MOUNT PLAISIR STATE OF MINDMACO Caribbean Living

World weary? Looking to lighten the load and banish those blues? Mark Meredith finds a cure and more at MtPlaisir. Photography by Mark Meredith

“THE FREE UNIVERSITY of Grande Riviere,” says Piero, turning in his seat and looking out from the dining room atthe forested headland and sweeping crescent bay. The sea is pale blue, bright in the morning sun, with big breakersrolling in on the freshening wind. The dried sea fans on the tables are rocking in the breeze blowing through thehotel’s open arches, a pleasing, salty scent mingling with that of the co ee. Two small boys are skipping down theshelving sand to the sea, retreating again before each wave surges up the slope. From the eastern side of the bay,where rainforest splashed with the orange blossom of the immortelle tumbles down to the river and sea, a man andthree children are riding out of the sun towards us on a bu alo. To the west, a ˇgraceful curve of sand ringed byforest stretches away from us in a lonely haze of spray and filtered sunlight.

I am sitting with photographer Piero Guerrini, owner of Mt Plaisir Estate in the village of Grande Riviere in north-eastTrinidad. We are discussing the enlightening aspects of staying in a place like this, surrounded by the overwhelmingpresence of nature at its grandest: the lessons to be learned in relaxation and regeneration, integration andinspiration.

Grande Riviere lies almost at the end of the line, virtually swallowed up among forested mountains. Just tiny Matelot10 minutes drive to the west stands between it and Trinidad’s last stretch of roadless, coastal rainforest wilderness;an area accessible only by boat or trails which happens to contain the Caribbean’s most impressive array of floraand fauna.

It was here, on Trinidad’s wild north coast, that Piero — a freelance photographer whose credits include Time, Lifeand Newsweek — came to do a feature on the source of inspiration of the Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott: “Tocapture the real soul of the Caribbean on this timeless North Coast,” says Piero. The photographer found himselfcaptured by it too. He put away his camera and stayed, embarking on a grand adventure in Grande Riviere.

Mt Plaisir was originally used as a beach guest house by the Chinese owner of the estate. Piero leased the buildingat first, and with the support of the village community, local artists and craftsman, began transforming the basiclodging into a holistic hideaway; a rustic, eco-friendly hotel taking true cogniscance of its surroundings, celebratingthe natural spirit of Grande Riviere. Mt Plaisir Estate has put the village on the map, provided jobs and a burgeoninglocal craft industry.

It’s a familiar feeling for me, chatting with the charming ponytailed Italian photojournalist in his picturesque hotel. Imet him the year he opened Mt Plaisir in 1994 when, like many others who visit from March to June, I came to seethe nesting leatherback turtles, Grande Riviere’s best-known attraction.

They are an extraordinary spectacle, especially here on a bright, moonlit night when the ocean is roused to anger,hurling its weight behind huge waves exploding upon the coarse sand. From beneath the stormy foam, great, blackglistening shapes begin appearing, pounded by a hail of stones rushing up and down the slope in the backwash.The turtles inch upwards towards the dry plateau of the beach, propelling themselves by breaststroke on theirpowerful front flippers. A shaft of moonlight peeks between the clouds and sweeps along the bay, picking out theturtles strewn like boulders along the beach, surrounded by huddles of hushed, excited human figures.

Piero tells me that Scott Eckert, a well known biologist who travels the world researching turtles, said he had neverseen so many leatherbacks nesting at the same time. In peak nights up to 120 nesting turtles have been counted,with some 3,500 to 5,000 visiting in the course of a year. The turtles bring about 6,000 visitors to Grand Riviereduring the nesting season, around 4,000 of whom are Mt Plaisir guests.

And it’s largely because of the turtles that Mt Plaisir Estate is the way it is. It doesn’t feel like a hotel. It sits on thesand, a few hundred feet from the sea; ten very individual rooms in three separate structures of wood and stoneblending harmoniously with their surroundings. At night, Mt Plaisir is lit only by the dim yellow glow of low-wattbulbs masked by wicker shades; candles in the dining room and the light of the moon are the only otherilluminations allowed while the turtles conduct their ancient ritual, sometimes just metres from your bedroom door.Here, the turtles come first.

The main hotel building is shaded by an enormous almond tree and comprises the dining room where we are havingour co ee and coconut bread, and the newly constructed Sea Terrace Restaurant, which is open to the sky —incidentally, the food is excellent: fresh-cooked ingredients straight from the estate and the sea. Above us are threedelightfully themed bedrooms: The Garden Room, The Temple, and The Sea Room. Like the rest of the hotel theyare attractively furnished with local batiks and carvings, driftwood, and paintings and batiks from India and Asia.

I am staying where I always do, a hop and a skip from the sea, in the stable block on the sand. Well, it was a stableblock once, but is now divided into three rooms sleeping four, and another sleeping seven or eight, each with astable door. There’s a pretty room upstairs with a balcony overlooking the garden at the rear. Brightly colouredbatiks flap from the shutters in the breeze, while on the outside walls Piero has taken a tradition from the village ofDozza, near his parents’ home in his native Italy, and applied it to the Caribbean — “The Festival of the PaintedWall”. The stable block wall carries murals of local scenes, turtles and abstract art.

The garden is one of Piero’s pride and joys, and he takes great pleasure in describing its contents to me as we strollthe sun-dappled grounds. He has surrounded the hotel with exotic fruit trees from around the world, the produce ofwhich is likely end up in your fruit punch. There are guavas and the durian from Thailand; sugar apples fromAustralia; Indonesian jackfruit and Chinese pommeracs; and a small, intensely sweet mango from Vietnam which hegrafted to an existing local tree. Among the 35 di erent tree species to be discovered here are ackee, cashew,breadfruit, soursop, yellow kiamet or star apple, roucou, and the primrose tree . . . “When you eat it you really smelllike a rose,” says Piero. Flowering trees include jacaranda, pink poui, flamboyant, and the Ylang Ylang tree on theSea Terrace — I hadn’t heard of it either. The Ylang Ylang, meaning “Flower of Flower”, comes from South-eastAsia. It’s the main ingredient of Chanel No 5, says Piero. You’ll find little bowls filled with its dried petals sprinkledaround the hotel.

I have chosen a fortuitous weekend to visit, Piero informs me, as he shows me his new orchid garden on the SeaTerrace. It seems that before we return home this afternoon, we are to have a bu et lunch right here, while modelsshow o wraps and swimsuits under the scented shade of the Ylang Ylang tree. Always an education, staying at MtPlaisir.

Piero says there is a “special energy” in Grande Riviere which allows people to discover part of themselves. And he is right: it’s an unfathomable force that permeates the spirit with feelings of rejuvenation, contentment and creativity.

Such is the state of mind arrived at here that it is recognised by Caribbean and international writers and artists who have held extended workshops at Piero’s delightful rural retreat. It’s an attraction which brings back guests like me as predictable as the turtles.