FORT GEORGE AND THE MARKET

I have been using the aloe vera before bed and it is amazing to wake up and see that the blisters from the night before are no longer there.  Amazing. The downside is, I go to bed every night smelling like the most disgusting curry dish.

I'm up early and farting about on the computer when I suddenly realize that it is Saturday and I have to be down at reception to meet my tour bus at 8:30 to go to the market.  I scramble to get ready and make it down there with a few minutes to spare.

When the van arrives, it is a different driver/guide than a few days ago and also a much bigger van - almost a small bus and it is not full so I climb in the back, get seated, say hi to everyone and then realize that one of the couples from the tour I took two days ago is across the aisle from me. We laugh and are happy to see each other.

We head to Fort George, up high on a hill overlooking the Carenage.  I thought we were just going to the market, I didn't realize this tour included the fort. Bonus!!

The sky is thick with clouds and just as we arrive at the fort and get out of the van, it starts to drizzle. We climb some well worn stone steps up to the fort. The view from up here is amazing and I am loving that the ruins of the fort have been left alone - original doors are laying where they fell off of their hinges, worn shutters still hang precariously at the windows.

View down into the town where you can see roofs

still missing from Hurricane Ivan's fury in 2004

Here you can see the church that was devastated in the hurricane

still stands, in ruins.

In September of 2004, Hurricane Ivan swept the Caribbean taking 80 per cent of Grenada’s infrastructure with it and devastating the spice and tourist industries.  It killed 39 of the tiny nation’s 103,000 people and left 90 per cent of the nation’s 28,000 houses in shambles.  Most of the nutmeg trees which made Grenada the world’s second-largest producer, were uprooted by Ivan.            Read more HERE.

Fort George

The Cannons of Fort George

The wall where Prime Minister Maurice Bishop and 16 of

his cabinet were lined up and assassinated

Part of the fort is now used as the police academy and a class is in session while we are there.

The rain stops during our tour, thankfully, and we head back down to the van to continue on to the market.

We park in the cruise ship terminal lot, there are no cruise ships in yet as the season has not started, and we are left to wander on our own and are instructed to be back in 90 minutes or the van will leave without us.  We all check our phones for the time, I set the alarm on mine for 80 minutes from now, and head off to explore. The couple I know asked if I wanted to go with them and I gratefully accept. We head into the cruise ship terminal where there are several shops that cater to the cruisers. We check them out and then head outside where the market is set up just across the street.  We stand at the traffic light, waiting for it to change and talking about which direction we will head in first, as the market is spread out over several streets, when a local guy walks up to us and asks if we've been to the market before. We say no and he says he will give us the tour and so we follow him as he leads us into the crowd.

Our impromptu guide to the market, in the white hat 

(I never got his name)

Locally grown bounty in the outdoor stalls

Local manufactured and processed goods in the indoor stalls

Coconuts sold by the 'stick' :-)

This place just reeked to high heaven

Loved this sign at the fish market

And across the street from the fish market... 

really REALLY fresh meat

Just outside the cruise ship terminal

I buy a few small things here; some turmeric powder, some cocoa balls to make hot chocolate the way they do it here, a magnet to add to my travel magnet collection on my fridge, a calabash bowl. Everything is so cheap! And I would love to try some locally prepared food but no one else is hungry so we pass the tempting aromas by. It is interesting to note that there are very few tourists at this market, today at least; it is all islanders shopping their weekly grocery list.

We give our guide a few dollars each for giving us the tour and head back to the terminal to check out the stores there again for things the market did not have. I buy a t-shirt for myself and then wander about and discover a Columbian Emeralds store. Oh-oh!  

