Beautiful Colourful Grenada Island Tour

Grenada is a lush green colourful country so during our first week in Grenada we took a minibus tour to discover more with some of our other friends from the rally – Rosie and Chris from “Ari” and Oliver and Carlota the organizers of the Viking group. The day trip was botanical rather than zoological, so we mainly focused on how much Grenada can grow and how easy it is if you have a plot of land and a few trees. The saying here is “if you have a nutmeg tree you will always have $1 in your pocket”. Most of this blog is about the first trip, but because we have now been around Grenada for about 5 weeks there are various other comments and observations.

Overall

Grenada is very lush green environment that will grow anything with the rainfall ranges from 2m in the hills to 1m at sea level. The temperature ranges from low 20 – low 30deg C.

We found Grenada a very colourful country where the flowers are bright and beautiful colours, their houses are painted brightly, and then they further decorate all the buildings for Independence day. However, all these colours seem to happily blend in together, so here are a few examples.

Firstly, there is the town of Saint George and Surrounds.

Grenada Independence Day

The trip was shortly before Grenada independence day celebrations so everyone was dressing up their houses and villages. Usually, there is a prize for the best dressed town but this year the celebrations had been toned down due to covid gathering limits, however, most places were still decorated as can be seen from these few photos.

Shops and Roadside Stalls

Houses

Almost all the houses built from concrete blocks, and often the second storey fis built first. Later, when they have the money they fill in the lower storey and use it for their family or rent it out as a flat. Balustrades around decks are very decorative on the front side, compared to often fairly plain sides and back of houses, with contrasting or stronger colours used for detailing.

Bigger Houses

Mid range houses

Smaller Houses

Houses cobbled together and run down

Plants and Fruit

Grenada is very lush and green with a reasonable rainfall all year and volcanic soil, so they can grow almost anything. Many of the fruits and trees that ave been imported were for cash crops. The range of plants is fascinating and everyone is happy for you to go along the roadside and pick fruit from the trees.

Here is a list of the fruits, vegetables, and various other commercial plants that we saw during the trip. I will only put a few pictures up as you can look up the others online. Also, some of these plants we already knew and others were new to us, so these we were often given to taste. One of the most fascinating was how there were nutmeg and cinnamon trees everywhere.

Spices:

Bay leaves, Cinnamon, Cloves, Coriander, Lemongrass, Mace, Nutmeg

The Nutmeg tree is an amazing tree which can initially fruit when it reaches 8 years, fully matures at 20 years, can fruit for 60 years, and grow to a height of 20 meters. The dried and ground nutmeg is used for flavouring within the culinary industry including the manufacture of nutmeg ice-cream, nutmeg rum and rum punch. Also, Nutmeg oils and butters, are made from the seed, and widely used in the food, cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries.  Additionally, the outer pericarp is used to make jams, jellies and syrups. The red membrane— mace— is used as a seasoning. Then, outer shell is often used for mulch in all the gardens including around the marina. The seed is also on the Grenadan Flag. Some interesting business facts in this article foryou. https://www.forbes.com/sites/daphneewingchow/2020/02/23/nutmeg-grenadas-black-gold-is-on-the-cusp-of-resurgence/?sh=19debc443f28

Grenada’s cinnamon is highly valuable because it is True Cinnamon, originating from Ceylon ( Sri Lanka) from the Cinnamomum zeylanicum tree. This spice is more valuable and much healthier that the commonly found “Cassia”. https://spicegrenada.com/true-cinnamon/

Fruit:

Breadfruit, Banana, Chenet (Guinep), Cherimoya, Cherry, Cocoa pods, Coconut, Coffee, Damsel, Golden apple, Gospo fruit, Grapefruit, Guavas, Jackfruit, Mammee Apple, Mandarin, Mango, Papaya, Passion fruit, Pineapple, Plantain, Pomegranate, Pomerac, Prickly Pear, Sapote, Soursop, Star fruit, Sugar apple, Tamarind

The Cocoa tree grows pods on both branches and trunks. When the pods are ripe the seeds are sweet and can be sucked like lollies. If the cocoa is used for chocolate it must be dried first( see links on the chocolate chapter).

The mangos and the avocados have many different varieties on the island, not just one so they fruit at different times. You eat whatever is in season.

Vegetables:

Avocado, Asparagus, Aubergines, Beans, Calabash, Pumpkins, Pigeon peas, Potatoes, Sweet Potatoes, Tomatoes

Other:

Cashew nuts, Almond, Walnuts, Loofah, Cotton, Mahogany, Sugar Cane.

Flowers

Chocolate Factories

We visited two chocolate factories. The first factory and the oldest is called “The Grenada Chocolate Company”, which was very manual and had mostly been shut down during covid. https://www.grenadachocolate.com/

The second was where we had lunch at Belmont Estate.https://belmontestate.net/cocoa.htm. It was bigger and more commercial. Orientated to busloads of visitors.

The hair of one of the waitresses was spectacular. How your hair is done is very important here with many adults having extensions. The girl children all have their hair plaited beautifully for school and as one mother with three daughters said – she plaits their hair every day and it usually takes an hour each morning before school. Nails are another fashion item with everyone who can, having them as long as possible, varnished or gelled.

Rum Factories

We visited only one rum factory, of the many, the River Antoine Estate. The water came from a stream above it and ran over a huge water wheel which drove the sugar cane crusher. The liquid was then heated with wood-burning fires under the vats fired by the dry remnants of the sugar cane and local wood. The following are a few photos. Here are a couple of short video s showing more of the water wheel at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7A0Gcy6YYI , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6bD_BqCR-4

Annadale Waterfalls and Grand Etang Topical Rain Forest

Between the rain and various stops for fruit tasting and rum and chocolate tasting we also saw the Forest Park and Annadale waterfalls(one of the many up in the hills). We would have liked to stop at two others but ran out of time.

Grand Etang Topical Rain Forest

The rain forest is definitely as stop on the tourist route as you can see from the welcoming committee.

The Forest Parkcovers 3,800 acres and is on the central mountain range above the 100 feet contour line and is best known for the diverse range of plants and animals. The Grand Etang fern is unique to this part of the world and is protected.There are also historical sites in the park dating back to 1700. The park not only has local animals and plants but also imported. There is quite a group of monkeys but we did not see any as it was a wet and rainy day. There is also one Austrailan rainbow gum on the way in to make the Aussies feel at home.

Annadale Waterfall and Forest Park