When Melis­sa Ram­nar­ine and the Palance 868 Ad­ven­tures Club sat down to have re­fresh­ments on one of their trips to Paramin about two years ago, they got the fright of their lives.

"All of a sud­den we heard a scream that sound­ed very scary. It's a very steep hill up; you don't see the bot­tom from the top. Every­body was hear­ing the beat­ing of the Crix tins and nois­es and every­body was like, what is that and start­ed to get con­cerned. Then there was just fire in the air and blue dev­ils com­ing up the hill.

"The guys from our group were act­ing like they were try­ing to pro­tect us and one of the girls thought the blue dev­ils were just act­ing, but they don't come out of char­ac­ter and one of them came up to her and screeched and re­al­ly scared her. She was there scream­ing and every­body was laugh­ing," Ram­nar­ine chuck­led.

Af­ter that adren­a­line-charged ex­pe­ri­ence, the group which of­fers trips to hid­den gems and far reach­es of T&T could not help but add blue dev­ils to their Paramin tour.

"We just want peo­ple to see Trinidad and To­ba­go the way we see it. It is ab­solute­ly beau­ti­ful. We some­times have events Sat­ur­day and Sun­day, 52 weeks for the year and it's still not enough to cov­er every­thing that we want to do. There's such a rich his­to­ry and cul­ture."

A found­ing mem­ber of Palance 868, Ram­nar­ine's pas­sion for ex­plor­ing and show­cas­ing the un­told beau­ty of this coun­try was ap­par­ent as she spoke with Sun­day Guardian re­cent­ly.

Week­end hikes to lo­cal wa­ter­falls, rivers and beach­es, road trips and ex­pe­ri­ences are part of the Palance 868 ad­ven­ture. A typ­i­cal road trip to south Trinidad, for in­stance, would mean stop­ping at Knol­ly's Tun­nel, San Fer­nan­do Hill, the Pitch Lake, Great Ica­cos La­goon, Colum­bus Bay and Ce­dros where vis­i­tors get to see co­conut oil made from scratch.

And there are al­so food­ie road trips along the East Coast where stops to "Ducky's" for lob­ster and to oth­er places for roast fish and oys­ters cre­ate the ul­ti­mate culi­nary is­land vibe en route to at­trac­tions like the Grow­ing Stone in Biche and the Nar­i­va Swamp.

The club al­so kicks out­door camp­ing up a few notch­es by of­fer­ing glamp­ing, a more so­phis­ti­cat­ed, mod­ern trend.

Ti­ki lights and lanterns; el­e­gant tents; a bon­fire at night (out­side of the tur­tle nest­ing sea­son); co­coa served in enam­el cups for the rus­tic feel; games and a for­mal break­fast at sun­rise at the Blan­chisseuse beach fa­cil­i­ty are high­lights of the glamp­ing ex­pe­ri­ence. One of the group mem­bers is a chef who pre­pares all meals gourmet style.

Ram­nar­ine, a pe­tro­le­um reser­voir en­gi­neer, said the club's 25 core mem­bers have their re­spec­tive pro­fes­sions, but now op­er­ate Palance as a com­pa­ny in Diego Mar­tin, of­fer­ing pub­lic tours on week­ends. The group start­ed in 2015 with sev­en or eight friends from all over Trinidad who want­ed com­pa­ny to go on hikes and trips. They would in­vite friends and fam­i­ly and post their ac­tiv­i­ties on­line.

"Even­tu­al­ly we end­ed up with 25 peo­ple who can't get enough of each oth­er," Ram­nar­ine said.

Nor can their 50,000 plus fol­low­ers on Face­book and over 6,000 on IG get enough of them. Many wel­come the lo­cal ac­tiv­i­ties, es­pe­cial­ly while bor­ders are closed.

Ram­nar­ine said she nev­er gets tired of vis­it­ing places like Tur­tle Rock, Paria, where the wa­ter­fall is breath­tak­ing or ex­pan­sive and beau­ti­ful Bras­so Seco with its Manchuria Es­tate where vis­i­tors have lunch and play old-school games. There, a riv­er tour to sev­en wa­ter­falls or an all-day hike to the Sobo wa­ter­fall is al­so of­fered.

In Tamana one can view the process of mak­ing award-win­ning moun­tain choco­late and in Mun­do Nue­vo, vis­it the mu­se­um, see bread and piz­za pre­pared in a dirt oven, and sam­ple fresh­ly-brewed co­coa, Ram­nar­ine said. In the West, she hailed the "beau­ti­ful" and "clean" trail to the Ch­aguara­mas plane crash site of 1975 where a pi­lot and co-pi­lot crashed on a moun­tain­side near Tuck­er Val­ley but sur­vived.

"On af­ter­noons you hear the howler mon­keys, see a lot of birds, so it's very calm­ing," she said.

Palance 868 al­so col­lab­o­rates with the Lopinot Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion for per­son­alised tours like the danc­ing of the co­coa demon­stra­tion, cake bak­ing in pots in a lo­cal's yard near the riv­er, catch-and-re­lease fish­ing and hot ap­ple cider tast­ing.

As a group, Ram­nar­ine and her friends have ex­plored To­ba­go, where apart from Ar­gyle, they have en­joyed the in­vig­o­rat­ing wa­ter­falls of High­land, Cas­tara and Par­latu­vi­er and pris­tine beach­es ac­cessed by hik­ing or boat like Cot­ton Bay. Buc­coo Reef and Ny­lon Pool are spec­tac­u­lar on a moon­lit night, she said, adding that bread and cakes baked on Cas­tara beach were not to be left out.