Let me explain:

When I was in the BVI in 2011, there was a Columbian Emeralds store in Road Town and they had a little display in a window over in Long Bay at the resort. There was a necklace in that display that I just loved, a small diamond covered palm tree. The price was $499 US and I agonized for a few days whether or not to splurge on it for myself and finally decided not to.  Once I got home, I thought about that necklace frequently and wished I had bought it. I even called my brother in law, a jeweller here in Vancouver, to see if he could either get me one like it or manufacture one for me. He couldn't find one and the cost to make it would have been way more than buying the one at CE so I never got one. Now, here I am, and there is the store.

I go inside and ask about the palm tree necklace. She shows me one but it isn't it - this one is more stylized and has fewer diamonds overall but three larger ones for coconuts. The other one didn't have coconuts. It is $100 less than the one I want.  I describe the other one to her and she knows the one I mean and says that they only have it in yellow gold with emeralds and gets it for me but I know that I don't want that one, I want the one with white gold and the diamonds. I hem and haw and finally decide to get this other diamond one. It isn't the one I really wanted but it's cute and it's a palm tree in white gold so... I put it on my credit card. It's a bit of an ordeal buying it because in order to get it tax free, I have to produce my passport, my return airline ticket and I don't have either with me. I end up giving her my airline and flight date and time and she works with that. I am anxiously watching the time but get out of there just in time to not be left behind by the van.  In fact, two guys are about 5 minutes late and we wait for them so I needn't have worried so much.

Downtown St. George

Downtown St. George

Urban housing - doing the laundry

We stop in at Port Louis Marina on our way back. Not sure why. We are supposed to be stopping by a local craft mall but I guess we are doing this instead. I have already been here on Rick's boat so there's nothing for me to see, thus I head to the bar and order a Ting - I am hot and very thirsty. The couple I've been with most of the day join me and we have a nice relaxing half hour together with our driver. 

GO is still docked at Port Louis Marina

I am back in my hotel room by lunch time so I change and head down to the beach and to SAVVY for lunch. I order their chicken roti that comes with an actual salad, albeit on the small side, with nutmeg dressing that is amazing. The meal is very tasty.

The staff here mistake me for a guest and so I am handed two beach towels by a fellow, one for me and one for my husband.  I don't bother to correct him and move outside to sit on one of the lounges for a bit. I want to go in for a swim, once I get too hot, but the waves here are so rough that I decide to walk down to the Allemanda and swim and sit there.

Pretty sunset - time to head back to my hotel

I head back to my hotel and as I do, who should pull up along-side me but, yep, Tom the taxi driver. I ask him if he is stalking me and he seems taken aback and emphatically declares 'no!'.  Good. He asks me what I am doing tonight and I honestly answer that I don't know - maybe look at a new restaurant. We chat briefly and he drives off without asking me out, which is a relief.

I stop by the pool to sit with my feet in it for a bit. I decide it is too much hassle to go out tonight - taxi etc. I really wish I felt safer walking the roads, then I'd go to Umbrella's for dinner but it's not just people I am afraid of - actually it isn't EVEN people I am afraid of, it's the darn crabs that populate the edge of the roads. I was told they walk all over the road at night in the dark and I have seen evidence of that in the morning - flattened crabs.  I don't want to risk being surrounded by them in the dark!

When I get to my room, I remember I have nothing left in the fridge to drink.  Rats!

THE BEST DAY EXPLORING GRENADA

This is going to be a rather long post.  I thought about splitting it into two posts but I've tried that before and because I give my posts the date they occurred (rather than the day I am writing them) that means there will be two posts for the same date and that messes things up as they either get posted backwards or people don't realize there are two posts for the one day and miss one.  So grab a coffee or tea and enjoy.

When I walked into the living area of my suite this morning, I got a nasty shock:

Big cockroach on my living room curtains this morning!
I kept a wary eye on it while getting ready and when I was down at 

reception told them about it and they promised to spray down my room

while I am gone all day.

