Waterfalls!

With all the swimming of the previous day, we needed a “break” from the beach and hours of swimming and snorkeling. I know, vacation is hard. 

We decided to go to argyle falls, arguably some of the best falls on the island. It’s amazing that such a small island can have so many waterfalls, but it’s one of the benefits of tobagos steep and rocky composition. Just past the heart of roxborough, we drive down a scenic tree line road for about a kilometer (yes using metric when in a metric country…) before reaching the car park and pay station. A lovely 15 minute walk that ends in a scramble over rocks and boulders reveals the beautiful first three cascading levels of the falls. 


We hop into the water, much colder and less clear than the ocean, but still wonderful and clean. The first fall is a singular powerful stream, with a deep pool that accommodates cliff jumping from various heights. We stick to the low ones for the time being, before exploring further up. 

The third set of falls is the highest we opt to go on this visit. There are rumors of anywhere from a few to a dozen more pools higher up, but as strenuous of a hike as it takes to arrive at number three, we stop there. Here the waterfall splits into several small, but just as powerful, streams landing in a thing and rocky pool that allows you to easily get under and behind several of them. The second pool condenses back down to a single stream, and has a few shallow pools, some of them lending to a jacuzzi effect. 


We finish our visit back at the first set of falls. We do some more cliff jumping, capping the day off with a single jump from the second level falls to the first, somewhere around 4-5 meters. Crowds are now arriving (we had the whole falls split across on three or four groups all morning) so we head out to grab lunch in speyside on the way back. 

The wonderfully simple menu allows for the typical chicken fish or shrimp that so many restaurants offer you, usually only through and audible recitation from the proprietor. In this case we were lucky and they had lobster as well. What always sets a particular spot aside is both the preparation of this main, and the quality and number of sides that come with. At birdwatchers, where we stopped, both of these aspects were quite impressive. After a busy day of hiking jumping and some swimming, ice cold Carib and amazing food were sublime. 


We wrapped up our late lunch, and signed up for a boat tour for the following day before departing speyside and heading back to the villa. A slow evening yet again commenced, and we all found ourselves amazed that hunger had developed following such a sizable lunch. But some simple peanut noodles went well with another round of continuo, all with another amazing sunset in the background.