Cheri-Ann Pas­call’s ef­fer­ves­cence and pas­sion for life shone through her dig­i­tal jour­nal of fond mem­o­ries she has kept over the years. Her youth­ful laugh and looks did not re­flect her 52 years. But her telling life lessons did as she spoke to Sun­day Guardian re­cent­ly.

“Some­times good comes from neg­a­tive,” she said. Pas­call’s “good” came af­ter her di­vorce when her daugh­ters were six and four and she de­cid­ed to in­crease her chil­dren’s ex­tra-cur­ric­u­lar ac­tiv­i­ties so they would have lit­tle time to be de­pressed about their fa­ther who had moved abroad. Then she de­cid­ed to do some­thing for her­self.

She joined the hik­ing group, Trin­ba­go Back­pack­ers, and twice a month she would take her daugh­ters–aged nine and sev­en at the time, and good swim­mers–with her.

Cheri-Ann Pascall says the North Coast is her favourite place.

Cheri-Ann Pascall

Over her four years as a gar­den­er and five as an in­for­ma­tion as­sis­tant at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, she nev­er dreamt of para­sail­ing in Flori­da, whale watch­ing in Maui or back­pack­ing in North­ern Ire­land. Her new hik­ing hob­by and the ex­tra time spent pro­vid­ing in­for­ma­tion and tips to trav­ellers as they came through the air­port at work be­gan to kin­dle her in­ter­est in tour guid­ing. She did some re­search, got cer­ti­fied and start­ed her tour guide con­sul­tan­cy in 1999.

With the world her Eden, Pas­call built a pho­to­graph­ic and men­tal trea­sure trove through her per­son­al trav­els to places from White Sands, New Mex­i­co; Long Beach, Cal­i­for­nia; and Black Rock Beach, Maui, Hawaii to Ire­land; St Vin­cent; Guyana; and ad­ven­tures as a tour op­er­a­tor to just about every tourist at­trac­tion and her­itage site here at home. She has para­sailed in Key West, Flori­da; paraglid­ed in Man­zanil­la; and hiked three years ago with Amerindi­an Chief of Moru­ga Paul Navar­ro, who passed away last month at the age of 102.

Out­door ac­tiv­i­ties have al­ways an­i­mat­ed Pas­call who stud­ied agri­cul­tur­al sci­ence and or­na­men­tal hor­ti­cul­ture and worked her way up from cul­ti­vat­ing plants, main­tain­ing green­scapes and of­fer­ing gar­den­ing ad­vice to many of the staff at the air­port. The na­ture en­thu­si­ast and ad­ven­tur­er has come to em­brace the be­lief in liv­ing a full life, and of­ten en­cour­ages her daugh­ters, Jor­dann and Mck­en­si who live in Cal­i­for­nia and New York, re­spec­tive­ly, to join the jour­ney. At oth­er times, Pas­call ven­tures off on her own if there is no one to tag along.

“It’s not a prob­lem for me. That’s what I did in Ire­land,” she laughed.

Hard­ly a wildlife des­ti­na­tion, it was the ro­man­tic cas­tles, charm­ing scenery and the lure of ad­ven­ture that cap­tured Pas­call’s imag­i­na­tion in North­ern Ire­land in 2018. While vis­it­ing a Trinida­di­an friend and her friend’s Irish hus­band in Ire­land, she took a bus and dared to vis­it North­ern Ire­land, which has a his­to­ry of un­rest, and has re­mained a part of the Unit­ed King­dom; be­ing po­lit­i­cal­ly sep­a­rat­ed from Ire­land. There, she met two male trav­ellers from In­dia and one from Turkey. They all stayed at a hos­tel and went back­pack­ing and barhop­ping.

Cheri-Ann Pascall sleds at White Sands, New Mexico in 2021.

Cheri-Ann Pascall

Pas­call said she was hap­py to share her Trin­bag­on­ian cul­ture with them and oth­ers she met, and when peo­ple dis­cov­ered that she came from the land of foot­ball leg­end, Dwight Yorke, they treat­ed her like roy­al­ty.

New Mex­i­co, USA, turned out to be a top des­ti­na­tion on Pas­call’s buck­et list. She longed to see its vi­brant city of Al­bu­querque via hot air bal­loon, es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing the hot air bal­loon fes­ti­val for which the city is known. She nar­row­ly missed the Oc­to­ber fes­ti­val af­ter bor­ders re­opened in 2021, but she did make it to the sprawl­ing dreamy dunes of White Sands Na­tion­al Park in Amer­i­ca’s fifth-largest state with Mck­en­si in tow.

