'Boredwalk' at Caroni Bird Sanctuary

IF YOU’RE in the market for a completely underwhelming tourist experience, then the Caroni Bird Sanctuary boardwalk might just tickle your fancy. Launched to clamorous fanfare – with the obligatory, shopworn ribbon-cutting – this addition to the premier eco-tourist attraction was introduced to the public earlier this year.

This project appears conceptually flawed in so many ways it’s hard to imagine that people who had any proximity to or knowledge of the swamp and its wild inhabitants had anything to do with it. It is a stark, costly reminder of the ubiquitous failures of governance that hobble our ambitions.

My suspicions were first aroused when I saw a video posted by a woman on social media several months ago complaining about her experience there. Central to the guest’s bone-picking was her bitterness at seeing nothing of interest. For her, the trip to the boardwalk was about as stimulating as standing at a bus stop. I could see harsh shadows on her face in the video and thought, ah ha! She’s there in the middle of the day.

What does she expect to see? Most birds are active primarily very early in the morning and late in the evening. These are the cooler hours when they’re feeding, socialising and caught up in avian politics like territorial displays, etc. As the temperature rises they retreat to the shade of the mangrove foliage. So this unhappy customer was just there at the wrong time of day, right? Wrong.

On a recent trip to the visitors’ centre at the sanctuary, I got there around 7 am. Ideally, I should have been there from 6 am but I knew there wasn’t any chance of staff being around at that time.

As I walked through the open gate I was told by the security guard that the boardwalk is closed to the public until 8 am. "If you watch at the sign…" He pointed to a sign indicating the opening hours that was almost perfectly obscured behind the gate – 8 am to 4 pm. I thought this has to be some kind of joke. These are business hours. In a bird sanctuary.

While I was trying to "negotiate" with him I noticed ordinary civilians stepping onto the boardwalk. "Look, it’s open!" I said, "There are people on the boardwalk as we speak." "Yeah, but that is for people going on tours. It is not open to the public."

You can kind of get where the conversation went after that. It felt a bit like staring into the mouth of madness – that unmistakable expression of the public service ethos; we don’t know why it is the way it is…it just is. No shade to the young security guard. He was just doing as instructed by the higher-ups who should know better. And who are these types?

At the grand launch, permanent secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture Farook Hosein said the boardwalk offers "...a unique vantage point, especially for those unable to explore by boat. This accessible pathway ensures that everyone can witness the stunning spectacle of the scarlet ibis in flight."

Really? The signature experience of the Caroni Swamp is the roosting of the national bird in the evening in huge numbers. The possibility of witnessing that daily commute over the boardwalk is, I’m going to say, quite slim.

A visit to the centre would probably also fizzle with schoolchildren on account of there being little or nothing to pique curiosity. The sole benefit of being there would be the brief respite from classroom routines.

When I returned at 3 pm the same day, quite a few people passed through. They stood on the boardwalk and, after marvelling at the standing water for one or two minutes, sauntered off.

On the other hand, if you’re a cat lover, the visitors’ centre is the cat’s meow. They are everywhere – flea-infested kittens, pregnant females, battle-scarred toms. The swamp is a popular location for the dumping of unwanted cats. Trinis seem to think mangroves are their natural habitat. Moreover, these strays are fed regularly by citizens sympathetic to their plight.

Set to the refrain of "only in Trinidad," just imagine the unchecked proliferation of well-fed bird-killing cats (this is their nature) in a bird sanctuary. Well, you don’t have to imagine it; they are available for viewing between the hours of 8 am and 4 pm.

The "boredwalk" is emblematic of the Trini way – sink money into a bog, claim credit for innovative thinking, and repeat the process across the length and breadth of the apparatus of state cluelessness.