La Brea is a place that abounds in both history and mystery. It is best known as home to the largest natural asphalt deposit on the planet, yet there is considerably more to this southern town than what lies beneath the pitch.
Khary Roberts ventured to the southlands to unearth the deeper stories of La Brea in this instalment of Right Here.
For generations, La Brea has been synonymous with one of the world’s most remarkable natural phenomena, the Pitch Lake. But beyond its famous asphalt, this southwestern community offers an entirely different experience, one where coastline, fishing and history sit quietly alongside the more familiar attraction. Perhaps the best place to discover that other side of La Brea is Carat Shed Beach.
Here, the Gulf of Paria stretches out towards the horizon, the coastline offering a gentle contrast to the dark, bubbling landscape the area is best known for. Carat Shed is more than somewhere to cool off, however. The beach facility provides picnic spaces where families and friends can gather, while just beyond the recreational area, fishing boats reflect a way of life that has long been tied to La Brea’s relationship with the sea.
Traces of the past remain scattered along the shoreline. The weathered remains of an old jetty stand as a quiet reminder that this coast once played an important role in moving people and goods, long before Carat Shed became a place for a family lime. Today, those same waters are woven into the everyday landscape of a community where fishing still holds its place.
Look a little closer, and there are other reminders that La Brea is far from an ordinary coastal community. In places along the shoreline, asphalt seeps up from the ground, a striking hint that the phenomenon beneath the town reaches well beyond the boundaries of the Pitch Lake itself. Even the trees along the coast hold a surprise or two. Perched among the almond trees, these blue macaws add an unexpected splash of colour to an already distinctive landscape.
Of course, no visit to La Brea would be complete without experiencing the attraction that put this community on the map. The Pitch Lake is one of the largest natural asphalt deposits in the world, a vast, ever-shifting landscape where the earth itself seems to bubble and breathe. But as it turns out, the lake is only one chapter in La Brea’s story.
Local tour guide Carl Stafford is a walking library when it comes to the attractions in the area.
And some of those chapters have nothing to do with asphalt at all. Not far from the Pitch Lake stands a World War Two-era observation tower, another unexpected piece of history tucked into the landscape. Built during a period when Trinidad’s strategic position made the island vital to Allied defence, the tower stands as a reminder that La Brea’s story reaches far beyond its own shoreline.
From the pitch beneath your feet to the Gulf of Paria before you, La Brea is a place where geology, history, nature and community quietly come together. The Pitch Lake may be its most famous face, but spend a little more time here, and you’ll discover there is considerably more to La Brea than the pitch.