By boat to Ciudad Bolivar from Port Of Spain.
Published: Guardian
Sunday, March 20, 2016
1880s sketch of the deck of an Orinoco riverboat.
My friend, fellow Guardian columnist and erstwhile adventurer, Marc De Verteuil, through his company, WOW Expeditions, regularly visits the Orinoco Delta, escorting tour groups in a journey which seems very gung-ho in this era of rapid transport, but which is really the spiritual successor to a link which has long connected Trinidad to the mainland. In a series of my articles over a year ago, we examined the close bond that Venezuela shared with us, both politically and economically.
It is odd enough to consider now, with reports of massive food shortages across the Channel, that this island once relied heavily on the Orinoco Delta region for large imports of staples including plantain, corn, cheese, salted meats, and live beef on the hoof.
There was always a steady influx of political refugees as well who lived in Port-of-Spain in exile until conditions at home resolved themselves (often they never returned and left their bones in the acid soil of Lapeyrouse Cemetery where there are many tombs to the old “Generalissimos.â€)
Regardless of how good or bad conditions were in Venezuela, communication by steamboat and sloop was steady well into the 1920s. Two agencies operated vessels connecting Port-of-Spain with Cuidad Bolivar (formerly called Angostura and the largest city in the Delta).
This was the birthplace of the world famous Angostura Bitters under the hand of Dr J G B Siegert which is a story which will be told in an upcoming series. The larger of the two shipping agents was Ellis Grell and Co which had a fascinating political connection to one of the strongmen dictators of Venezuela and the other was Dalton and Co. Founded in 1846 by John Dalton, the firm had extensive business interests including operating the Cuidad Bolivar branch of the Banco de Venezuela.
In Trinidad, there were offices as well, facilitating the movement of freight as well as passengers on a fortnightly basis. Though operational from the early 1890s at Marine Square, the Port-of-Spain branch was formally established in 1912 and with the death of Ellis Grell (principal of the rival enterprise) in 1908, Dalton and Co soon had a near-monopoly on the Venezuelan trade.
This establishment was operated by in-laws of the Daltons, the Hendersons, who lived at Whitehall, which is now the office of the Prime Minister. At one time, no fewer than eight steamers were under their control. Indeed, a late 19th-century guidebook included a trip up the Orinoco from Port-of-Spain as one of the attractions of the colony.
The description went as follows:
“The time occupied by the journey is two days and nights each way, and three days at Bolivar. As there are no accommodations there for travellers, arrangements should be made with the steamboat company for staying aboard while at Bolivar. The steamer makes two trips per month, and before embarking it is necessary to procure a passport and produce a list of the baggage, signed by the Venezuelan consul. The steamer leaves Port-of-Spain at six PM and crosses the Gulf of Paria, and arrives at the bar at the mouth of the Macareo river at daybreak.
The first thing that will strike the traveller after leaving British waters will be the sudden transforming of the deck hands into Venezuelan soldiers, all armed with repeating rifles. They accompany the steamer on every trip to prevent her from being seized by revolutionists, and robbed of the gold which she takes aboard at the town of Las Tablas As the day goes by, the steamer passes through miles and miles of this beautiful tropical scenery, every succeeding bend opening up new beauties.
Here islands clothed in verdure, there the banks closing together so that the steamers almost pass under the branches of overhanging trees, then widening out till the shores seem to recede almost from view; and all under a burning, glistening sun, while the river, with its dark-brown water, runs on without a ripple.â€
The accommodations aboard the vessels were as varied as the landscape. Those who could afford them were accorded cabins with proper beds and such, but the real primal experience came from slinging a hammock on the deck, surrounded by crates of hardware, bunches of plantains, barrels of parched corn or salted meat and even some wildlife, as there was sure to be a few parrots for sale.
The Dalton concern in Trinidad fell on hard times and eventually disappeared but the old days of adventuring up the muddy waters of the Orinoco River are a memory that has almost completely vanished from history.
www.guardian.co.tt/lifestyle/2016-03-20/boat-ciudad-bolivar