Today is my booked tour of the island, called the Tutti Frutti tour with Sunsation Tours, and I am down at the hotel entrance by 8:30 - the time I am to be picked up.  When the van arrives, it is full all but for the passenger seat in front which I am really happy to be in all day. I introduce myself to the 6 younger people in the back and find out that the three girls attend the medical school here and that the three young men are boyfriends from the states here to visit their gals who are on a reading break. I apologize for crashing their tour but they blow it off and tell me they're happy I am along. I am really glad to hear it and to see that this is a nice new van with air conditioning - no rusty bits hanging from the ceiling to jab me in the forehead!

We set off; it is a gorgeous day and I am very excited to see what this island has to offer. There are several planned stops at various points of interest and I am definitely interested in all of them!

Our first official stop is Concord Falls but before then we stop for a photo op on a hill looking down at the Carenage. It is a great view.  (CLICK ON PICTURES FOR LARGER VIEW - and if there was ever a blog post that was worth doing that with, it's this one!)

The Carenage from up high

Glen, our tour guide, also stops at many trees to show us the bounty of the island. One thing I learn, among many things today, is that banana trees die once they have produced. I was shocked to hear this. They grow new shoots at the bottom that become next year's producing tree. Kind of like raspberry vines. At one such stop he gets out and pulls a piece of fruit off of a tree and it looks very much like an apricot only green and a bit larger. He asks us what we think it is and none of us guess correctly. It is a nutmeg! The outer flesh is boiled to make nutmeg jelly, then there is a red lace over the nutmeg that is mace, and then the shell with the nutmeg inside. He breaks it open and shows us the layers.

Banana tree

Blurry pic of the nutmeg Glen picked, this is the very center of the fruit, the nut

The road to Concord Falls narrows to just enough for one vehicle and I worry about an oncoming car but we don't see any on our way up.  We do encounter one on the way down, a big van like ours, and we have to back up quite a bit until we get to a driveway that we can pull onto to let him by.  We are way up in the jungle here and yet there are still a fair number of small homes. It's a long way from anywhere up this far.

Narrow road!

A beautiful lake on our way to Concord Falls

We are told we can swim at the falls if we like but no one has brought a bathing suit.  There are a few little shops at the roadside before climbing down the stairs to the falls and the people there are very eager for you to purchase something from them. I end up buying a couple of small things and giving two very cute little boys $1 each.

Concord Falls

Just growing in the wild!

Our next stop is in Gouyave at the nutmeg processing warehouse. I am so eager to see this and also am interested to see the small town of Gouyave as it is where the Fish Friday is held and I want to know what the place looks like. It turns out to be a very busy little town with vehicles and people cramming the narrow streets. Unlike St.Georges, the 7 of us visitors in this van seem to be the only white people here and we get a lot of interested looks as our van slowly makes its way along, which is puzzling to me as this is a major stop for people travelling to Grenada so I am sure a van full of white people is not a novelty.

On the way we pull over to the side of the road to see a spot named Leapers Point because the Caribs that remained after the French arrived and slaughtered most all of them leapt off of this point into the sea rather than live under tyranny.  Apparently there is a monument there which I would like to see but Glen feels is not worth the drive over so we see it from a great distance.  

Leapers Point

Typical Caribbean graveyard. The bodies are 6 feet 

underground and these are monuments on top, which is somewhat

of a relief as I thought they housed the coffin above ground.

Arriving in busy Gouyave

The nutmeg processing warehouse is up ahead on the left, 

the pretty building in the fg left is the police station

We approach a stretch of pretty buildings on either side of a rather narrow street and squeeze into a parking spot at the side of the road. When we step out of the van, the air is heavy with the fabulous scent of nutmeg. We head inside the large warehouse and are greeted by a tour guide who is expecting us. He takes us through the area where the nutmeg is being graded by women sitting at small benches surrounded by large baskets full of nuts still in the shell. On one side of the massive room is a couple of men sewing up the burlap sacks for shipping and another man labels them using a big stencil and a roller of black ink.  There is also a huge area with bags and bags of the nutmeg ready for shipping and, taking a closer look at some of the bags, I can see they are destined for Amsterdam.

