).

Here at BBC the article does get into the drugs and violence:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/country_profiles/1209827.stm

we've made a couple of cruises through the caribbean .
we found the islands of curacao/sort of dutch and the 'twin island' of st. maarten/dutch/ french quite beautiful and enjoyable ; people were very friendly .
the french side of st. martin was particularly interesting ; the french influence was definetely noticable - including the distinct french policemen , but also french cuisine - one of the more expensive resorts i understand but perhaps worth the price .
hbg

here is what a holidayer from scotland poste about trinidad :
...VACATION IN TRINIDAD...