Tak­ing off on our jour­ney for Down the Is­lands from the Is­land Prop­er­ty Own­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion in Ch­aguara­mas, the Sun­day Guardian cruised the wa­ters off the north-west­ern penin­su­la and en­joyed the panoram­ic view of this coun­try’s lush green moun­tains.

Our knowl­edge­able and en­ter­tain­ing tour guide El­ton Pouchet, of In Joy Tours, pro­vid­ed com­pre­hen­sive in­for­ma­tion on the his­to­ry, flo­ra and fau­na of Down the Is­lands.

We ex­pe­ri­enced the thrill of see­ing a wide va­ri­ety of trop­i­cal birds in flight on the way to the pic­turesque and scenic Cha­cachacare.

This tiny, mys­te­ri­ous and un­in­hab­it­ed is­land is on­ly five miles off the north-west coast of Trinidad and sev­en nau­ti­cal miles off the Venezue­lan main­land.

Cha­cachacare is a gem­stone — tru­ly beau­ti­ful — from its beach­es to its hilly trails. The is­land boasts of sev­er­al unique fea­tures of in­ter­est to both do­mes­tic and in­ter­na­tion­al tourists.

The is­land was once used to cul­ti­vate ground pro­vi­sion, cot­ton and sug­ar ap­ple and was al­so the site of a whal­ing sta­tion and a lep­er colony, and is ac­knowl­edged as hav­ing the old­est light house in the west­ern hemi­sphere.

One of the is­land’s trea­sures is its salt pond that is ac­ces­si­ble by boat via Bande de Sud. A nat­u­ral­ly oc­cur­ring body of hy­per saline wa­ter on the south­ern end of the is­land with three to four times the salin­i­ty of the sea, the salt pond is warm and re­lax­ing.

It is said that the orig­i­nal Amerindi­an in­hab­i­tants of these is­lands would trav­el to Cha­cachacare to cut out and col­lect blocks of salt formed from the evap­o­ra­tion of the salt wa­ter. Ex­treme­ly warm and invit­ing, the Salt Pond does not ap­pear to have fish or any oth­er large or­gan­isms.

You can al­so hike to the light­house where you will get the best views of Venezuela when com­pared to any oth­er spot in the coun­try.

Af­ter the trip to the salt pond, we hiked along a trail to ex­plore the aban­doned con­vent and chapel of the French Do­mini­can Nuns and Sis­ters of Mer­cy who ded­i­cat­ed their lives to serv­ing pa­tients af­flict­ed with the dread­ed Hansen’s dis­ease (lep­rosy).

Cha­cachacare was used as a lep­rosar­i­um un­til 1984 and the re­mains of sev­er­al build­ings can still be found scat­tered about the is­land.

With a strange feel­ing of awe for the peo­ple - who with sheer de­ter­mi­na­tion - risked their lives to care for the sick, we walked through the Mess Hall and oth­er cor­ri­dors of the Nuns’ Quar­ters. It is amaz­ing how these struc­tures have with­stood the test of time.

Fur­ther along the trail, which is sur­round­ed by some of the most amaz­ing but­ter­flies, there is a rel­a­tive­ly well-main­tained grave­yard for the nuns who worked there as a solemn re­minder of the great price they paid for their un­fail­ing de­vo­tion.

The tour then made its way around Cha­cachacare Is­land to the lo­cal “Ny­lon Pool” at Per­ruquier Bay; a beau­ti­ful beach where we were the on­ly beach­go­ers for a warm and sooth­ing swim.

We were told that it is nor­mal to see dol­phins frol­ick­ing around the is­land but un­for­tu­nate­ly, we did not see any dol­phins on this par­tic­u­lar trip. But what we got was so much more … a glimpse in­to Cha­cachacare’s past. A fan­tas­tic ad­ven­tur­ous, re­ju­ve­nat­ing and his­tor­i­cal ex­pe­ri­ence.

The Sun­day Guardian has em­barked on a Stay­ca­tion Se­ries to show­case dif­fer­ent sites and at­trac­tions that you can en­joy here in T&T.