KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

When you hear Aripo, you should re­call your child­hood so­cial stud­ies lessons that taught you that El Cer­ro Del Aripo is the tallest peak in Trinidad, lo­cat­ed along the main ridge of the North­ern Range be­tween the vil­lages of Bras­so Seco to the north and Aripo to the south.

But if you fol­low the news or do a Google search for Aripo or Heights of Aripo, chances are you might come across the names An­drea Barath and Kei­thisha Cud­joe, whose bod­ies were dis­card­ed by their killers at the Heights of Aripo.

It is a tragedy that Sarah Nail­pauls­ingh could not get out of her head when she learned last Sun­day's hike was in Aripo. As the car drove along­side the precipices, thoughts of the young women weighed on her mind. But she was cap­ti­vat­ed by na­ture's beau­ty in the area.

“I re­mem­bered my high school lec­tur­ers tak­ing us to Aripo Heights on a ge­og­ra­phy field trip, a bus of over 30 ladies on­ly. To know what the area’s rep­u­ta­tion is now, it is scary to a point, but the area is beau­ti­ful,” Naipauls­ingh said.

It is a blem­ish on a beau­ti­ful, serene and peace­ful com­mu­ni­ty that should boast tourism po­ten­tial. Why? Be­cause just sev­en to ten min­utes away from the road­side, you can find the most pris­tine wa­ters, turquoise pools and mes­meris­ing mi­ni wa­ter­falls that can give you a nat­ur­al show­er.

It is such an easy trail that chil­dren and the el­der­ly can en­joy the nat­ur­al ther­a­peu­tic ex­pe­ri­ence the riv­er has to of­fer. Our crew of hard­work­ing pro­fes­sion­als em­barked on the month­ly out­door ex­plo­ration that has worked won­ders for us, es­pe­cial­ly sav­ing us from the men­tal ills that the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic brought with it. Three out of the four ex­plor­ers un­der­stand how quar­an­tine feels like prison and how na­ture lib­er­ates us.

Leav­ing our homes in the South, Cen­tral, West and East at 7 am, we gath­ered at a chick­en farm about one hun­dred me­tres away from the trail­head. As you come up­on yel­low road mark­ings and a util­i­ty pole with SC writ­ten on it, there you will see a unique cave-like open­ing on the right side, fash­ioned from tree branch­es.

It is all down­hill from there, but in a good way. You breathe the fresh­est air not avail­able in the busy cities and towns, hear the chirp­ing and squawk­ing of the var­i­ous species of birds be­fore the sweet sound of the wa­ter drop­ping sev­er­al feet en­tices you to go fur­ther.

With a per­fect mix of cloud cov­er and sun­light, the Aripo Riv­er looked like the ide­al des­ti­na­tion to make you for­get all your wor­ries. For peo­ple like Rachel Joseph with fish skills, you can swim up to the wa­ter­fall. Those of you like fly­ing fish can do like Theron Gibbs and plunge in­to the basin from rocks sev­er­al feet high. Sarah used a life jack­et. For peo­ple like me: a chick­en afraid of deep wa­ter, there are ba­by pools.

How­ev­er, it is a bit more en­tic­ing to climb the side of the first fall and bathe in the splen­dour of the sec­ond. It was al­so ex­hil­a­rat­ing see­ing na­ture at play as a black and yel­low snake un­suc­cess­ful­ly hunt­ed a lizard. Do not wor­ry, snakes usu­al­ly avoid peo­ple and on­ly at­tack if threat­ened or star­tled.

We even ven­ture fur­ther up­stream to wit­ness the mag­nif­i­cence of the riv­er. The sore point was the num­ber of garbage peo­ple left be­hind.

But why do peo­ple hike? It some­times re­quires get­ting up ear­ly, dri­ving far and com­plet­ing ar­du­ous tasks. Khe­lice Ren­nie, a mar­ket­ing pro­fes­sion­al, said it was ther­a­peu­tic. He likes learn­ing more about T&T and finds it pleas­ant to go some­where oth­er than the tra­di­tion­al Mara­cas Beach, La­dy Chan­cel­lor Road or Bam­boo Cathe­dral.

“It is so re­lax­ing. I have al­ways liked be­ing out­side. I have been on a fit­ness jour­ney since June 2020. It is al­ways nice to switch up things and in­cor­po­rate oth­er ac­tiv­i­ties, not to get bored. I en­joy con­nect­ing with friends, so meet­ing up on hikes with friends who are on the same health and ad­ven­ture jour­ney with you makes it eas­i­er,” Ren­nie said.

Joseph spends her days in front of a com­put­er or phone mon­i­tor­ing trades. Jump­ing to the word ad­ven­ture means an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­lieve stress ac­cord­ing to what her week en­tailed.

“Af­ter a week of client meet­ings, it brings me peace to be in na­ture. Ex­pe­ri­enc­ing the dif­fer­ent trails, ob­serv­ing the but­ter­flies, fish­es, trees and dif­fer­ent rock for­ma­tions or just spend­ing time with friends brings me back to a cen­tred place. It al­lows me the bal­ance need­ed to take on the week ahead,” Joseph said.

The Amer­i­can Psy­cho­log­i­cal As­so­ci­a­tion said that in­ter­act­ing with na­ture has pos­i­tive cog­ni­tive ef­fects as it im­proves work­ing mem­o­ry, cog­ni­tive flex­i­bil­i­ty and at­ten­tion­al con­trol. Ex­po­sure to ur­ban en­vi­ron­ments can lead to at­ten­tion deficits. Stud­ies al­so show that con­tact with na­ture in­creas­es hap­pi­ness, sub­jec­tive well-be­ing, pos­i­tive so­cial in­ter­ac­tions and a sense of pur­pose in life and de­creas­es men­tal dis­tress.

So now that you know the ben­e­fits of na­ture, you should get out there.