We are told at the start of the tour that no pictures are allowed. I am visibly dismayed and so our tour guide says I can take a few but I am not allowed to take any of people working, which is really too bad because there are some glorious photos to be had here.

Sorting the nutmeg

Photo courtesy of Sunsation Tours

Ready for shipping

We follow the guide up a flight of stairs (you can see them in the background of the above picture) to where the nutmegs are dried on huge wooden beds for a few weeks. It is really hot up here so I can see how it would be perfect for this. There are women raking the nuts over with long wooden rakes, and they balance themselves, straddling the isle, on the sides of the wooden beds to reach the beds that are higher up. It is hard work and not made any easier by the temperature up here. I can't imagine doing this all day.

Layers of beds where the nuts dry, the women straddle these isles

 with feet on either side, climbing as far as the third plank

 to reach the topmost bed

Beds of nutmeg with the date they were laid there 

chalked on the end board

Once our tour is over, we exit through a tiny gift shop where we can purchase nutmeg products if we wish. I take a small jar of nutmeg jelly to the till and ask the lady if they sell whole nutmeg as I don't see any. She says they do and summons our tour guide who asks me if I would like half a pound or a whole pound. I want a whole pound and it takes him 15 minutes, much to the impatience of Glen, to return with a small bag full of nutmeg for $6 EC dollars - a steal!!!  As I am waiting, many of the workers come to the lady at the till and hand her a few EC dollars, some $10 some as much as $50. She makes a careful note of each one and as she does, a dim memory from my childhood comes back to me. I ask her if the donations are some sort of savings and she says that indeed they are, today is payday and some like to set a bit aside each payday for Christmas. I thought as much. I recall my family doing the same thing when I was a child in England. I love it that the old ways still exist somewhere in the world!

We pile back in the van and set off to our next stop, St. Andrew's and the River Antoine Rum Distillery, established in 1785.

Beauty along the way

Beauty along the way

Oh to live in that little beach house!

An old plantation home with fabulous woodwork detail - 

click on the picture to enlarge and see it

And another old plantation home

We know we are getting close when I notice fields on the left that are full of something I don't recognize and when I ask, Glen tells us it is organic sugar cane growing for the distillery.

Fields of cane

We pull into the long driveway of the distillery and park next to an old building covered in hot pink bougainvillea.  It is breathtakingly gorgeous.

Bouganvilla

We are met by our tour guide for this location and he leads us over to the building where it all happens. It is like taking a 250 year step back in time as nothing has changed in how the rum is made in all of the years of operation. Rickety wooden carts are pushed along ancient tracks to transport the cane, the mechanics for pressing the cane is moved with the original water wheel fed by the River Antoine. It is the oldest distillery still run by a water wheel in existence - rum was being produced within the walls of this place while Mozart was writing operas!!

The River Antoine that feeds the wheel

The viaduct for the water and the wheel to the right

The cane is dumped by hand onto the conveyer

The press, with the great wheel behind our guide, where the
cane is pressed twice

Mountain of crushed cane stalks (called 'bagasse')

 - this was about 20 - 30 feet high off the ground

Fire fueled by the discarded cane (bagasse) after it has been pressed 

to heat up the copper bowls where the cane syrup is 

boiled and filtered by hand

The copper bowls where the cane syrup is brought to the boil

over the period of a few days

Same bowls, higher view, where the cane is spooned from one bowl to the

next till it reaches the boiling point

Retired tools of the trade

The rum is then transferred to cooling tanks, spooning it by hand,

 where it sits for two more days and is invaded by yeast

floating about in the air naturally then is transferred to

these fermentation tanks for 8 days 

The numbered tanks where, after 8 days, the rum is sent 

to the distillery

The original copper distillery

The fire that fuels the distillery has to burn much hotter

than the fire to boil the cane, so proper firewood is used

The only change in all of the years is they no longer age the rum

in these oak barrels

Stairs everywhere

The rum, when ready, is pumped by hand (!!) from

the holding tanks underground into bottles

Eager to taste the rum

The finished product - rum punch on the left which I tried and

'cough cough' it was STRONG, 71 proof in the middle, and 98 proof

on the right - the middle one is made only for taking home on the

plane as the other is too flammable and not permitted

Once everyone has had their taste of the rum and bought some to take home (I didn't buy any) we climb back into the van and head off for lunch at Belmont Estates, also where cocoa is grown and chocolate is made!

