Gorgeous but Tortuous Grenada!

 

Saturday, Jan. 20, 2024

 

St. George, Grenada is where we parked our boat on this stop.  It is the capital of Grenada and the largest city.  7,500 or so call it home.  All of Grenada has about 125,000 folks. They are celebrating their 50th year of Independence on February 7th, 2024! There were flags all over town!  Time to party!

Y’all remember Grenada?   Back in the 70’s, we “attacked” the island.   I think we did so on the guise of keeping our students there safe.  Safer and more accurate to say that we were not going to let it become a communist government while they were deciding what kind of regime to become.  More on that a little later.

Our excursion this day was to repeatedly get into a small bus and drive around to be told of the history here.   What this fort was or that one, etc.  Seems every time a country overtakes another one they feel a need to build a fort to give the next group something to shoot at.  Our first stop was at Fort Frederick erected in the early 18th century to protect the city.  High atop the hill, it gave us a beautiful vista of the port and our ship!

 

What they didn’t tell us was that no where on that island is any stretch of road longer than 100 yards that didn’t have hairpin turns right and left.  Extreme rises or declines hidden from the drivers view and potholes that may remain from the bombing of the islands back when.   I swear nothing at Disney or 6 Flags could prepare you for the ride of your life here.   And they drive on the wrong side of the road too.  The road is wide enough for 2 cars to pass each other without everyone collectively sucking in a breath and closing your eyes.  But we were on a bus, and math is math. And why does it have to be at breakneck speed?   Hey, everyone here is on vacation!  Ice cream will still be available for everyone when or if they get back to the boat.   My underwear doesn’t get tumbled in the dryer this much!  To make matters worse, Vialula and I got stuck in the last row of seats in the bus that had to be sitting on top of the wheels, no shocks.  Every time we stopped, I would go back and check to see if we had any tires on the wheels back there.  Neither one of us felt too great by the end of the day.  Usually when you have a dangerous trip you get off the boat or car or plane and you kiss the ground, thankful you survived.  We kissed the boat when we got back!

But did I also tell you how beautiful it is here? It’s a pretty place.

Our second stop was at an orphanage called Queen Elizabeth's Home for Children.  There were 14 children here that were coaxed by their teachers into singing a couple of songs, one of which was the national anthem.  It was a humanitarian stop.  The children were cute, but shy.  One told Vi that she was 7, and Vi told her I was this many, holding out 6 sets of 10 fingers with an additional 6!  She smiled and they counted out 66 together!

We then went up, up, around, around, up and up 1,900 feet to Grand Etang Lake and its visitor center.  The lake is a crater lake in an extinct volcano.  There, we were greeted by two Carmen Mirandas complete with fruit head-dresses and some mona monkeys!  The monkeys were not afraid of us.  They looked like little bandits with their little masks!

Oddly enough, one of their claims to fame is Nutmeg.  They are the nutmeg kings of Chicago.  Black gold.  Like every other Caribbean Island, the Spanish, the French, the English and the Dutch all took turns being the main munchkin around town.   And each of them left their respective beliefs, laws, trade, language, etc.   I guess the English were the last, but Grenada achieved their independence from Britain in 1974 and during this new independence period a coup by a Marxist group tried to take over and install a communist regime.   In stepped the USA who was not going to allow this to happen and thus in 1979 we came galloping in on our white horses (see abandoned white horses below on their abandoned airstrip) and stopped that from taking hold.  I was alive during this time, and I remember the unrest but it is pretty fuzzy in the old noggin.   Probably from all the tumbling I took.

Anyway, back to nutmeg.  Grenada is one of the spice islands for good reason.  Several spices thrive here along with fruits, and vegetables of the area. But spices were the reason each of the European nations were always sticking their noses into the islands. The nutmeg museum we visited, and yes, you read that right.  A nutmeg museum.  About the only thing I put nutmeg into is my world-famous pumpkin pie.  But anyway, processing nutmeg is very labor intensive and, on this island, it is still done the old fashioned way.  That means farmers bring the nuts to the processing place and the nuts are sorted by size, color, whether they sink or float in water, and then dried for 4 to 6 weeks. At that point it will be decided to be ground into what we use or maybe made into an oil or even put into cosmetics. Nutmeg was king here and still is really…

 

… UNTIL they started planting sugarcane.  And what do you do with sugarcane?   Well, everyone knows that you make rum out of it.  As is true with many of the Caribbean islands, rum began to take hold.  Apparently, those people back home liked the stuff too!  We went to a small distillery where the rum is still all made by hand.   The most sophisticated machine we saw there was a water wheel mill where the sugarcane was crushed to extract that sweet sticky juice that when mixed with a little yeast, water and time, and then boiled creates a mash that eventually ferments into stuff that was strong enough to make you smack your momma.  And that was the 69% alcohol batch  If you look close at the still below, you'll see it is actually from Louisville, Kentucky!!! The stronger stuff kept burning holes in the little plastic cups they serve it to us in.   Now, I will admit that I am not really a rum guy.  And this was all reinforced to me after the taste test.  But if that floats your boat then I would probably recommend this particular brand if you can find it.  It’s called River Antoine Estate Distillery.

All in all, it was a good tour if you like to be shaken and not stirred.  A lot of good but useless information gained from the various places.   Perhaps after you read some of this nonsense I put down, you will pickup the old Encyclopedia Britannica and see for yourself about which island you want to go visit.

Farewell to the first of the Granadas we are to visit on this world tour.  Granada, Spain is our next to last stop on this adventure.

Curacao is up next.   Learn your ABC’s cause there will be a test! 

LeRoy and Vi