Shas­tri Boodan

GML Con­trib­u­tor

Stand­ing ma­jes­ti­cal­ly at the top of Mayo Road in the Cen­tral Range, the his­toric Our La­dy of Montser­rat Church looks out across the land­scape as if keep­ing watch over the com­mu­ni­ties be­low.

From its el­e­vat­ed po­si­tion in Tor­tu­ga, the church of­fers vis­i­tors breath­tak­ing panoram­ic views stretch­ing to­wards the Gulf of Paria.

But the view is on­ly part of the at­trac­tion.

The church, with its dis­tinc­tive ar­chi­tec­ture, col­lec­tion of re­li­gious stat­ues, stained-glass win­dows and cen­turies-old Sta­tions of the Cross, is al­so a liv­ing re­minder of a time when co­coa was king and wealthy es­tate own­ers helped shape the com­mu­ni­ties that de­vel­oped around the plan­ta­tions.

To­day, the church shares its his­tor­i­cal land­scape with the com­mu­ni­ties of Tor­tu­ga and Gor­don Vil­lage and the co­coa es­tates of Gran Cou­va.

To­geth­er, they pos­sess the in­gre­di­ents for what res­i­dents and co­coa pro­duc­ers be­lieve could be­come a sig­nif­i­cant do­mes­tic tourism des­ti­na­tion.

How­ev­er, one ma­jor ob­sta­cle: the roads.

The com­mu­ni­ties are plagued by de­te­ri­o­rat­ing roads, mak­ing ac­cess dif­fi­cult and threat­en­ing to un­der­mine the tourism po­ten­tial of an area rich in his­to­ry, agri­cul­ture, cul­ture and nat­ur­al beau­ty.

A church born

in the co­coa era

Our La­dy of Montser­rat Church is af­fec­tion­ate­ly known as Notre Dame de Montser­rat or La Div­ina de Mon­te­ser­ra­do. It is al­so known by a num­ber of colour­ful names, in­clud­ing The Church of Many Stat­ues—19 Saints, The Church of the Stained Glass Win­dows and The Church of the Sta­tions of the Cross.

Each name tells part of its sto­ry. Dur­ing the pe­ri­od when co­coa pro­duc­tion was at its peak, wealthy co­coa es­tate own­ers fol­lowed strong Catholic tra­di­tions. New­born chil­dren were of­ten giv­en the names of saints as­so­ci­at­ed with their birth dates.

To com­mem­o­rate those births, fam­i­lies would pur­chase stat­ues or com­mis­sion stained-glass win­dows de­pict­ing the re­spec­tive saints.

The re­sult is a church filled with re­minders of the peo­ple and fam­i­lies who once lived and worked in the sur­round­ing co­coa es­tates.

The Sta­tions of the Cross are them­selves his­tor­i­cal trea­sures—about 150 years old, con­sist­ing of orig­i­nal paint­ings on tin with in­scrip­tions writ­ten in French.

The shrine was orig­i­nal­ly ded­i­cat­ed in 1878. Af­ter an ex­ten­sive restora­tion in 2022 and 2023, it was reded­i­cat­ed on Au­gust 22, 2023.

The church cel­e­brat­ed its an­nu­al har­vest on Sep­tem­ber 6.

Per­haps the most in­trigu­ing fea­ture of the church is the wood­en fig­ure of the Black Vir­gin.

The orig­i­nal stat­ue brought to Trinidad by the Ca­puchin mis­sion­ar­ies was not a repli­ca of the fa­mous stat­ue at the Basil­i­ca of Our La­dy of Montser­rat in Spain.

In­stead, it was cre­at­ed by a Span­ish saint-mak­er in the Span­ish Colo­nial Art style.

Two stat­ues were sent to Trinidad. The first was placed at Tor­tu­ga by the Arch­dio­cese of Port-of-Spain. The sec­ond was placed in safe­keep­ing—and has nev­er been found.

Even the pre­cise date on which the stat­ue was brought to Tor­tu­ga re­mains un­known.

That mys­tery adds an­oth­er lay­er to a place al­ready steeped in his­to­ry.

For the vis­i­tor, the quick­est route to the shrine is through Gor­don Vil­lage. The jour­ney be­gins at the Preysal Fly­over, where trav­ellers take the ex­it from the south­bound lane of the high­way and head east along the Gran Cou­va Main Road.

Al­most im­me­di­ate­ly, the scenery be­gins to change.

The ur­ban land­scape gives way to lush green­ery, hills and road­side ven­dors dis­play­ing the day’s pro­duce—av­o­ca­do pears, corn, ochro and oth­er crops grown in gar­dens on­ly a short dis­tance away.

Then comes Mayo Road. The road climbs steadi­ly through Gor­don Vil­lage to­wards the church.

