Grenada - Caribbean
Grenada is a nice relaxed not over-touristy island. They grow a lot of different spices and cocoa and on our visit we opted for a trip to a plantation. We saw cocoa pods growing directly off the stems of trees and watched the extraction process. Also , loads and loads of nutmegs. Once again watching the processing - extracting the mace spice first as this is the red `skin` over the nutmeg nut once the outer shell and outer pith has been removed. This skin is dried and sold separately from the nutmegs themselves. So you actually get two different crops from the same plant. Grenada is a major world supplier or at least it was until the island suffered massive crop damage by being hit by a Caribbean hurricane. It takes between 5 and 8 years after planting before you can start to take a crop but then the trees continue to crop for about 50 years and will yield up to 1000 fruits each year. The spice originated in the Moluccas. The other imported crop that is grown on Grenada is cacao (aka cocoa) pods and there are pictures below in the gallery.
After visiting the plantation we headed up into the tropical rainforest to Concord Falls which is both beautiful and spectacular. It is possible to swim in the pool that the waterfall lands in but we settled for just paddling our feet as it was quite cold!. We then went `off piste` for a bit to see what wildlife of interest was nearby and spotted a huge wasp nest glued to a tree - with beasties of this size/number we kept our distance . But whilst standing grabbing a photograph a large colourful butterfly decided to take the sun very close to where we were standing and that was another inmissable photo opportunity. Heading back to the tour bus we were passed by a local, complete with dreadlocks and a massive machete but I think he was more nervous of us than we were of him. Our route back to the capital, St Georges, we passed and egg-plant which had been created by a local comedian - a spiky agave type plant where each spinky leaf tip had an eggshell attached. And then there was the guy by the roadside barbecuing a goat`s head!!! Nom, nom!
Having been a British colony for over 200 years until independence in 1974 there was no surprise when looking down on the capital see a large cricket stadium. Every ex-British island in the West Indies has one and the love of the sport continues although the West Indies are not currently the force that they were back in the days of Worrell and Sobers. But what IS a surprise is the underwater sculpture park!!! This was created to encourage tourism and in particular scuba and snorkelling offshore. I have only featured the Vicissitudes which represents life sized figures cast from local kids in a facing outward circle but there are many other sculptures including a bowl of fruit, vase, petroglyphs, and 16 female forms. All in all a very unusual approach to tourism. The scuptures were officially opened in 2006 and are now starting to become colonised by living corals.
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Browse through the picture galleries below relating to this page and you will get a much better idea than just reading my words! Each page has it`s own set of relevant images - where possible taken by us.