Driving about in Trinidad is an interesting experience. Sure, there's the whole driving-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-road bit, which by itself is enough cause for wary driving. One must always be aware that the driver should be sitting in the center lane lest you be on the wrong side of the wrong side of the road. As we picked up the rental car from Piarco International Airport, a beleaguered husband double parked on us to retrieve his wife.

A policeman stopped by and said, "you see here, this car is double parked now."

I replied, "sir, I'm waiting for 5 minutes for that car to move so I can leave; we just picked up this rental."

He nodded and told the duo to move it. As they go themselves situated, the obviously inebriated passenger (his wife) cooed, "beeee careful! You're in Trinidaaad!"


"Yooooouuuu're drunk," I replied, somewhat under my breath.


In any event, the driving has been interesting. We've done long twisty roads, tight neighborhood alleys and highway driving. What's most interesting is that the Trinis seem to make up there own rules about driving. For example, the highway exit ramp to the office has two lanes: one turns right to cross back over the highway, and one goes straight to go...somewhere else. And naturally, there's a light just to the left of this intersection with opposing roads turn left/right to get across the highway. And of course, there's another intersection on the other side of the overpass. The picture I'm painting here is that during rush hour, there's a lot of congestion on this road as everybody tries to get across the overpass. What invariably happens is that the two lanes on the exit ramp (one straight, one right) both end up going right - into a single lane. So people are just everywhere on the road. But luckily, everything seems to work itself out without any fender-benders or hurt feelings.

On the return trip, there's usually the same sort of backup as people wait to get across the 3 lights on the overpass. Today, I decided to be very Trini and "make my own lane" since most people were crossing the overpass or going south, whereas we were going north. I carved a lane out of the shoulder and got up to the entrance ramp in no time and felt quite at home doing so.

Of course, if the left-side driving doesn't get your attention, one thing that surely will is the colorful monikers that the Trinis have put on their vehicles. Usually these are done by stickers on the windshield or perhaps on the rear-end of the vehicle, or sometimes actually painted on the body. The list, sans pictures, of what I've found is below. Keep in mind that most of these statements are emblazoned on sh!tbox cars.

• Playmaker
• Soca Warrior (I think that's the local sports team)
• Seedless (driver had a vasectomy?)
• City Limits (seen on a taxi)
• Master [Peace Symbol]
• Maestro
• Chronic
• Legalize
• Tuff*Gong (Record Label of Marley fame)

There are more, but I can't remember them all...