Tunapuna/Piarco: Trinidad's Front Door and Its Brain
Tunapuna/Piarco is where Trinidad comes and goes — literally. Piarco International Airport is here, and so is the University of the West Indies at St. Augustine. The island's front door and its brain, in one stretch of the East–West Corridor. But there's more here than arrivals and lectures: a 100-year-old Carnival, a Sikh temple, and some of the biggest names in Caribbean letters and music.
Published by LocalAxys Editorial Team ·
Tunapuna/Piarco is where Trinidad comes and goes — literally. Piarco International Airport is here, and so is the University of the West Indies at St. Augustine. The island's front door and its brain, in one stretch of the East–West Corridor. But there's more here than arrivals and lectures: a 100-year-old Carnival, a Sikh temple, and some of the biggest names in Caribbean letters and music.
On the water
Tunapuna's name comes from the Kalina language: tona (water, river) plus puna (on, upon) — "on the water." It's the largest town between San Juan and Arima, an important market and commercial center, and the seat of the Tunapuna–Piarco Regional Corporation. In politics, Tunapuna is the bellwether seat — the saying goes, "If you win Tunapuna, you win the elections."
The town is also home to the only gurdwara — Sikh temple — in Trinidad and Tobago, dating back to some of the first Punjabi Indian immigrants in 1929.
The front door
Piarco International Airport opened on January 8, 1931, to serve Venezuela's Aéropostale line. During World War II it was a Royal Naval Air Station — HMS Goshawk, running an observer training school from 1940 to 1946. The modern terminal opened in 2001, and today it's the hub for Caribbean Airlines, about 30 kilometers east of Port of Spain.
Almost every visitor to Trinidad lands at Piarco. The town of Tunapuna is the first real Trinidad most of them drive through — which makes the market, the doubles vendors, and the Carnival all the more fitting as a welcome.
The brain
The University of the West Indies campus at St. Augustine was founded on October 12, 1960, when the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture was transferred to the university. Its roots go deeper: a 19th-century sugar estate became the West Indian Agricultural College in 1921, opening in 1922.
The campus is a treasure chest: the Eric Williams Memorial Collection in the Alma Jordan Library, the National Herbarium, the Zoology Museum (home of the Banwari Burial, the oldest human remains found in Trinidad), and an archaeology center. The Faculty of Food and Agriculture is unique to St. Augustine among all the UWI campuses, and the medical school at Mount Hope has trained the region's doctors since 1989.
A century of Carnival
Tunapuna has been a Carnival venue for more than 100 years. The regional Carnival — traditional and conventional mas, steelband, and stick-fighting — is organized every year by the Tunapuna Carnival Committee. It's the corridor's own Carnival: less famous than Port of Spain's, more rooted in the town that hosts it.
The people
Tunapuna's sons and daughters are giants. C. L. R. James — the writer, historian, and thinker — was born and buried here. Winifred Atwell, the 1950s piano star, was born in Tunapuna. Songwriter Donald Heywood, born here in 1896, wrote "I'm Coming Virginia," a hit for Ethel Waters in 1926. And footballer Stern John wore the national colors from these streets.
What to see
- The UWI St. Augustine campus — the museums, the memorial collection, and the old estate grounds.
- Tunapuna Market — on the Eastern Main Road, the corridor's great daily market.
- Caura Valley — the Caura River pools in the Northern Range, a favorite swimming spot, with the ruins of the never-finished 1940s dam.
- Tunapuna Carnival — Carnival season, the committee's century-old celebration.
Tunapuna/Piarco is where the island thinks, where it arrives, and where it parties — sometimes all in the same day. Don't just drive through. Stop.