The Spice Isle

CuriousOyster
Steve & Trish Brown
Sun 31 May 2009 14:56

Katie's Caribbean Tour

 

Having arrived in Grenada over two weeks ago, we have made good headway into preparing Curious for the next leg of the journey to South America (lots of cleaning, polishing, re-cleaning and re-polishing) but it has also been a great opportunity to explore this fantastic island.

The new marina we are staying in - Port Louis – is excellent and only a short dinghy or 'dollar bus' ride (or slightly longer walk) from the island's capital, St George's – a bustling and vibrant market town.

 

The Carenage, St George's

St Georges Grenada.JPG

The market, St George's

St Georges Market.JPG

The markets, especially on Saturdays, are full of fruit & vegetable and spice stalls and the vendors are always keen to share their breadfruit or plantain recipes with you. The fish market is always full with the catches of the day including snapper, red hind, jacks and, of course, tuna. Lots of tuna. Lots of big tuna!

 

We hired a jeep over the weekend and made our way through the narrow, winding roads (watching out for the kamikaze buses coming towards us doing about 100mph). The island is very mountainous and every square inch is covered in vegetation, which hides the extremely steep slopes at the side of the road – probably for the best. Over a few days, we discovered jungles, waterfalls, plantations, beautifully unspoilt beaches and insightful Caribbean history.

 

On the first day, we made our way up to the north of the island to Sauteurs or 'Carib's Leap', which overlooks the Atlantic sea and the outer lying islands and Carriacou to the north. It is said that the Carib Indians preferred to throw themselves off the famous cliff rather than relent to French control of the island.

 

Arawak Engravings

Arawak Engravings.JPG

The Caribbean islands have a mixed and very colourful history; from the Arawak and Carib Indians, the first inhabitants of the islands, via the battles of the French, British, Dutch and Spanish during the peak of the countries' empire building in the 17th and 18th centuries, to more recent political activity. We have seen much evidence of the naval history (Columbus, Napoleon et al.) throughout the islands, illustrated by the many forts and strongholds situated at strategic vantage points, but our  research and exploration of Grenada tempted us to one site, proof of a more modern history: Pearl's Airport. Although the location was originally an Indian settlement and burial ground, the site was used as a base by the Cuban and Russian air force during the Cold War. A couple of weather-beaten aircraft relics just off the run-way lend a note to the eerie atmosphere of the place, as if time had stopped when the airport was abandoned in 1984. The opening hours of the café are still posted in the window.

 

Pearl's Airport

Pearls Airport 2.JPG

In the island's interior, St Margaret's Waterfall is situated on the Seven Sisters plantation so you need a guide to take you, as the path passes over the private land. Our guide, Clifdon, was an enthusiastic and sprightly mountain goat, who described his experiences of Hurricane Ivan in 2004 as we worked our way down the steep jungle path that leads to the falls (the village where he lived had all gathered in the safest place: the village hall, only to discover later that the roof would not survive the hurricane...).

 

Seven Sisters Waterfall

Seven Sisters Waterfall 1.JPG

As we arrived at the beautiful 'double' falls (only two of the river's six waterfalls) Clifdon promptly took off his Croks, ran up an impossibly steep and sheer rock and proceeded to do a back flip from the top into the plunge pool beneath. This was followed closely by a magnificent dive into the lower falls.

 

The Flying Leap, Seven Sisters Waterfall

Flying Leap.JPG

Our next road trip took us to the Belmont Estate in the north east of the island; a 360 year old plantation. Passing from British to Scottish control and used to grow firstly coffee beans and then nutmeg (where we also get mace from), the plantation was then bought by an Indian family and their descendants still own and use the land to grow everything from bananas to orchids. However, their main exploitation is cocoa beans... and where there's cocoa, there's chocolate!

The 'Criolo' beans (the rarest type of cocoa) is the only kind grown on Grenada. Although the trees produce cocoa pods all year round, the main harvest season is between November and April. Every Wednesday, farmers gather at the Belmont Estate (in their hundreds) to sell the 'wet' beans they have grown and harvested. The beans are covered in a sticky and sweet coating, almost of lychee-consistency, and are then drained and weighed. The farmers are paid around EC$1.40 (about 35p) per pound of beans, depending on the season, which doesn't sound much but the estate can buy anything up to 59,000 lbs of beans every week.

The beans are then put into boxes - what look like horses' stables – and then covered in banana leaves and sacking to trap the heat and begin the fermentation process. This lasts eight days and during this time they produce a huge amount of heat. The beans are then dried in the sun for seven days to become... 'dry' beans!

 

Drying cocoa beans

Drying Cocoa Beans.JPG

The shelling, grinding and secret chocolate making process is carried out at The Grenada Chocolate Company factory a few miles down the road. Cocoa butter (taken from the cocoa pod) is added to enhance the rich flavour and to act as a natural preservative, then just a tiny amount of sugar and a little milk, depending on the content of cocoa required. Only about 10% of the beans are kept on the island and used to produce Grenadian Chocolate. The rest are polished (to make them look nice and shiny for potential buyers – even though the outer shell is removed before extracting the cocoa inside!) and exported all over the world but primarily to Switzerland, Belgium and France.

 

There is just left to say that, yes, we were lucky enough to be given a tasting of both the 60% and 71% chocolate and it was... Mmmmmm!



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