Heading West again, this time to Trinidad and Tobago on a Bird Watching holiday.
Whilst we were in Africa last year Ian got quite into "birdwatching"; I was spending so much time and concentrating on taking photos and he became very good at spotting, identifying and remembering the numerous species we saw. So we thought we'd like to go back to Costa Rica, one of the richest birding areas in the world, but when we researched holidays they were mostly revisiting places we'd been to in 2006 and having had Osvaldo the best guide possible we didn't want to risk a lesser experience.
Then Trinidad and Tobago came onto our radar. Trinidad is just 7 miles off the coast of Venezuela and its proximity to South America and biodiversity makes it an extremely rich area for flora and fauna, in fact few areas of comparable size in tropical America can match it - 97 native mammals, 400+ birds, 55 reptiles, 25 amphibians, 617 butterflies as well as over 2200 species of flowering plants.
Trinidad is 50 miles long and 37 wide and dominated by the Northern Range (3,000ft) and situated in this lush rainforest is the world renowned Asa Wright Nature Centre, our home for 7 nights.
From there we fly 25 mins to Tobago and travel to the north east tip of the island to the relatively undeveloped area of Speyside for more birding and snorkelling.
We're just hoping the other people there aren't real 'bird nerds' only interested in viewing species through a very long telescope and ticking them off a list. Obviously my main interest will be trying to photograph them but Ian enjoys seeing them with his own eye.