One of The Most Remote Areas of Trinidad
An Aerial view of the only road that allows access to the remotest settlement on the island
Icacos is literally located on the tip of the largest peninsula of the island of Trinidad, meaning the southern most coastline. It is one of the least populated areas of the beautiful Caribbean nation, still hardly touched by the humans. We wanted to visit the remotest parts of the island to see what we could document! We explored the Icacos Wetlands through which the only road in the area passes to get to one of the most secluded settlements called Icacos point that is on the edge of the peninsula where it meets the sea!
As you would have probably noticed by now from the photos so far, we were driving to the southernmost parts of Trinidad in a white Toyota 4x4 as that was the most apt vehicle to handle the terrain. The roads to Icacos were some of the worst unmaintained roadways I had ever experienced, plagued with landslides, huge potholes and even places where the carriageway had narrowed so much by falling off the cliff sides that there was just enough space for one vehicle to pass at a time! These were no roads a car could pass through without getting stuck!
After a harrowing and nerve wracking 3 hour drive, we finally made it to the peninsula where there was just one solitary road and no civilization for miles. While this road was 100 percent better than the previous ones, it was still a little unsettling to be surrounded by completely nothing but coconut trees and no buildings whatsoever for a far as the eyes could see. Remember this was a part of the island where there was no one or any sort of help except for the remote settlement that was at least an hour away. We were a 3 hour drive away from an actual town! We journeyed on as by seeing the coconut trees, we knew we were close to the Icacos Wetlands!
We finally got to an opening or an interruption of the seemingly infinite amount of coconut trees. The Icacos Wetlands seemed to just barely and delicately nest the solitary roadway upon what seemed like the only pieces of solid land that ran amidst the marshland and shrubberies until it met the other side where the never ending line of coconut trees continued on the other side. We had arrived and the town was now only a few minutes away!
This area was so beautiful and I had never in my life seen marshlands like this in real life much more for in Trinidad for that matter! I had only seen these in geography books and upon viewing them, it did not feel like we were in the same country anymore! In fact, when I posted these photos on tiktok, most of the Trinidadians who commented were in disbelief that this was their island!
Here is a much higher view of the road as it passes through the Icacos wetlands! As you can see, the road is completely at the mercy of nature and often becomes flooded or impassible during storms and so the town is even more cut off from society and supplies and it was so much easier to see why when I sent up the drone. In the distance, in the photo above, you can see the town (little colored roofs) as well as the coastline that meets the ocean and the end of the narrow solitary road as well as out journey.
Since I had the drone up already, I decided to see what I could discover with the aerial views of the wetlands. This would have probably been the first time top down views of these areas would have been taken and it felt awesome to capture these amazing natural beauties! The shot above was my favorite with its symmetry and great showcasing of the little road surrounded by scary nature, which is how we felt!
Taking a closer look of the wetlands, there were all sorts of types of flora I had never at all seen before in any other parts of Trinidad, especially in other types of wetlands. There were these satisfyingly round shrubs amidst healthy looking spiky grass of sorts, I'm not sure what they are called. Even the birds looked different!
I managed to capture a bird in flight as it searched for food and it felt like I was flying wit it, which, technically I was, but it was such a beautiful moment! The water's color was of the kind I had never seen before in local nature either as most wetlands are really brown or emerald green but never before this dark/ navy blue color!
I was having so much fun, I decided to follow the bird and see what happens. As I was doing so, I got a view that almost took my breath away with the coconut trees in the background as well as the marshland in the foreground and the beautiful sky, nature was so mesmerizing!
It wasn't long before the bird got to its destination. It is quite hard to see in the photo above but it landed right there in a large group of shrubs where there were a few other birds in the highest head of rounded shrub. If you look closely you can see the white birds nested in the high rounded bush.
It was not long before I decided to land so that we could head to the Icacos point settlement and document there as well before it got to late. We had another 4 hour drive back if you remember!
We drive to the other side where the coconut trees resumed, leaving the Icacos Wetlands behind. The nut trees were growing on me and I imagined how it used to be in the old time days when these same coconuts were farmed and made into cooking oil, moisturizing cream as well as other products. The husks were also used to make various types of charcoal and furniture. It was quite a large industry at the time!
We drove for nothing more than 10 minutes before the coconuts abruptly gave way to a large opening for a little town of maybe a hundred or so houses that also abruptly ended on a beach littered with fishing boats! It was a busy little town with the smell of burning coconuts in the air. Apparently the processing of coconuts was still going on by the settlers on a very small scale. There were people out and about husking coconuts and transporting them around as well as fisherfolk here and there and this one guy was driving his tractor (used for coconut harvesting) out in to the ocean waves on the beach to wash it off! You can see the tractor on the middle right of the picture above to the left of the blue boat.
What I loved the most was how you could see the curvature of the edge of the peninsula we were on which was amazing! The waves also looked peculiar and awesome as it approached the arched coastline in a way I had never seen before. The winds were unnaturally gusty and the waters were a shade of brown I had never seen before either. I guessed it was due to the mouth of the Orinoco River from Venezuela being nearby expelling silt and dirt (Trinidad is just off of the coast of Venezuela).
The western view of the curving edge of the peninsula shows a very small river of its own that flowed directly into the ocean. This could actually be the main reason for the brown waters! The rains were quite heavy today before we left and so a lot of silt and sand may have been ejected into the ocean from this.
After having a few interviews with the locals and finding out about their daily lives and taking amazing footage of some of their routines as well as some aerial documentation of one of the most remote villages in Trinidad, we decided to call it a day as there was almost a four hour drive back home! It was thrilling to explore a new location of the island that may have never been seen like this before the way we were fortunate enough to capture. I was quite grateful for the opportunity as well to be able to visit and document one of the most secluded settlements and learn about their lives. Thanks for coming along, cheers!
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I've heard a lot about Trinidad and I think I should add it to my bucket list, maybe for a future adventure.
Nice pictures.
You won't at all regret it! We just had an influx of tourists and celebrities for Carnival 2023 and they all can't stop talking about it, cheers!
Hiya, @LivingUKTaiwan here, just swinging by to let you know that this post made it into our Honorable Mentions in Daily Travel Digest #1804.
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Thanks so much!
Hello very nice report and the shots are really great. With which drone did you take the pictures?
LG
!PIZZA
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed the read and the photography. This was taken with the DJI Air 2S, thanks a lot for reading!
It looks very nice broo and photos are also too good
Thanks a lot friend, glad you appreciated the photography, thanks so much for reading!
Is this some sort of a coconut palm farming? I have never seen so many palms at one place 🙂
I love to explore my country too. Usually, we tend to travel to see places but there are so many places that we can also see around us. Especially, when you have a beach like the one that you showed on one of your last photos 🙂 And you had it all for yourself! Lucky, lucky, lucky 🙂
Beautiful pictures and great adventure! Thank you for sharing!
The coconut trees you see were because of a coconut estate way back in the colonial days, now the locals of the small settlement use the trees to make a living. When we visited, we found out, to our surprise, that there were not many Trinidadians there but more Venezuelans who had come across in boats to our shores, trying to find better livelihoods.
So true! Trinidadians love their beaches :D Thanks so much for reading, it was my pleasure and looking forward to more of your adventures as well!
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