LAND CRUISING IN GRENADA ..............

There are spice smells everywhere in the air ............ So many spice smells and the trouble is, we just don't know what they all are ...... So we took the guided tour, all seven of us, in this yachty group with 'Shademan' in his minibus ..... 10.00AM start for what turned out to be a most delightful trip ..... By 7.30pm we finally called it a day, and went home in our separate dinghies ..... A day well spent and these photos are only a miniscule portrait of GRENADA ......... 'Shademan' first drove us to the top of the hill to give us the panoramic view overlooking St. George ................



All three denominational church towers were damaged during recent hurricanes but only the Catholic cathedral has been fully restored .............



From the top of the hill you can certainly look down upon the commercial dock area and in the distance see the open-cut quarry where evenly graded road gravel is simply sliced out of the hillside ......... Most houses are built in cement blocks and concrete construction is everywhere ............



But building a house is an 'uphill' story, for almost all the houses are built on some sort of a slope ....... Hugely uphill, with lots of giant concrete stilts (piers), and before casting the concrete floors, the formwork is supported with bamboo posts all cut to size ....... We drove past the residence of the 'Governor-General', the British Queen's Royal representive to GRENADA, whose house is in shambles since the last hurricane ....... It sits right next door to the Prime Minister's residence which is now in perfect shape ....... There is every indication that GRENADA has money for repairs while the British Monarchy does not ...... Hmmmmmm
..... Oh, that's right .... They had a wedding to pay for .....



Leaving town, we began our spice-island discovery tour ......... For everywhere in the lush vegetation are trees laden with strange fruits, like this fleshy cashew fruit ....... And Laurie holding a ripe cocoa pod, broken open to show the sweet succulent cocoa beans ........... Now the cashew nut is the part at the bottom of the edible apple, but the cashew nut itself has an inedible shell around it that will definitely blister your lips ..... So roast your nuts .......



Cocoa trees do great in semi-shade and the flowers produce green pods that slowly grow and cycle through autumn colours, till they are large and yellow, and ready for picking in the field ...... The pickers use knives attached to bamboo poles which sever the attached stems from the branches ....... Sort of cut it with one hand, and catch it with the other ..... Break open the pod and scrape out the 'gooey' beans and put them in a rice sack ..... This is the 'wet-bean' and is a saleable product to those who will complete the process .........



We drove to "BELMONT ESTATE", a former French plantation that has been going continuously for almost 200 years harvesting cocoa ........And this 'not-so-round' grindstone for sharpening the bush knives is living proof of that, as is the plantation bell hanging from the ancient tree below .......



Now once the 'wet bean' has been harvested, it is placed in these wooden-sided bins and left to ferment ...... The excess fluid drains to the bottom, but the fermentation produces tremendous heat and every two days the wooden sides are removed and the beans are shovelled into the next compartment using wooden shovels, thereby ensuring good aeration and even fermentation ........ Eight days later, the beans are 'cured' and taken to the drier racks ...............



This is quite a historic setup ........ The roof moves in one direction leaving the top trays exposed to the sun, while the bottom trays are rolled out sideways and everybody comes running at the first sign of rain to close it all up again ....... It is all 'dry bean' from here on ....... Dark brown chocolate looking beans ...... Break one open and it is actually purple inside ........ And way too strong in flavour, to eat raw ...... The beans that are to be exported are processed further by 'polishing' them .........Placed in a flat-bottom drum with a perforated base through which hot air is passed so as to 'float' the beans and large rubber paddles move the beans about in order to self-polish them ......... Glossy beans sell better ...... Bet you didn't know that ....... Perhaps you didn't know that chocolate bars grow on trees ....... Hershey and Cadbury trees are bigger than others .......



O.K. ..... Next to that ancient 'Belmont' bell tree, were these beautiful flowers ..... All pink and sassy, like those flamboyant gowns in 'Gone with the Wind' ..... Now back to the chocolate story ......



The beans are now crushed and made into a paste from which cocoa butter is extracted, and various items such as cane syrup are added to make chocolate bars ..... These (above) having different percentages of pure cocoa in them ....... From memory 60 and 70 percent ... Hard to tell, when we could have eaten the lot ..... All produced right there on "BELMONT ESTATE" ......



O.K..... Back onto the bus, as we pass numerous fishing villages ..... Hope you are not too tired, because we still have a long way to go .....



GRENADA is really famous for its nutmeg crop, that grow profusely on trees everywhere and a visit to the nutmeg factory is a real eye-opener .......... The yellow outer flesh of the nutmeg spilts open when the fruit is ripe, revealing the inner nut covered with a fiery-red lacy garment of 'mace' ...... This mace is a seasoning in itself, used also in meat and in salami production and used for colouring in cosmetics ..........So if you don't want to eat it, you can always wear it ......... This stuff is pricey and in the factory it is kept under lock and key ........



