KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

They say mer­maids swam in a pool in Matu­ra, and hunters caught a glimpse many years ago. They now call it Mer­maid Pool. Whether or not it is true, it cer­tain­ly looks en­chant­i­ng enough for myth­i­cal be­ings to in­hab­it there.

With many peo­ple head­ing to the beach­es over the East­er week­end, some ad­ven­tur­ers trav­elled far north-east for a mod­er­ate hike in­to the Matu­ra For­est. Part of it in­cludes the moun­tain­ous Matu­ra Na­tion­al Park, an En­vi­ron­men­tal­ly Sen­si­tive Area con­sist­ing of a di­verse plant com­mu­ni­ty, in­clud­ing the tow­er­ing Mo­ra trees, es­ti­mat­ed to be over 30,000 years old.

It is al­so home to the glob­al­ly en­dan­gered Trinidad Pip­ing Guan, Ocelot, Anteater, Neotrop­i­cal Riv­er Ot­ter and Red Howler Mon­key. There have been rare sight­ings of the Blue and Yel­low macaw and the West In­di­an Man­a­tee.

Last week’s hike took ad­ven­tur­ers to Thomas Trace, Matu­ra, where a cav­ing road threat­ens to ma­roon the vil­lage in­side. The pitch road ends at a house usu­al­ly over­seen by Ce­cil, where af­ford­able park­ing and wash­room ac­com­mo­da­tion are avail­able. Ce­cil usu­al­ly has in­for­ma­tion about the trail and riv­er con­di­tions.

Sarah Naipaulsingh takes a relaxing soak in the cool water of Mermaid Pool.

KEVON FELMINE

Thomas Trace is the start­ing point for sev­er­al hikes in­to the for­est, in­clud­ing Mer­maid Pool, Mys­tique Pool and Man­u­lot Wa­ter­fall. Own­ers of All-Wheel Dri­ve and Four-Wheel Dri­ve ve­hi­cles can ven­ture fur­ther up the rocky road.

Af­ter walk­ing a short dis­tance along the road, the trail to Mer­maid Pool be­gins at an open­ing on the right side of a tree with a white mark­er. The path takes you through a pine tree field, de­scend­ing for 30 to 45 min­utes while you hear the re­lax­ing sound of wa­ter gush­ing through rocks.

When you ar­rive at the riv­er, you meet a small pool ahead. How­ev­er, a land­slide on the hill in the past year plunged a mas­sive tree in­to the wa­ter. It is easy to walk through the rocky riv­er in the dry sea­son. You can al­so cross the riv­er 50 me­tres up­stream, where a trail takes you to a sec­ond pool. The emer­ald-green, shad­ed area is ide­al for bathing, soak­ing and re­lax­ing. But if you know that there is a third pool, you will want to see it.

A minute’s walk brings you to a spec­tac­u­lar body of wa­ter where the sun­light peers through the trees. It seems un­re­al to be­hold this calm, blue pool un­der a veg­e­tat­ed hill. Some hik­ers climb on­to rocks and dive in­to the wa­ter. Oth­ers swing on ropes for a big splash. While it is fun, safe­ty re­quires know­ing where to drop, as un­der the sur­face are rocks.

Crossing the rocks can be tricky but fun.

KEVON FELMINE

There were hik­ers from a tem­ple, some from as far as Fyz­abad and Guayagua­yare lap­ping up the serene and bliss­ful en­vi­ron­ment. How­ev­er, some peo­ple ap­peared un­ap­pre­cia­tive, leav­ing garbage bags of fast food con­tain­ers and used plas­tics.

Once fin­ished at the third pool, there is no rea­son to go back down­stream as an­oth­er trail at the riv­er bank leads you back to the orig­i­nal path, cut­ting your trek in half.

So if you are look­ing for a mod­er­ate ad­ven­ture next week­end, now is the time to hit Mer­maid Pool. It is al­ways bet­ter to vis­it this lo­ca­tion dur­ing the dry sea­son. Vis­it­ing Mer­maid Pool with a hik­ing group or pro­fes­sion­al and ex­pe­ri­enced hik­ers is safer as these trails al­ways en­tail some dan­gers. There are deep parts of Mer­maid Pool, so life jack­ets are po­ten­tial sav­iours.

It is a beautiful nature walk through the pine trees.

KEVON FELMINE

One of three pools in which to take a dive.

KEVON FELMINE