View over St. George's
Today we had arranged for an Island Tour for those of wedding guests who were still around as a thank you for them coming out to see us all the way to Grenada. The centre of the island is so different to the more populated coastal regions being mountainous and covered in rain forest, with many rivers and waterfall, one of which was only discovered in the last couple of years, the vegetation being so dense and ground so steep. Alastair our tour guide arrived exactly on time with my parents already in the minibus and collected those of us from True Blue and them Donna & Mark at the Allamanda Hotel.
Carvings from the original native Carib Indians which are just on the road side
The route of the tour took us round the outskirts of St. George’s through the richer and poorer areas and overlooking the Carenage and dock areas past the newly built National stadium built by the Chinese for Grenada, Alastair provided a very informative commentary through the whole trip. Next we went up the Concord Waterfall where he pointed out Cocoa trees, local speciality Callalo, Papaya, nutmeg and banana growing literally on the road side. He stopped the bus at the falls where we took some pictures and tried a drinking coconut provided by the two brothers with shops there where we bought up lots locally grown spices such as saffron, bay leaves and nutmeg which cost a fraction of the UK and smelt so much more strongly flavoured. We also bought a couple of hands of small local bananas which tasted so much sweeter than those we get in England.
Alex enjoying coconut milk beside Concord waterfall
Next we travelled up the west coast of the island through the large local town of Gouyave the fishing tow on Grenada which looked quite prosperous, we saw people fishing stood on rocks in the bay and the local brightly coloured open fishing boats. We then went through the more forested area where Alastair pointed out the devastation to the trees on the island caused by Hurricane Ivan in Sept 2004 which also damaged 90% of the residential properties and I think 25% of schools. He also described how some of the 39 deaths were caused by the hurricane shelters come to meet those people heading to them.
We visited Dougalston Spice Plantation, which also run down looks like it had just been closed up and left since the last century with an office at the back with yellow receipts pierced on a peg and large dusty ledger books. The drying racks are still full of cocoa beans and one of the huts has been given over to the numerous people providing tours of the island where samples of the spices are laid out to see and smell including branches of cinnamon which also just grows at the side of the road. Obviously one of the local land owners does not appreciate being part of the tour though as he’d hung up signs on his cinnamon trees saying “stop messing with my trees” and “can’t you tour guides read” etc which were just as much fun.
Views over the interior of Grenada rainforest
A Eucalyptus tree in Grenada!
We then crossed the centre the island over the Belvedere road which tracks between the peaks of the island via hairpin bends and rain forests. There is not a house to be seen in most of the centre, through there is a small village quite high up who descend from the original Carib Indians the original native settlers whose appearance was much more south American. We were all amazed by the abundance of the island which must be ideal for anything to grown with the rich soils and alternating rain and sunshine, we saw various local fruits such as sour sop and apple and various others whose names escape me plus more recognisable oranges, lemons, mangoes, avocados and the imported sugar canes plus many beautiful exotic flowers such as birds of paradise growing in vast numbers.
We visited a crater lake which must be between 1000-2000ft above sea level and is used as a fresh water reservoir so no swimming is now allowed, although it was freezing up there and very misty really quite eerie. Onwards through the Forest Centre the National Park area before he dropped us all back out our hotels. We’d all enjoyed a great day out and definitely felt we’d seen a different side of the island.
When we got back to True Blue we were greeted by Paul and Lynn from White Hawk, a Lagoon catamaran who picked their boat up from Sables D’Olonne just up the coast from La Rochelle only a a few weeks before we got Invincible and with whom we have been in email contact for well over a year since the planning stages who’d just arrived in Grenada. Jonny and Kate joined us to meet them as they would be sailing the same route onwards and also Paul and Lynne had emigrated to Australia a few years before were destined for the same place. It was really good to finally meeting albeit for a short time on our journey’s as they were heading off on Thursday to Les Roques an island off Venezuela.
It now being 5pm and having still had no lunch, we headed out to grab some food and met with Donna and Mark (now being late for our lunch appointment with them). However, we had a few beers and a pizza as recommended by Mark and chosen by Sean who was on the last night of his trip, where had the last week gone!
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