| At the Grafton Bird and Wildlife
Sanctuary, on the grounds of an old Tobago plantation gone to seed, thrushes,
grackles, doves, and bananaquits descend upon an outdoor tabletop covered
twice daily with cracked corn and watermelon on the side. The blue-crowned
motmot is missing, preferring to dine separately on cheese under cover of
an open-sided shed. When the bird finally appears, it's immediately apparent
why one of Tobago's main attractions is its extraordinary fauna. This creature
has sprung from a child's coloring book: turquoise cap, black mask, green
back, orange breast, long blue tail. And the setting — a lush, tangled
jungle accented with bougainvillea and hibiscus — does much to recommend
the island's flora as well. You come to Tobago for the natural life, not
the nightlife.
The sanctuary is a short walk from Stonehaven Villas, a cluster of fourteen
French country-style houses that opened last year on Tobago's West Coast.
It's ideal for a family vacation: The three-bedroom, two-story pink stucco
homes, accented with marble and mahogany, offer every amenity from microwaves
to private infinity pools. (Well, everything except a minibar, as we discovered
after arriving late at night and in desperate need of rum. So we wandered
across the road to Le Grand Courlan, where lethal rum punches and a shish-kebab
dinner on a balcony overlooking the Caribbean helped stabilize us.)
The next day, down below at Grafton Beach, people come up to us offering
hair-braiding, aloe leaves, boat excursions, and carved wooden vases.
Later, we have lunch on the sand at Buccaneer's Beach Bar. The sky is
overcast, and the breeze knocks a lizard off a branch and onto our table;
the lizard bounces off, collects himself, and with a sigh walks back to
the tree and begins another ascent.
Twenty minutes' drive away (and you will need a car on Tobago, if only
to head north to the rain forest or to secluded beaches for snorkeling),
on the Atlantic side of the island, is the Blue Haven Hotel. The Blue
Haven had a Hollywood vogue in the forties and fifties — Robert Mitchum
and Rita Hayworth were guests; Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison and Fire
Down Below were filmed here — before shutting down. Splendidly
renovated and reopened last winter by Karl and Marilyn Pilstl, an Austrian
couple, the pink hotel has been expanded to 51 simple, tasteful oceanfront
rooms while retaining its retro charm. Blue Haven overlooks the beautiful
beach of Bacolet Bay, where Robinson Crusoe is said to have washed up
in 1659 (he probably didn't, but never mind). You get the feeling, at
the Blue Haven and throughout much of Tobago, that not much has changed
since Mitchum's day. It's remote, friendly, intimate -- maybe even a little
too cozy. As our waiter at Le Grand Courlan laughingly warned us
that first night, as we snatched the rum drinks off his tray, "There are
no secrets here."
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