Entry #96

The Pitch Lake
by Herrad Ford


The pitch lake in Trinidad is a natural wonder; it oozes dark aromatic pitch which gets used to make roads all over the world

To me as a kid it was a marvellous place, that constantly changed, never still, never static, always in motion.

At first glance it did not look very exciting, nothing alluring about it, no interesting silhouettes.

Yet it was a much visited place, especially by tourists who had to have pictures of them on the pitch lake.

One time we were up at the pitch lake with some visitors and these Americans drove up in a big car and parked.

We tried to tell them; well my dad did that if they parked there they would not be able to drive away as the car would sink in the pitch.

Well they were very rude and patronising, and they knew better.

They did not want to listen and much to everyone’s satisfaction a couple of hours later there were shrieks and wails to be heard by the same Americans who could no longer drive home proudly in their Chevrolet.

It was well stuck in the Trinidad pitch lake.

I still recall this with ‘schadenfreude’ all these years later, must be well over forty, with much pleasure.

I remember we drove away some time later, looking out of our rear window with great delight at the glorious silhouette of the stuck erstwhile flash American car.

Oh well they had been very rude and patronising to us all.