Cooling down in Turure

ON THE day that the Trinidad Soca Warriors met with England in the World Cup, I spent a physically and emotionally few hours exploring the forest of Turure with the Sackateers Hiking Club.

The 11-member group converged at Mannette’s Variety Store in Valencia with the intentions of having an enjoyable but brief time in the forest, as we football fans had to be out of the bush by 11.30. The group promptly left the store at 7.30 am and headed to the banks of the Turure River where we began our trek, led by Ricardo Rambally.

Very early in our trek, I received the first of the three injuries I would sustain that day, when I was stung on the palm of my right hand by a UFI- an unidentified flying insect. Not wanting to disturb our troop leader from his monologue about the different trees and plants in the area, I endured the pain in my hand for ten minutes before alerting him. He made two comments — that I should have told him sooner so he could look at the insect that stung me and that I should carefully examine objects in the forest before grabbing them. I have the habit of grabbing objects indiscriminately when I’m trying to maintain my balance while hiking.

Within the first 20 minutes I was out of breath as we negotiated a very steep hill. However, all my sweat, complaints and wishes that I had stayed in my bed that morning were soon rewarded with the sight of the first of the many Turure water steps.

Rambally explained that Turure is so named because the escarpments resemble an Amerindian culinary tool for grating corn from the cob. On our journey, we saw many such water steps, all beautiful and all unique. As one hiker commented, hiking to such scenic spots is ideal for relieving the stress of every day life as the pure beauty, together with the focus one has to maintain while manoeuvring through the forest, leaves little time to worry about work, finances, or family problems.

The subject at the forefront of our minds was the start of the World Cup match between the Warriors and England, so after basking in the beauty of Turure, we made the journey back out of the forest and to the Valencia home of Ricardo’s cousins, the Paponettes.

Of course, the trek through Turure would not have been complete without me slipping while attempting to scale up a particularly steep and slippery water step and later having a piece of glass lodged in the sole of my foot.

However, at the Paponette residence, despite our aching bodies, we supported our team even as they were issued yellow card after yellow card, even as they were tackled without penalty to the opposing team and even as they eventually lost to England.

However, after the match, even the beauty we had experienced in Turure couldn’t improve our mood, so we went on an excursion to the Hollis River where we drowned our sorrows in the cool river.

There was some mild stress after that when we were forced to scramble up the mountainside to get back on to the road but at the end of the day, despite the pains running through my body, the swelling on my right hand and the Warriors’ defeat, I knew there had been no better way to spend my day than with the hikers and the Paponette family.