Arima: Where Trinidad Began

The name means water

Arima is the Arawak word for "water," named for the Arima River east of the town. In 1757 the Spanish founded the Mission San Francisco de los Arenales here, and between 1784 and 1786 the Amerindians from the old encomiendas of Tacarigua and Arouca were resettled to the Arima mission — moved to make room for the French planters arriving under Spain's Cedula of Population of 1783.

Those families never left. Their descendants are the Santa Rosa First Peoples Community, formally organized since 1973 and still led by their own chief. When people say Arima has the deepest roots of any town in Trinidad, this is what they mean.

The Santa Rosa Festival

Every August, Arima holds the Santa Rosa Festival, run jointly by the First Peoples Community and the Santa Rosa RC Church. In 2025 the festival marked its 238th year — running since around 1787, not long after the mission resettlement.

It is one of the most important Indigenous cultural celebrations in the Caribbean: traditional dances, the crowning of the Carib Queen, and a feast honoring Santa Rosa de Lima, the town's patron saint. If you want to see the living Indigenous culture of Trinidad — not in a museum, but in the street — come to Arima in August.

The Royal Borough

Arima has a title no other town in the country can claim. During Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee in 1887, the town petitioned for borough status, and on August 1, 1888, the Royal Charter was granted. Its official name is the Royal Chartered Borough of Arima, and every August the borough celebrates its birthday with Borough Day — street parades, Carnival-style bands, and a steelband concert at the Arima Velodrome.

The Dial

You can't miss the town's center: the Arima Dial, the old clock tower on Broadway Street, standing over the market stalls and shops. Generations of Arimians have arranged to meet "by the Dial." It's the town's front porch — part landmark, part meeting point, part compass.

Horses at Santa Rosa Park

On Omeara Road sits Santa Rosa Park — the country's only thoroughbred racetrack. Racing here goes back to the 1800s, and on race days the whole east turns out: owners in the stands, families on the rail, food vendors working the crowd. The Royal Oak Derby and the Guineas are among the best-attended sporting events in Trinidad.

Music runs deep

Arima's most famous son is Lord Kitchener — Aldwin Roberts, the Grandmaster of calypso, born here to a blacksmith father. The town also gave the country Bunji Garlin, one of soca's biggest names, and a long line of cricketers: Larry Gomes (the Malabar stadium is named for him), Sunil Narine, and Phil Simmons.

The valley behind the town

Seven miles north, up in the Arima Valley of the Northern Range, is the Asa Wright Nature Centre — 1,500 acres of former cocoa, coffee, and citrus estate, now one of the Caribbean's great birding lodges with more than 400 bird species recorded. Arima is the gateway: stock up at the market, then head up Blanchisseuse Road into the forest.

What to see

• The Arima Dial — the clock tower at the town's center. Start here.
• Santa Rosa Park — race days are the real experience.
• Arima Market — one of the island's biggest, with around 400 vendors.
• Asa Wright Nature Centre — day tours into the Northern Range, book a day ahead.

Arima is the town Trinidad grew out of. The mission, the royal charter, the racetrack, the calypso — it's all still here, still running. Come in August if you can. Come any time if you can't.