Day 9 Panama & Carribean Cruise

Day 9 Grenada

The QM2 anchored off St Georges, the capital of Grenade at about 8AM today. Yes, that means we have to use the little tender boats to get ashore – drat!

The weather is overcast with the occasional downpour, temperature in the mid 80s and humidity high.

Grenada is known as the Spice Island because nutmeg, cinnamon, cocoa, turmeric and ginger (plus other spices) as well as sugar cane and breadfruit are grown here; it’s a very lush tropical island. St. Georges is known to be the most picturesque town in the Caribbean; the colorful town buildings and houses, many in Georgian style, line the shore and cover small hills that come very close to the coast. The interior of the island is quite mountainous, rising to over 2000ft, and contains a rain forest.

After much waiting around for our tender ticket number to be called, we finally boarded the small boat for the ~10 min ride to the island. Unlike Curacao, we were immediately surrounded by a host of locals trying to get us to buy stuff or book excursions – ah this is more like the cruise ports we know! Actually it was not too bad, if you’ve been through it before.

On the advice of our cocktail waiter, we decided to hire a taxi for a couple of hours of touring around the island. In some ports straying from the tours offered by the cruise ship is not recommended – this is not true in Grenada. Lining the road leading to the tender terminal was a long row of taxi vans; these are “fed” by salesmen that meet you as you exit the terminal. All of the salesmen wear the same uniform and prominently display their government-issued picture ID. We tried a bit of haggling, but despite the obvious outnumbering of cruise passengers by taxi folks – there seemed to be a fixed rate among all of the salesmen. We settled on $20 / head for 2 ½ hours of narrated touring, and ended up with a wonderful driver (again prominently licensed) called Godwin; I don’t think I’ve heard that name since the 13th century!

So off we went in a late model 8 person, air conditioned, passenger van. It wasn’t luxurious but perfectly adequate. As well as the four of us, there was a delightful older couple in the van – we later learned that the older guy was 97 ½ years old! Godwin was full of facts about Grenada and obviously proud of his country. Our route took us through the town and into the interior of the island, rising as we went. The roads we narrow but in surprisingly good condition. Godwin told us of the devastating hurricane of 2005 that had really made a mess of the island; we’d stop at a bridge and he’d say “this bridge was rebuilt for us by the Chinese” or “this building would not have been possible without the help of Canada” (who knew Grenada was basically a PBS based economy!) – it seems that Grenada has no problem accepting relief money from many countries. Seriously, they are very grateful.

The hurricane also devastated the nutmeg crop causing much unemployment; and since it takes about 7 years to get a new tree to produce nutmegs – things have still not recovered. As we drove, Godwin pointed out the many spices growing by the roadside; nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, cocoa… as well as breadfruit. We also heard about the national dish call “Oildown” – a kind of stew with the “meat of the day” coconut, breadfruit and tumeric.

Our first stop was at Annadale Falls, a 100 ft waterfall in the jungle. The van stopped in a ramshackle “reception area” and as we got out of the van an old guy playing a guitar and singing came sauntering up to us. The guitar guy had a neat act; he would eye up his approaching visitor and immediately change the words of his song to include his impression of the visitor as a Hollywood star; apparently I reminded him of Tom Hanks, Sandra was Michelle Pfeiffer. At appropriate points in the song he would pause and hold out his hat for a “donation”.

Four ladies, decked out in beautiful yellow and black dresses with gigantic fruit baskets on their heads, were also hanging out in the reception area. It was impossible to escape the Carmen Miranda comparisons! Godwin had told us these ladies would be here and that they would expect a donation if you wanted your picture taken with them – however they were not pushy at all. We did take picture and leave a suitable donation. Further on down the path we encountered a few stalls mostly selling spices and also necklaces that had been made by stringing together all of the island’s spices.

After a short walk through the forest we came to the bottom of Annadale Falls. Again Godwin had warned us about the young men who like to jump from the top of the falls but expect a donation for their efforts. The fall jumpers met us as we got to the falls and immediately started their sales pitch; they had a couple of interesting angles. First it appeared as if they had been practicing their English language skills to the point where they were actually speaking with regional English dialects – I actually though one of the guys was from Manchester, but he was actually an islander. Second, the jumpers insisted on knowing your first name – and promising to shout your name as they jumped from the top.

After about 10 or so tourists had arrived, off went the jumpers up the hillside to the top of the falls. They actually jumped from an area just adjacent to the falls, landing in the deep pool created by the force of the water. I don’t recall any one yelling out “hey Neil, this is for you” but amazingly several of the young men did remember my name after they had climbed out of the water and now expected their “donation”. All in all it was worth seeing and we did put a few bucks into their communal collection box. As brave as they were, the Fall Jumpers of Grenada have a ways to go to match the Cliff Divers of Acapulco – but in a way I preferred this rustic happy-go-lucky crowd of guys compared to the slick polished pomp in Acapulco.

We pressed on up the mountain and entered the rain forest – which is actually a National Reserve. Grenada seems to be doing a lot of things right when it comes to protecting their assets; as a well as this reserve, there are strict laws that say no new buildings can be higher than the tallest palm tree. I can just see some budding entrepreneur perfecting a new species of immensely tall palm trees! Godwin also informed us that no one could build in the rain forest of make any money from it (I later learned this was not true).

At the top of the mountain the road ended and we got out to find another series of small stalls selling the same array of goods - there was also a small shop and café. But the highlight was seeing a monkey calmly sitting on the fence eating a banana – I quickly shot off several pictures, and he didn’t charge me a dime! Godwin told us that if we wanted to walk up and see the volcanic lake at the very top of the mountain we would have to pay a $2 fee per person at the booth that crossed the road. Well we’d come this far so we coughed up the money and walked on. It was a very short walk to a point where you could look down on a small lake surrounded by the rainforest. There was also a small visitor center, this time bought to you by the good ol’ US of A!

On the way back down the mountain we stopped at a roadside shed called Mark’s Bar, where Godwin gave us a great demonstration of the various spices and rums of Grenada. We got to see cocoa beans in their raw state, nutmeg, cinnamon and he even went out into the garden and pulled up some roots that turned out to be tumeric. The island’s sugar cane is turned into rum which in turn is “spiced” with the bounty of spices available. The demonstration concluded with us tasting some 137 proof rum!

Godwin dropped the 4 of us in the center of St. Georges and we wandered about a bit. There is a really lively market where locals buy fruit and vegetables, but it did not look like the kind of place tourists would hang out. In fact there were not too many tourists about, though I did not at any point feel unsafe. We were trying to find a place to get some lunch, maybe even the aforementioned oildown, but nothing looked like the kind of place that catered to tourists. So we jumped in a taxi and headed back to the tender pier, and caught the next boat back to the ship. Just as we got to the ship I could see very heavy rain hitting the town – what luck! We were back on the ship by about 1:30PM.

We agreed that Grenada was a pleasant surprise, which is surprising since none of us knew what to expect! It was generally agreed that Grenada was better than Curacao and we’d come again, given the chance. We did not have time (or energy) to visit the southern part of the island where a lot of the major resorts are located. Perhaps next time.