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

Italian driving –

Much has been said about this topic but our thoughts are these. Italians:

• always pull over and give room for you to pass
• pass you at double the speed you are doing
• generally ignore all speed limits and all speed cameras
• never indicate even if they have asked you to follow them
• pay attention to the different parking areas marked on the roads in the main towns i.e. non colour, pink, yellow, blue
• park anywhere anyhow if the roads are not marked: nose only, forwards, backwards, in the direction of travel , in the opposite direction, parcelled ion the road

Italian Design

• Being at the beach everyone is very casual and you do not see as much as you do in the towns but every now and then something catches your eye and you think it is really great. Even the simple espresso machine
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• Long dresses are in for women here in the summer and they are very elegant, also log wide soft flowing trousers.But then there are also the short dresses and very high heels – sorry I missed the stilettos in this photo
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Food

• absolutely prefer fresh and local in all foods
• the tomatoes at this time of year are fabulous as are the aubergines, capsicums and peaches
• they love pizzas
• they love fresh bread and often feel it thoroughly in the supermarket to make sure it is fresh
• sea food is really good if you get it fresh, but when they offer you a plate for fresh fish to chose from, look at the eyes and choose carefully, some are not as fresh as others
• the little family local stores that are not part of a chain are often have a deli and are often better than the supermarkets for fresh fruit, dried meat cut and bread and they have all sorts of items you might need that we would not normally associate with such as store e.g. gas bottles and fittings etc

Recylcing, Rubbish and Sewerage

• supermarkets only sell self composting bags or re-useable carry bags
• households have a system of 5 rubbish bins: paper/cardboard, glass, plastic, compostable and finally unsorted(the rest). In the compostable bin you need to put your scraps in compostable bags(only) before they go in the bin and you can buy these from the supermarket. They collected on different days of the week and are all small bins – very efficient
• The bad side is that around the marina the users are not as fastidious and there is always too much rubbish and not collected often enough – results in hot smelly garbage wafting around the area. “Eau di summer”
• The other side that has still not been fixed is the smell of sewerage in some places – old town.
• Marina do Ragusa is luck as there is a huge amount of artesian water that flows into the sea here so despite being so arid there is a fairly steady supply. The sea even feels cold around the beach where is comes out and there is a big outlet in the marina that washes the marina out continuously.

Street Cleaning

• these come through every night and sweep the streets – often with a person on the side walk as well
• but they never pull out any of the weeds which is a great pity as it detracts from the clean streets

Cars

• most are small to get through all the little streets and alleyways, some are very small

Gardens and Public Planting

• very few houses / apartment blocks have good gardens. Mostly just a few plants growing out of bare soil.
• the most common plants in Marina di Ragusa are a mixture of local such as Oleanders and many Fijian red Hibiscus and NZ Pohutukawa  – surprisingly .
• some motorways have Oleanders in the centre strips in colours of white, pink, red and make a very colourful display as you are driving down them
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 Heat and siestas and eating

• Everyone still has an afternoon siesta and it is a great idea – too hot to do anything outside in the middle of the day
• Great to be able to eat at 1100pm unlike NZ
• Boat yard is one of the few places that works 8-5 no break.
• The beaches are packed and more volley ball nets have gone up
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Differences

• Windmills have multiplied and are seen on every ridge and on the outskirts of lots of towns, but some very hasty days with the dust from the south.
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• Solar panels are on most buildings and you can buy electricity programs to suit the amount you generate – some of them are useage limited.
• There has been a lot of work done on the main roads ato be ready for an influx of tourists – the work is still going on.
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• Budgy smugglers and shorts are still in for the boys but the girls are now nearly all in thongs!!
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• Most people / nearly all are vaccinated
• Masks are everywhere and worn every time you go inside a building or public transport.
• You can get colour coordinated mask to match your dress/shirts etc
• The boat yard has really improved/ modernised and tidied with a 3D printer now as part of the equipment
• Very often the menus are in bar codes on place mats

In Summary – Summer in Marina do Ragusa seems to be going very well, full of Italians with very few overseas people, assisted by a “go local” campaign similar New Zealand which will make up for a long hard lockdown last year.Everyone is hoping there will be no major change – unlike other parts of Europe.

Note: I will add to this page with photos as items pop up.