Entrance to Belmont Estates

Lunch stop - fabulous food

Beautiful grounds

Overgrown derelict outbuildings at Belmont Estates

Ancient copper bowls used for washing the chocolate beans

repurposed as planters

Drying sheds for the cocoa beans - when it isn't rainy season 

(as I have discovered it is right now) the beans are laid out

on wood pallets across the concrete beams in front of the

shed to dry outdoors in the hot sunshine

Drying cocoa beans in the shed

Our tour guide for chocolate!

This bell once called the plantation workers to dinner

I spent quite a bit of money here :-)

Our next stop is not on the itinerary. One of the fellows on the tour had been at the grocery store while a local spice factory, Baron, was there with a display of their various products. He got to chatting with the fellow at the table, who turned out to be the manager of the plant, and was invited to drop by for a tour if he was in the area. He didn't plan to be in the area as it is about an hour out of St. Georges but as we are driving by it he suddenly sees the sign and he asks if we can pull in to get a tour and Glen readily agrees.

Unfortunately, they have just finished their day and are cleaning up and about to close. However the manager takes us around to explain how they process the organic, all locally-grown spices and vegetables to turn them into dried spices and delicious sauces. He is obviously very proud of their standards and I am impressed.

I am thrilled at this this unexpected stop and to be able to purchase a lot of jerk seasoning, which I had bought in the BVI and loved, and one bottle of hot-wing sauce. I would dearly love to buy more of their selections but am starting to get seriously concerned about fitting everything I have bought on this trip into my luggage.

Spice milling equipment

The finished product ready to ship out

Our next stop is Pearls Airport, the old airport that was used before the revolution in the 80's. There are no commercial planes landing here these days, it is more a grazing ground for goats and cows and used on the weekends for drag racing.  Remember when the US Military invaded Grenada back in 1983? One of the major motivators for the invasion was the construction of Grenada's current airport, Maurice Bishop International, which was being undertaken with aid provided by Cuba and the Soviet Union. Supplies and personnel from Cuba were flown into Grenada at Pearls, making this place a primary target for the invading US forces. 

Pearls Airport, or what is left of it

It is at this location that we come to, what I believe to be, Glen's favourite part of the tour. After giving us the history of the place, he puts the pedal to the metal and we race along the tarmac at (yes I looked) well over 120 kilometers an hour.  

After that adrenalin rush, we head back up the mountains to the Great Etang National Park and Forest Reserve.

Back up the mountains!

The remains of an ancient sugar mill

climbing higher

and higher

The road narrows as we are almost there

Apparently monkeys will come out here if called for but our 

driver didn't call for them so we didn't see any

We are at the very top of the island here, in the mountains that I look at 

from Grand Anse Beach each day; the view is spectacular and

 you can see Grand Anse in that second bay

Volcano crater, now a lake

Up to the observation hill

The rest of the group on the tour with me

Beauty on the way back to St. Georges

Love the colour of this house

Back to civilization

A monument by the people thanking the US for

saving them from the coup

We get back into St. Georges an hour later than scheduled and I am exhausted but exhilarated. This has been, without a doubt, one of the best days of my life - definitely in the top ten of all time.  I love road trips, I love leaving no stone unturned.  We saw every parish, each named after a saint.  We drove through every little town and village. We saw beautiful deserted beaches.  We saw the bounty of the island and how it is turned into an income for its workers. We met some lovely local people. We ate fabulous food. The people in the group I was with were awesome...  I LOVED THIS DAY!!!!