De­spite her love for all of T&T, Ram­nar­ine said her heart was in Paramin with its en­dear­ing na­tives, Aun­ty Ju­lia and Un­cle Clyde, dra­mat­ic blue dev­ils and ar­rest­ing views.

"Some­times a mist will pass through and it's lit­er­al­ly like be­ing in the clouds. Peo­ple think Paramin is parang, but you've lit­er­al­ly dri­ven on­ly five min­utes in on the So­ho side for the parang. It takes three hours to see all of Paramin."

To en­sure that clients see all of the en­chant­i­ng vil­lage set in the hills of Mar­aval, the club en­lists a guide from the area. There is the La­dy of Guadalupe church; a cave; farm­ing of green sea­son­ing and veg­eta­bles; a small toolum fac­to­ry and look­out points. Vis­i­tors al­so get a taste of the vil­lage's in­dige­nous cul­ture like pot bake from Aunt Ju­lia and the trans­for­ma­tion and an­tics of blue dev­il Car­ni­val char­ac­ters.

Ram­nar­ine has al­so been im­pressed with the friend­li­ness of the peo­ple and their preser­va­tion of Pa­tois and old-time reme­dies.

"It's some­where that every Trin­bag­on­ian must vis­it in his or her life­time. Sit with Un­cle Clyde, have soup find out about his teas. This is knowl­edge peo­ple would not have had passed down by their grand­par­ents be­cause we go to the doc­tor, the phar­ma­cy, but they don't have that. The com­mu­ni­ty is very self-con­tained."

Her affin­i­ty with the area and its peo­ple run deep.

"Some­times, if I had a re­al­ly hard day, I would just dri­ve up by Aun­ty Ju­lia. She's like one of those best aun­ties you've ever had, like they know just what you need. She would make cof­fee and her place over­looks the en­tire North Coast, so I would just re­lax and take it all in," she said.

Be­cause of COVID re­stric­tions, the club now of­fers on­ly beach and road trips, and ex­pe­ri­ences us­ing four by four ve­hi­cles in­stead of max­is, book­ing fam­i­lies and small­er num­bers to re­duce health is­sues dur­ing the pan­dem­ic.

On­ly ten spots are avail­able to the pub­lic for their Valen­tine's Day event, "Love on the Es­tate" at the Belle Plain Es­tate in Paramin. It will fea­ture a brunch, trea­sure hunt, sand­cas­tle com­pe­ti­tion, and bon­fire.

"I think peo­ple like our vibes be­cause they don't get the feel­ing that they're with a tour com­pa­ny. They feel like it's a fam­i­ly be­cause that's what we con­sid­er our­selves," Ram­nar­ine said.

The club can be ac­cessed on IG at palance868_ad­ven­tures.

Trinidad is as beau­ti­ful as Italy—tour­go­er

"It's like you're in Italy. When you look down from the cliffs, it's like, wow. You don't have any words," Joel Whar­ton, 33, said as he re­called his view from the Cha­cachacare Light­house, the last stop on a re­cent tour with Palance 868 Ad­ven­tures Club.

Na­ture and trav­el lovers, Whar­ton and his girl­friend, Din­nel De Gazon, took full ad­van­tage of the Down the Is­lands (DDI) "Ex­plore Cha­cachacare" tour last Sun­day.

The San­gre Grande welder/fab­ri­ca­tor said they had the "per­fect" out­ing from start to fin­ish to places like the Salt Pond, Nun­nery and Light­house af­ter some­one made a last-minute can­cel­la­tion. He praised the tour guides' won­der­ful per­son­al­i­ties and "on point" or­gan­is­ing skills for mak­ing the oc­ca­sion fun and mem­o­rable.

The cou­ple who has been to­geth­er for 16 years fre­quent rivers and en­joy trav­el­ling, hav­ing been to Pana­ma and Can­cun, Mex­i­co, and had hopes of go­ing to Dubai this year. To them, the tour was a won­der­ful es­cape in a time of closed bor­ders and heavy con­straints on move­ment.

The dark green wa­ters of the Salt Pond were in­tim­i­dat­ing at first, but Whar­ton and De Gazon soon found them­selves lux­u­ri­at­ing in its warmth.

"The tour guides did a per­fect job. I can't float. I can swim, but for years I've been try­ing to prac­tise float­ing. When I went in and re­alised I was float­ing, I was yes! We didn't want to leave," said Whar­ton who had al­ways want­ed to vis­it the pond, but al­ways had to work.

At the Nun­nery and hos­pi­tal, the Do­mini­can Sis­ters of Mer­cy were said to have cared for peo­ple with lep­rosy from 1868 to around 1955, with the colony be­ing com­plete­ly shut down in 1984. Whar­ton said he was moved by the trag­ic sto­ry and mar­velled at how the nuns sac­ri­ficed their lives and well-be­ing for oth­ers. Want­i­ng to bring a mo­ment of light-heart­ed­ness, he grabbed De Gazon for a smooching pic, to the de­light of the group.

"That's us on a whole, though. Any op­por­tu­ni­ty we get to have a fun time, we just cre­ate mem­o­ries," he said.