Hey friends we on a road trip today we are in central Trinidad an island in the Caribbean.
This place is called Caroni and we are going to the carny swamp we will not be on a boat or anything or walking through some water but we will be on land looking at the swamp a lot of people when they hear about the currently swam think about getting on a boat a swamp boat that is and going out to look at the scarlet ibis which is the bird you’re seeing on the right a bright red bird that gets its color from the crustaceans on fish and other items it eats.
Basically when you come to this part of Trinidad the you you know it’s mostly because you plan to take a tour the city birds snakes the man grows and what not but a lot of people don’t know that you can actually see a lot of that from on land of course not as good as if you took the boat however you know sometimes you want to do something you don’t necessarily want to pay a whole bunch of money especially if you’re with your family and you just want to take a little drive and see something well you’re going to see where you can go as near to the currently swamp as possible without actually going on a boat if you follow the map which is on your screen as well you can see where I’m driving to the way I came was from north you can get to here from south as well I want you to know here you’ll notice there are different tour operators that’s one
and then upcoming on the right is another one
so there are different operators and it’s all based on you know your preference what it is whatever else they offer and so forth I I’m not really highlighting any particular tour operator um neither did they sponsor this video I’m just simply passing through
that last operator gave me his um pamphlet whatever tour he gives now currently in 2022 for locals that is um a typical tour on a swamp boat will be around 75
you know everybody might have the individual price but that’s about the average they would usually leave at four o’clock or some other particular time they would go out into the swamp area and come back in at 6 30. the other is that we’ll do it throughout the day as well it’s not limited at that specific time you can also sponsor a boat for yourself and go out anytime you like and for that you would have to um make whatever reservations or communication with the two operators to do that now this road we have fallen you can see it on the map it goes all the way
to the end of the swamp but when I say to the end of the swarm not out to sea but to the end of the road there is a swamp the water although it’s on your right and it’s on your left you can’t see it because of the mangroves so this road will take it away you will see this one properly now interestingly enough this compound here I believe is
part of a tour operator Kalpoo’s but I’m not sure if it is also part of the overall build sanctuary area I’m not sure if you if somebody knows and they could fill me in feel free but this is more or less a private operation here however they are very accommodating and willing for you to look around take pictures and so forth
and that’s what I like the friendliness you know not subjugating you to anything specific but giving you a chance to you know get an idea of what the area is all about
you can see on the map where we are where we came from and the tour that they usually give now here’s the actual compound
and I guess it can have instruction tools maybe even an event if you like
but these are the actual mangroves
and you may be wondering well where can I actually see these colored ibis or other birds from here well really it’s if you’re lucky I’m going to show you a few today some some of them you may not be able to see if you have a really big screen you’ll be able to see it you see where that red circle was there’s some birds out there
and I’m showing you just how large these mangroves can get
and you can pretty much walk to the swamp besides the trash as we always see you have to get past this kind of broken I don’t know what to call it path wooden path
could get you closer but I wasn’t really anymore to go closer because it’s really muddy and it sinks but if you have on some big tall rubber boots I guess you can look the something that you can’t see too well from this footage is they are like mini crabs all over and I actually have to watch where I’m stepping to make sure I don’t step on any of them I’ll show you some of them later but you can you see those birds any distance
again if you have a big screen you’ll be able to see it if you’re watching this on your mobile it’s not likely that you’ll pick it up however I did manage to capture a bluebird
very nice very unique very rare to see it
you’ll see that later in this video
now these mangroves that make up part of the Caroni Swamp are really special and they’re protected it’s about 12 000 uh acres of land and it’s not only governed by local law but by international treaties and conventions
the Ramsar Convention is one of those conventions that cater for the protection of wildlife and other sanctuaries around the world
what some people don’t know about these mangroves is it’s really part big part of the biodiversity because without it that evolving biological circle of eat and eat in other words the fish come to eat by demand grows and the mangroves get their nutrients from the fish and so forth if that’s if that’s you know