“She was like: Wow! This is un­be­liev­able,” Pas­call said, re­call­ing Mck­en­si’s re­ac­tion.

“And that’s what I look at. I look at things that are dif­fer­ent, unique. Yes, there weren’t any wild an­i­mals, ex­cept for maybe one or two snakes, but it’s like an en­tire desert of gyp­sum and that to me is what was amaz­ing about go­ing to New Mex­i­co,” Pas­call said.

But her most mem­o­rable ex­pe­ri­ence of all was much clos­er to T&T; on Guyana’s largest riv­er, the Es­se­qui­bo which mea­sures 1,014 km in length and 32 km wide at the riv­er’s mouth.

She and a small group had made the trip with a friend who owns a tour­ing com­pa­ny that fre­quents parts of South Amer­i­ca.

“It was just the ex­pe­ri­ence of be­ing in that ex­panse of riv­er, the Es­se­qui­bo. The boat broke down, the boat­man didn’t have a phone and we were drift­ing for about an hour. When you’re on the Es­se­qui­bo, you don’t see the banks and the wa­ter is just dif­fer­ent shades of brown,” she re­called with ex­cite­ment.

Shel­ter­ing with a piece of tar­pau­lin in the rain with her group, adrift on what was sup­posed to be a speed­boat, and fi­nal­ly be­ing res­cued by a pass­ing ves­sel was the high­light of the tour for Pas­call. She al­so rel­ished a he­li­copter ride over George­town, get­ting a glimpse of how the

in­dige­nous peo­ple live in huts on stilts on the banks of huge rivers.

Cheri-Ann Pascall and her daughter Mckensi at White Sands, New Mexico, in 2021.

Cheri-Ann Pascall

For Pas­call, in na­ture, every­thing is per­fect and every out­door ex­pe­ri­ence is worth­while. Her favourite spot is Trinidad’s North Coast, part­ly be­cause it brings her peace, part­ly be­cause it evokes the nos­tal­gia of her grow­ing years in Blan­chisseuse.

“I am bi­ased to­wards my vil­lage. That’s where my fa­ther lives, that’s where I grew up. I would al­ways say I’m a coun­try girl at heart. The North Coast is my place of peace. It is my place of com­ing alive. I would watch sun­sets, go down to the beach. My oth­er place is the Av­o­cat Wa­ter­fall.”

Oblique­ly op­po­site the Blan­chisseuse Po­lice Sta­tion sits Jean Bap­tiste Bay. Lazy, un­blem­ished, beck­on­ing–it was there that a young Pas­call fished with her fa­ther and broth­ers and played among the abui (Brazil­ian cai­mate) and bread­fruit trees. She lived with her staunch Ro­man Catholic grand­par­ents, her fa­ther and broth­ers un­til her ear­ly teens. Her grand­par­ents earned mon­ey from a beach house they owned and from sell­ing ice blocks as they were one of the first in the vil­lage to own a re­frig­er­a­tor. Her grand­moth­er was the vil­lage seam­stress and ran a “sou sou”, and they al­so trad­ed salt, match­es and flour for wild meats with the Earth Peo­ple who lived in the forests of the North Coast.

Cheri-Ann Pascall and her group on the Essequibo River in Guyana in 2019.

Courtesy Cheri-Ann Pascall

The pescatar­i­an was quick to point out, how­ev­er, that she nev­er fan­cied wild meat or meat in gen­er­al. That fact has not curbed her ap­petite for im­mers­ing her­self in as­pects of T&T cul­ture– from Car­ni­val to Phag­wa and Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist Lib­er­a­tion Day–es­pe­cial­ly when it comes to serv­ing her clients. Pro­vid­ing not mere­ly a tour, but rather an ex­pe­ri­ence to the dif­fer­ent groups who seek her ser­vices is key, Pas­call in­sists. Groups from abroad have of­ten praised her for the pas­sion she has for her coun­try and cul­ture. She sees it as a hap­py ex­change as she al­so gets to learn about the cul­ture of oth­ers while in­ter­act­ing and lead­ing her tours.

Of course, there have been bumps along the road for the pas­sion­ate ad­ven­tur­er. Be­ing held up at gun­point while on a hik­ing trail with a group of ten at Mount St Bene­dict, and while prepar­ing a trail alone at the Hol­lis Reser­voir have been caus­es for con­cern, but Pas­call is not de­terred.

“Just as there are tri­umphs that hap­pen, there are al­so tragedies. That’s just the ebb and flow of life and you have to de­cide just how you’re go­ing to live it; whether you’re go­ing to live your life cow­er­ing in fear or if you’re go­ing to say: let’s move on,” Pas­call said.