Along the way is a com­mu­ni­ty ac­tiv­i­ty cen­tre built in 2014 by the Na­tion­al Com­mis­sion for Self Help Lim­it­ed.

The cen­tre has pro­vid­ed train­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for the ap­prox­i­mate­ly 200 res­i­dents of Gor­don Vil­lage and re­mains an im­por­tant com­mu­ni­ty as­set.

Gor­don Vil­lage Coun­cil pres­i­dent Brent Buck­radee, 48, said res­i­dents were prepar­ing for their an­nu­al bazaar to mark In­de­pen­dence Day.

He de­scribed Gor­don Vil­lage as a rel­a­tive­ly peace­ful com­mu­ni­ty where peo­ple still know each oth­er.

“Crime is low, every­body know every­body and we have a lot of hous­es that are not fenced and we don’t have to wor­ry about kid­nap­ping and home in­va­sions,” he said.

Buck­radee said res­i­dents ap­pre­ci­ate the tran­quil­li­ty of rur­al life and the ab­sence of the pol­lu­tion, gangs and hard drugs as­so­ci­at­ed with some ur­ban com­mu­ni­ties.

But the vil­lage faces eco­nom­ic and in­fra­struc­tur­al chal­lenges.

He said co­coa es­tates have tra­di­tion­al­ly pro­vid­ed em­ploy­ment for many res­i­dents, while oth­ers now find work at the up­scale San Pe­dro Es­tate, a gat­ed de­vel­op­ment that has be­come a re­treat for peo­ple seek­ing an es­cape in­to the coun­try­side.

Yet, res­i­dents still need more em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties. And they need a recre­ation ground.

Most ur­gent­ly, Buck­radee said, the roads are in ter­ri­ble con­di­tion.

Co­coa—the gold­en thread

The road prob­lem is par­tic­u­lar­ly frus­trat­ing be­cause just be­yond the vil­lage lies an­oth­er im­por­tant piece of the area’s her­itage—the co­coa es­tates of Gran Cou­va.

Co­coa pro­duc­er Tranel Ghany, who op­er­ates Hap­py Ghany Or­gan­ics and con­ducts co­coa tours in the area, be­lieves the es­tates could be­come ma­jor at­trac­tions for do­mes­tic and in­ter­na­tion­al vis­i­tors.

“Many peo­ple are in­ter­est­ed in the his­to­ry of co­coa,” Ghany said.

He reg­u­lar­ly takes vis­i­tors to the Church and his fam­i­ly’s co­coa es­tate, along to the San Juan Es­tate op­er­at­ed by Quin­cy Win­klaar and the San An­to­nio Es­tate, op­er­at­ed by the Mon­ser­rat Co­coa Farm­ers Co­op­er­a­tive So­ci­ety Lim­it­ed.

Ghany be­lieves the area has the po­ten­tial to cre­ate sus­tain­able em­ploy­ment through tourism, par­tic­u­lar­ly for young peo­ple.

He wants to meet with the area’s MP, Sean Sobers, to dis­cuss how tourism could gen­er­ate jobs and eco­nom­ic op­por­tu­ni­ties for res­i­dents.

But Ghany said the com­mu­ni­ties can­not do it alone.

Gov­ern­ment as­sis­tance is need­ed, he said, par­tic­u­lar­ly to bring the nec­es­sary in­fra­struc­ture up to stan­dard. Ghany is par­tic­u­lar­ly pas­sion­ate about the co­coa pro­duced in the area.

“Gran Cou­va is the home of fine-flavoured co­coa in the world,” he said. “No­body else has the flavours we have in Gran Cou­va.”

The se­cret, he ex­plained, is that every es­tate has its own mi­cro­cli­mate and dif­fer­ent com­bi­na­tions of flo­ra and fau­na, re­sult­ing in dis­tinc­tive flavour pro­files.

At his es­tate, the co­coa has a dried-fruit flavour. Oth­er es­tates pro­duce beans with nut­ty, earthy or co­conut-like notes. That di­ver­si­ty could it­self be­come part of the vis­i­tor ex­pe­ri­ence.

A co­coa tour in Gran Cou­va could take vis­i­tors from the plan­ta­tion to the pro­cess­ing stage and even­tu­al­ly to the fin­ished choco­late.

The sto­ry of co­coa in Trinidad goes back cen­turies.

Ghany ex­plained that in­dige­nous peo­ple cul­ti­vat­ed Foras­tero co­coa, while the Cre­ole va­ri­ety was lat­er in­tro­duced by the Span­ish.

The in­dus­try suf­fered ma­jor set­backs, par­tic­u­lar­ly from witch­es’ broom dis­ease, which dev­as­tat­ed co­coa pro­duc­tion.

