I should cocoa – Christmas in Tobago

Today’s blog from Tobago comes to you with lashings of ginger beard!

Which comes to you not from a tube of dye but straight from a plant on a Cocoa Estate.

This is the Roucou plant from which you can smear the seeds onto your hands and then your face.

It was used in days of yore for war paint but does just as well to liven up your beardie.

This is me being put to work on the Cocoa Estate before being rewarded with a bar of chocolate and a couple of rum chasers.

That’s reward enough.

And after being dragged away and it being 30C after all, it was time for a cool down in the Argyle Waterfalls.

Us Scots were all over Tobago.

Which you can see in the place names, Argyle, Speyside and the Glasgow Bar we’ll lime in later this week.

And also in the manufacturing process for the molasses and rum-making.

I even spotted a Glaswegian’s hand in the water wheel which oiled the wheels.

And, of course, they put me to work like a hamster on a wheel!

Tobagonians claim their island as the ‘happiest place on earth’.

And it’s all down to sun, Parang Soca (So Calypso), smiles, rum and food.

As our driver Phil put it as we ate in the converted treehouse near Roxborough: ‘Better belly bustin’ than leave waste.’

And with Scrunter ringin’ in my ears reminding us that he wants ‘pork for me Christmas’ and ‘I drink anything’, I’m off.

For a rum punch, some limin’ (pre-drinks), before dinner.

If you want more Caribbean fun then check out Let’s rumba in Barbados and My kiss with Rihanna.

And visit www.visittobago.gov and www.virginatlantic.com.