The nutmeg nuts are now bagged and placed on drying racks, and periodically raked to dry them evenly ........ This drying process separates the outer glossy shell from the inner nut ...... Racks upon racks and shelves upon shelves everywhere ............



When the nuts are suitably dried out, and now much darker, they are taken upstairs and put through a 'whacker' ......... Kind of fed into a shute and hit by a revolving blade that acts like a nut cracker and breaks the outer shell without damaging the inside nut, and the whole lot fall down to a bin below, where ..........Well, some ladies sit and do the most boring job in all the World ..... Pick the nuts from the shells and separate the two ........ They all deserve huge medals for doing this job in a nut-house ...



This then is the end-product ........... Shells on the one side, used to make garden paths and the saleable nugmeg on the other ....... Occassionally one slips by the guards ..... Bagged, labelled with stencils and sent all over the world marked "Produce of Grenada" ....... So next time you sprinkle a little nutmeg on your egg-nog at Christmas ...... Be mindful of the 'think-tank' working down on the lower floor of the nut-house, that has made it all possible .....



Do a double-click on the photo on the right and you will see a nutmeg tree in the foreground ......... Every part of the hillside is cultivated to get the maximum out of the sunlight ...... Perfect volcanic soil and a perfect climate ....... Great knees too ............



Look .......... Nutmeg spiced rum ........Way to go ........... Just when the last bottle of our favourite Mango rum ran dry ........



Allright ...... Back into the bus, and wherever we drive we see the incredible lush growth ...... Just look at this red ginger flower in which the seeds are already growing and sprouting without having even fallen to the ground .........Plants within plants ... Then again we are 11 degrees north of the Equator ...... And there is an abundance of water and moisture ......



Did somebody mention that there was a waterfall with a mountain stream pool nearby ...... If so, we were on to it in no time at all ...... You already know how much we love 'endless fresh water' no matter what the temperature ......





We could have stayed there for the rest of the day ........



Not really a stop with the bus, but we made 'Shademan' stop, when we passed these beautiful mahogany logs on the road side........ All ready to be sawn up into beautiful and rare mahogany planks ..............



A portable flat-bed sawmill and all the waste wood is buried and lit to make charcoal for all the little roadside grills that sell 'blackened corn-on-the-cob' .......




More driving, along a very scenic coastline with fishing boats everywhere ......... And then a delightful lunch at a small restaurant overlooking the ocean .....



But up on the hillside is a 'memorial' of real historical significance ........ Right there behind the Catholic church ......... And just in front of that old rusty cannon ..... It all speaks for itself ..... Tragic though it is ......




And speaking of funerals, we managed to get one of those too,............ Pull over driver ...... Police escort ..... Interesting that the hearse had purple flashing lights too........ Everybody dressed in their finest, and soulful gospel music on the loudspeakers .......



Then onto the rum distillery, where sugar cane is turned into 'White Lightning' by the traditional method ........... Cast iron vats boiling away to make sugar, while the rest of the sugar sap is diverted to the boilers in the distillery section .....



Sugar cane ready for crushing, and raw molasses poured into a holding tank to keep the rum operation flowing ....... The others on the minibus tried this rum ....... "This is not aged rum" was one comment ....... Definitely not ..... "Straight from the still and into the bottle" according to Dave, from the yacht "PERSEPHONE ........ Aged-less rum ..... Put this stuff in your car and it will fly higher than a 747 ..... And faster too ... You with it ......



And the whole lot is run by a huge water-wheel that powers the crushing rollers and pumps the raw cane juice up to the distillery ........... Machinery that dates from the former colonial days ............ Worn out, but working still .....



And what is left is a mountain of waste cane fibres ........ Forgot what it is called, 'sillage' I think, but it has to be useful for something ........ There's mountains of it .....



Drive a bit further and we see pineaplles growing ............ Makes you realise that almost anything will grow here .......



And a bit further still, there are bananas and cloves growing on thin stalk branches ......



And a traditional village mud-oven that bakes the 'daily bread' as they have done for the last century ....... And more cashews ........



Then 'Shademan' drives us to an inland mountain lake that forms the water supply for the island ...... We are so high up that the cloud banks roll in over the top .... Half expect the 'Lockness monster' to appear ......



And then we drive down again, along a winding mountain road that cuts right through the rainforest, and we end up on the old airport runway at sea level and come head to head with this bovine animal and that's no bull ............ Well actually, when he finally stands up when I creep a little too close, it turns out that he is ALL BULL ............