| For those of you
who don't know, "pitch" is just an old fashioned name for "tar".
Pitch Lake on Trinidad's west coast, in the appropriately named "La Brea"
district, is a 95 acre lake of tar.
The guidebook I have
says the lake is often a disappointment for tourists who drive down from
Port of Spain, because it looks like a large parking lot.
Personally, I found
the trip very worthwhile. |
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A lot of credit
for that has to go to my guide, an aging Rastafarian guy going by the name
"Roy". He was patient, knowledgeable and willing to peel away the
outer layers of mystique surrounding the lake!
Actually, that last
part's only a joke to go along with this photo of him peeling back the
hardened skin of the lake. |
If this is a parking
lot, then it's not like any I've ever been to. The surface
yields just slightly when walked on, though I'm told that a car would sink
into it fairly quickly.
The tar is also over
350 feet deep at the center of the lake, which is shaped like an inverted
cone. |
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Unlike a sterile
and lifeless parking lot, you soon get a sense here that this lake is somehow
alive.
Roy said that a forty
foot by forty foot hole completely fills itself in within 3 days. |
The lake is constantly
pulling things into itself, almost like a slow motion black hole.
It's supposed to
have "feelers" stretching outward for several miles, additional veins of
pitch which stretch out from the main lake. |
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The lake seemed
to me more than anything to be like a large creature with no face, only
arms and guts in which it slowly swallowed everything around it. |
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If it swallows some
things, then it also spits others out |
| Here is some leaf
litter from part of the forest floor which the lake swallowed, chewed around
for a few years and then spat out as indigestible.
These leaves were
in perfect condition, but as dry as it's possible to imagine. |
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The lake swallows
anything it wants, it doesn't have to ask permission, and unhindered by
social conditioning or "good manners", it spews up what it doesn't like.
What hidden treasure
lies in this blob? A pirate's treasure chest? A
Tyrannosaurus? A laggardly and unmissed civil servant?
My flight home departed
that evening, so I'll never know. |
If it spews, then
it certainly also burps. Here the guide places a coin into
a small bubbling puddle to demonstrate how the gases coming from the lake
turn it black within a couple of minutes.
At times there was
a strong smell of sulphur. |
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If it spews and
burps, then I don't even want to know what this yellow liquid is.
Roy swore that this
water was good for virtually anything which can ail you, but I have my
doubts.
Perhaps this is just
the lake's little joke on those who trample unbidden on top of it. |
| Although it was
perfectly safe walking around on the lake, and the lake skin prevented
any tar from even sticking on my shoes, one quarter of the lake surface
is soft. |
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Just to prove it,
Roy even pulled a few taffy strings from the lake for me... |
| As well as regular
tar, there are also lighter distillates visible on the surface of this
waterhole, as well as the soft creamy colored substance at the bottom of
the hole, which Roy referred to as "mother". |
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