Such ad­vice she has had to put to the test af­ter a re­cent mishap suf­fered by one of her close friends and fel­low ad­ven­ture lovers, Cleve Pile. Pile broke nine ribs and dam­aged his lungs af­ter falling off a cliff while try­ing to flee a swarm of bees on Cay­man Trail in St Joseph a few weeks ago. The well-known ul­tra­ma­rathon­er on­ly just com­pet­ed in the Hous­ton Marathon in Jan­u­ary and usu­al­ly trains by run­ning along the moun­tain trails. He was the one who urged her to hike to the high­est points in T&T, El Cer­ro del Aripo and El Tuchuche, and Pi­geon Peak in To­ba­go, Pas­call re­flect­ed. He had the faith that she could do it. She vis­its him at hos­pi­tal, en­cour­ag­ing him to keep up the fight. Her up­dates on so­cial me­dia about his progress in­spire the many oth­ers pray­ing for his speedy re­cov­ery.

“I have the video of where he fell. It’s un­be­liev­able that he is still alive,” she mar­velled.

Per­haps a hand of good has been in­deed over­turn­ing the neg­a­tive.

A leatherback turtle pop up to say “hi” on Cheri-Ann Pascall’s adventures.

Courtesy Cheri-Ann Pascall

Q&A with Cheri-Ann Pas­call

Is it that you’ve al­ways want­ed to live a healthy lifestyle; keep­ing fit, eat­ing well?

Every­thing just came to­geth­er, just learn­ing things along the way. A lot of things start­ed be­cause of my daugh­ters. Af­ter go­ing through a di­vorce and that part of my life, I just want­ed them to not be cry­ing every time they saw a plane pass and be ask­ing if Dad­dy’s in the plane. It wasn’t a set plan. That’s why they learnt all the things they learnt. It was es­sen­tial­ly to keep you busy, to keep you mov­ing, to keep you healthy men­tal­ly and phys­i­cal­ly. Many a time, out of some­thing neg­a­tive, some­thing pos­i­tive hap­pens.

You’ve vis­it­ed a host of in­ter­est­ing places in the US. What was your most fas­ci­nat­ing trip there and why?

That would be our most re­cent trip from Oc­to­ber to Jan­u­ary in New Or­leans. Mck­en­si made plans for us as soon as the bor­ders opened. She’s re­search­ing the in­flu­ence of African Amer­i­cans in the US for a book she’s writ­ing. What for me was awe­some was go­ing in the Bay­ou (slow-mov­ing stream or riv­er, or a marshy lake or wet­land in South­east US, con­tain­ing di­verse wildlife like moss­es, fish and al­li­ga­tors).

It was in the morn­ing. We went to mu­se­ums, she in­ter­viewed so many peo­ple. We went to what was a slave mar­ket. I told them I was go­ing to do some­thing I want­ed to do and I would go by my­self. Af­ter­wards, she thanked me so much. She said it was awe­some and it was; see­ing the al­li­ga­tors, the racoons, the pigs...oh my good­ness, those are things that make me hap­py.

So do you sim­ply live life with­out fear?

Some peo­ple say it’s ex­treme. I don’t think of it like that. As long as the safe­ty mea­sures are in place, I put aside that fear and say that I’m go­ing to try this. Be­cause I al­ways say: at least I tried this. For me, this is what liv­ing is all about. I am not ex­treme. I am not go­ing to sim­ply put my­self in harm’s way, but at the same time, I have this love for the ex­pe­ri­ence of say­ing: I did this, I sur­vived and it was awe­some!

What did you dream about as a child?

If I think about it, be­ing a life­guard or coast­guard be­cause I al­ways felt this affin­i­ty (with) the sea.

I see that you’ve hiked with late Amerindi­an Chief, Paul Navar­ro. How was that ex­pe­ri­ence?

That man was amaz­ing! My first in­ter­ac­tion with him was when I got hired by a hik­ing club to con­duct an ed­u­ca­tion­al tour. We got to meet him in Moru­ga. He shared in­for­ma­tion about his life, the church his fa­ther helped build, and he de­cid­ed that he would go with us on a hike to Matu­ra. That hike was about three km and walk­ing back up is not the eas­i­est walk. This man did the en­tire hike and at that time he was 100 years (2019). I met him again when I did a tour for TTARP. And I find peo­ple like that in­spir­ing be­cause what kept him alive was mov­ing. He would plant his own dasheen and yam and cas­sa­va and dig them out of the ground. I went to PriceS­mart in Mau­si­ca and he was there. He went all over. He danced, he had a good time. To me, that is part of the se­cret of liv­ing; just con­stant­ly mov­ing and en­joy­ing the life that you’re giv­en.