hurt in some way by oil by ravish by humans or whatever it affects everything in the in the long run so these mangroves need to be protected and I’m not no I’m not a biologist I’m not a horticulturist I’m not a geologist so if any of you are more expert than me feel free to comment in the comments area of my YouTube channel fill us in more about these man groves I have some other videos where I went down south and I took some pictures of it they’re really nice to watch it’s interesting how the roots are exposed from
above
water you could see where I was playing what some of those Russians are playing I was trying to find whether the crab was alive or dead or what wasn’t moving some interesting flowers
and if you’re thinking nobodies are wrong yes there are people are wrong I’m just trying to avoid giving them any cameras view some people bring their children and stuff and I personally can’t imagine going on a boot boat ride with lots of loud children
some people like to do that
you guys know that I’m big on serenity and peace so I like to visit things I like to get the feeling of the atmosphere there’s a lot of cats in in this area and they weren’t really much bothered about what we were doing
and I guess that’s a good thing because cats are also good for keeping out rats
this is one of the loading bees where you could get into the um boots for your toes and this is what I meant when I said you could see a lot of this one this is one
area and in case you’re wondering why I don’t have songs it’s because like I mentioned before there were a lot of kids yelling and shouting any distance and I just didn’t want that to be picked up to me just took away from
you know the feel of the area
again I’m a big believer letting things be free animals plants just less in nature you know
do its own thing
and of course JB’s Man Cave is all about the raw so I’m trying to give you as much footage so you got a feeling of what it’s like to be there if you were there
taking my time so you can pick up on everything rather than racing through stuff
there was another card that or kitten that we found this kitchen was a bit strange
it was just looking down all the time
and here’s where I found that bird
can you see it if you have your phone I doubt you’ll see this but if you have a big screen you’ll pick up pick up on it’s in the center of your screen where the circle is and that bird was looking for things to eat
and I love its color there’s like a blue sheen on it
now leave any area where your dock on boats is across from it when you go across the road this is a path where a lot of the two operators come through
of course I will go on the actual swamp tour that’s another video you’ll have to look out for
but for now I’m just showing you what you can access from via land
that’s the road we came down
and really you could spend a lot of time just looking at one particular area and you start to see a lot of movement from insects crabs things that are flying like dragonflies there’s a lot of biodiversity in this area good first science project and more cats this black cat wasn’t sure what I was up to
tried to give him space while trying to capture the swamp but he was just checking me out
there he is up there
it’s like what are you doing here this bridge I don’t I don’t think it’s accessible it doesn’t look like it can hold up much weight just the weight of that cap probably
one of the surprising things that will come in here is the lack of signage there was a lot of signage on the actual road to come inside but from the highway one would think there’d be a lot of signage about the car and he swam highlighting it and so forth and I’m surprised that there isn’t
so basically you could pass here if you don’t know where you’re going you could pass it quite easily
that cat’s still waiting for me to leave
so this is more or less the
end of the road quite literally to get to the currently swarm
that is a termites nest and you can see all the trails it’s made and the mangrove
eating it away slowly
I have another video where I um actually explore a bit of a termite’s nest and a visit to the botanical gardens check my YouTube channel if you haven’t seen that
now something you always have to watch out for in a lot of these videos is the fact that there can be snakes
above and a lot of them may look just like the branches you see here of the mangroves
and the way they operate is they drop on the victims below
so not to be paranoid but you know just keep be watchful
in fact part of the tour is is is the tour operator showing you some snakes or a snake on a branch
this is closer to the road outside of the compound
and what I’m gonna show you is I’ll try to see if I can catch some actual boats passing by
the mangroves here are quite thick so
you will not be able to see a lot
on the other side of these mangroves is the actual swamp but really from this way it’s not you know readily accessible
one good thing too about mangroves is they prevent coastal erosion
so really anywhere that you there’s that problem you would want to have mine groups
and there’s one of the um boats on there’s two of them actually I was trying to get what they were pointing to but I didn’t I couldn’t see it from here could have been a snake
not sure
can you see it that’s what they are looking at
I know you get an idea of what a tour would be like
and if you are wrong for mother’s day on my channel you would have recognized this flower this is where I got it from
well I hope you enjoyed the uh short tour today of Caroni Swamp from online feel free to check it out or arrange your own tour make sure to check out my other videos and please do subscribe thanks for watching
NOTE: the above was extracted from audio of the video and may not be accurate. The original video is located here as part of JB’s Man Cave Channel.
Other walking videos: Walking Around San Fernando, Trinidad