Les Coteaux Estate

Get back in the jeep and head towards Les Coteaux. When a field opens up on your left, start looking for an open-sided building with a corrugated tin roof. This is the Providence Brothers sugar factory, the only one still in operation on the island. They use the same techniques that have been used in the past on Tobago, except that they are on a smaller scale and use a gasoline powered engine to run the crushing mill. If you want to look around (or buy some wet sugar), check at the next house down the road on the right. That's where they live. If you're really lucky, they'll actually be making sugar.

Continue up to Les Coteaux. When you are in the village, you'll merge into Arnos Vale Road, which will come in from above on the left. Keep going straight. You'll very soon pass a church on your left and a small school on the right. Just after the school, also on your right, is a steeply upsloping road. It's a tight turn, but make it. (If the road you're on turns to dirt, you've gone to far.) The steep road will curve left, and then back to the right. When it does, look for the (even steeper) dirt track on the left. Park, walk up the track, and around the left-hand bend. Right about now you should see a tall, arched stairway made of brick at the top of the hill.


That's the ruins of Les Coteaux Estate House, where the owner of this estate lived. Stairs like these, arched, and made of brick, mark the location of all the eighteenth century estate houses on Tobago. Usually, they aren't quite so grand, but if you see some in the bush elsewhere on the island, you'll know that you're at an estate house. Nearly all are located on hilltops. This gave access to a breeze, that both provided natural air conditioning and also kept the insect population down. The latter was an important consideration, as Tobago and most other Caribbean islands have a host of insect-borne tropical diseases. These were lethal to the early European inhabitants of the island. The slaves were a lot better off. Coming from Africa, they had often been exposed to these diseases since childhood, and had developed immunity.

Climb the stairs (they're solid), and face towards where the house was. Look down. You should see a shallow linear depression that was cut into the native rock. This marks the front wall of the estate house. Between it and the stairs you're standing on was a broad front porch that was used as an outdoor living area by the planter's family. Follow the depression with your eyes. To the right you'll see a brick and stone pier that supported the elevated estate house. The one on the left is gone, but you can still trace the outline of the house. Notice that the house was essentially T-shaped (you are standing in the center of the cross). This was a typical shape, duplicated all over the island.

If you turn around and face the village of Les Coteaux, you'll see to your immediate left a semi-circular stone wall. This marks the top of the drive leading to the estate house, and was where carriages, etc. could be turned around. The area was probably paved at one point (there's a drain in one corner), but the paving stones have long since been removed, probably for buildings in the modern village. Further to your left is a segment of a masonry wall that may have been part of the kitchen. These were usually separated from estate houses to cut down on both the risk of fire and the heat given off by cooking.

Go back down the stairs and look out the window at the base of the "T" . You should be able to see a dirt road winding steeply down the opposite side of the valley to the Courland River. Right at the base of this road is where the Les Coteaux sugar factory sits. That's where we'll head next, though we won't stop at the factory.

Back in the jeep, and head back down the hill the way you came. At the bottom, don't make the sharp left that will take you back towards Providence (though we'll be coming back this way later). Instead, go right. This road will quickly turn very rough, but we're not going far. Take the first available right (about a mile). The road will go down hill and then bend to the left. When it does, the sugar factory will be right in front of you, covered by a growth of trees. The estate house is just about right behind you here, and the former location of the slave village is immediately behind you on a low ridge. You probably won't see it though. Unlike estate houses and factories, the structures in the slave villages were built primarily of perishable materials. While there may be buried foundations, there is nothing visible on the surface anymore except perhaps a scattering of artifacts--broken pottery and glass, dark green bottle fragments, nails, etc.

Continue on the road and cross the river. Immediately go left, stop, and engage four wheel drive. Continue ahead and start bearing right. Go up over the hill on the rough jeep trail, down the other side, around a right hand bend, and ford the river (Hint: stay left). Stay on the trail until it ends, which it does abruptly. Park, and follow the footpath down to the river and across. Go upstream about half a mile and you'll come to...

This has nothing to do with sugar, but right at its base is the second best swimming hole in Tobago (I told you to bring a towel and swim suit). The best is at its top, which can be reached by a VERY steep path on the left side of the river as you face upstream. You'll have to look for it yourself. And be careful!

Now that you're done swimming, head back to the Jeep.

To Arnos Vale

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