Hur­ri­canes al­so bat­tered es­tates dur­ing the 1700s and 1800s. But sci­en­tif­ic re­search helped trans­form the in­dus­try.

In 1945, the Co­coa Re­search Unit was es­tab­lished in as­so­ci­a­tion with the Im­pe­r­i­al Col­lege of Trop­i­cal Agri­cul­ture.

Re­searchers worked with Cre­ole and Foras­tero va­ri­eties to de­vel­op Trini­tario, com­bin­ing de­sir­able char­ac­ter­is­tics from both. To­day, Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Trini­tario co­coa is in­ter­na­tion­al­ly recog­nised for its fine flavours.

The Co­coa Re­search Cen­tre al­so main­tains a genebank con­tain­ing co­coa ge­net­ic ma­te­r­i­al from across the coun­try, pre­serv­ing an im­por­tant part of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s agri­cul­tur­al her­itage.

When co­coa was com­mu­ni­ty

For gen­er­a­tions, co­coa pro­duc­tion was about much more than farm­ing. It was al­so about com­mu­ni­ty.

Af­ter har­vest­ing and fer­men­ta­tion, co­coa beans were dried in the co­coa house. And then came the “danc­ing” of the co­coa.

Farm­ers would walk through the beans, turn­ing and pol­ish­ing them while mu­sic played. Food and drinks were shared, neigh­bours gath­ered, chil­dren watched. The co­coa house be­came a so­cial meet­ing place. For Ghany, this tra­di­tion demon­strates how deeply co­coa was wo­ven in­to com­mu­ni­ty life.

To­day, he be­lieves those tra­di­tions could be re­vived—not sim­ply as nos­tal­gia, but as part of a tourism ex­pe­ri­ence.

From bean to choco­late

Vis­i­tors to the es­tates can al­so learn how co­coa is trans­formed in­to choco­late. Af­ter har­vest­ing, the beans are fer­ment­ed for about six days, be­ing turned pe­ri­od­i­cal­ly to en­sure even fer­men­ta­tion.

They are then dried be­fore be­ing roast­ed.

The roast­ed beans are cracked and the shells re­moved, leav­ing the co­coa nibs.

The nibs can be eat­en on their own or added to foods such as oats, ice cream and cakes.

When processed fur­ther and com­bined with co­coa but­ter and sug­ar, they be­come choco­late.

It is a jour­ney that takes the vis­i­tor from the tree to the fin­ished prod­uct—and gives new mean­ing to the choco­late found on su­per­mar­ket shelves.

Three at­trac­tions, one des­ti­na­tion

For res­i­dents and ad­vo­cates such as Ghany and Buck­radee, the pos­si­bil­i­ties are ob­vi­ous. A vis­i­tor could trav­el through Gor­don Vil­lage, stop to pur­chase fresh pro­duce from road­side ven­dors, con­tin­ue up Mayo Road to the his­toric Our La­dy of Montser­rat Church, take in the panoram­ic view and learn about the mys­te­ri­ous Black Vir­gin and the church’s links to the co­coa era.

From there, the jour­ney could con­tin­ue through the co­coa es­tates of Gran Cou­va, where vis­i­tors could learn about Trini­tario co­coa, wit­ness fer­men­ta­tion and dry­ing, ex­pe­ri­ence the tra­di­tions of the co­coa house and taste lo­cal­ly pro­duced choco­late.

Faith, com­mu­ni­ty and co­coa would be­come three parts of one tourism ex­pe­ri­ence.

And Gor­don Vil­lage would not sim­ply be a road on the way to the church. It could be­come part of the des­ti­na­tion.

The po­ten­tial is con­sid­er­able. But so is the chal­lenge. Poor roads can turn an at­trac­tive des­ti­na­tion in­to a dif­fi­cult jour­ney.

For a re­gion that is al­ready blessed with his­toric build­ings, breath­tak­ing scenery, agri­cul­tur­al tra­di­tions, peace­ful com­mu­ni­ties and world-renowned co­coa, res­i­dents be­lieve the in­fra­struc­ture should no longer be al­lowed to hold it back.

The church has sur­vived more than a cen­tu­ry.

The co­coa es­tates have sur­vived dis­ease, hur­ri­canes and chang­ing eco­nom­ic for­tunes.

Gor­don Vil­lage has re­tained its close-knit char­ac­ter de­spite the pres­sures of mod­ern life.

What the area now needs is for the three sto­ries to be brought to­geth­er.

Be­cause some­where along the wind­ing roads of Gran Cou­va, Trinidad’s faith, co­coa her­itage and rur­al com­mu­ni­ty are al­ready telling one sto­ry.

The ques­tion is whether enough will be done to make that sto­ry ac­ces­si­ble to the rest of the coun­try.