Grenada Map

Map of the Caribbean

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The famous inner harbor of St. George's „The Carenage“ spreads a Northern feeling

Church Street, the narrow and

steep main road of St. George's

The silhouette of a church

tower at sunset

Grenada - The Island of Spice

The rhythms of the Trinidadian Steel Band on the upper deck of our car ferry “MV Panorama” spread already a festive mood among the 600 passengers from Trinidad on their way to the Carnival of Grenada. The joy of being able to attend a Caribbean Carnival for the first time takes possession of us too – it doesn’t have to be the world’s second famous of Port-of-Spain. How did it happen? As usual, we were having our breakfast at the wonderful viewpoint at Fort George overlooking Port-of-Spain as we got attentive to a radio ad which made promotion for a Carnival-Ferry sailing to Grenada. Would this not be a possibility for us, we both thought at the same time. This idea did not get out of our mind again. Thus we immediately set off to the harbor, where we could talk to the manager who gave us the telephone number of the charter company. We were lucky to get the responsible boss at the phone who proposed the following deal: “You buy two passenger tickets for the Carnival and we take your car for free!” (it remained the only vehicle on board). What a beautiful surprise!

 

 

Costume in Blue

The Calypso Queen is the

uncontested beauty

The butterfly costume is only

one of the many motifs

 

 

It is a wonderful moment, as on August 9th, we approach St. George’s and our eyes catch the attractive view of the capital, showing its full beauty in the warm evening light. Old trading houses of the 19th century in soft pastel colors harmonically line the horseshoe bay at the foot of a lush green hill. There are no high rise buildings, only three church towers, as the law prohibits building higher than a coconut tree. Behind the town, lush green vegetation in all shades is climbing up to the highest of the peaks. The quiet bay is dotted with picturesque fishing boats, island hoppers and yachts from all over the world. No wonder that this capital is famous for having the most beautiful harbor of the whole Caribbean. For us, there is still more: We experience a touch of Europe, may be even a certain Northern flair. It is for sure that it is completely different from Trinidad & Tobago, our first two Caribbean islands. The Northern character even increases as we stroll along “The Carenage”, the picturesque promenade which surrounds the inner harbor, and admire the neat small “Nordic” houses lining the narrow and very steep roads leading up the hills.

 

 

One of the green painted

faces at the morning parade

A group of youngsters

are covered with red clay

The colorful parade

is advancing

The immigration formalities take place on board and are very easy going. We get a permit to stay until the end of September. With the car papers, it does not work out as well as we thought and wished. We had the confirmation that the customs procedure would be made today. But the port officers do not know anything about it – one even meant that it is a bad idea to bring a car to Grenada. Additionally, today is Saturday and the beginning of the yearly Carnival. So we are not really astonished that it does not work out. But this cannot change our good mood, the more that we are allowed to sleep in our car right in the harbor and are able to use the shower facilities of the port security. Soon it shows that this “forced camping” is actually very positive, as we are situated right in the center of all the happenings which take place around the clock. And after a cloudless and very hot day, in the evening we are very happy to feel the cooling breeze around our heads on our preferred spot at the “Windjammer” docking and study the flags of the many sailing boats lying quietly off shore to question their nationality.

 

 

The hot rhythms of the Calypso

Steel bands cheer up everybody

Soon, there will be no

space even for a needle!

Also the most intrepid ones need a rest

 

 

Within the shortest of time, we meet sailors from France, Canada and Switzerland, who chose the protected bays of Grenada to wait for the end of the hurricane season on November 30th. It is interesting to realize that besides the ”real” sailor enthusiasts, there are also the so called “hangers”, those who spend most of the time on their boats at the same spot, anchoring off shore where it is for free, and occasionally move to a neighbor island. Among them are also very run down characters. We see them mostly in the supermarkets and Internet Cafes. One day, we meet Esther and Willy, both Swiss, and have a nice chat together. They tell us that they are sailing mainly between Grenada and Martinique. We ask them why they chose particularly this island in the South to remain during the hurricane season. Their answer is interesting:” No company insures sailing boats during the stormy time north of the 13th latitude, and apart from that we are just in love with this little sleepy place”. Lilo - also Swiss - who manages a Batik shop in the old city, shares their feelings. She also arrived once by sailing boat and got stuck here. Today, the 63-year ‘young’, who in the 70’s explored Africa with a VW-Volkswagen bus, lives on her boat on Hog Island together with her Rastafarian boy friend and speeds every morning with her little dinghy 20 minutes to work – we are impressed! “It is a good life”, she explains, what we believe her! Who is not dreaming to awake every morning with the Caribbean sun and being always surrounded by a turquoise sea? Also the Dutch and his Guyanese young wife who regularly buy diesel in Venezuela and distribute it to other islands found their way to combine work with their dream destination.

 

 

Many houses nestle on lush green hills

A little rest on the side of a road

The colorful sunsets are

always a beautiful sight

On Monday morning at six o’clock, drum rhythms and calypso music make us jump out of the bed. The Carnival is already in full swing – it started in the middle of the night with a traditional parade called “J’Ouvert”. Afraid that we might miss something, we are dressed in the shortest of time and swallow just a quick breakfast. When we reach the street, a dancing crowd is just passing by, following a steel band in full action. Many of them are covered with green, silver and blue paint. But we discover also “Devils” full of black grease all over looking for people to smear. This is the reason why we have been warned to wear only worn-out clothes on this morning parade. Soon we are part of the slowly moving crowd and it is not difficult to be immediately caught by their mood to celebrate. In the early afternoon, the main parade is formed and soon the streets are full of colorful, beautiful costumes and groups which compete regarding Carnival motifs and varieties of ideas. For us, it is a wonderful experience to watch the whole procession from the little bridge in front of the stadium - passing by right in front of our eyes - and it is also a very special welcome to Grenada, the usually sleepy southerly Caribbean island.

 

 

The white beach of Grand Anse near

St. George's is the most popular beach

The Caribbean girls look always

lovely with their plaited hair and beads

The water plane is an ideal mean

of transport for the outer islands

At 2am on Wednesday, the “MV Panorama” left Grenada back to Trinidad, where it will resume its normal service between the main- and its sister-island of Tobago again. And we have to start with the entry procedures for our LandCruiser. It is really surprising how fast and easy it is until we are able to drive on Grenada’s roads. In less than two hour’s time, we already leave the port. Our LandCruiser is now decorated with a local, yellow license plate carrying the number “V1” which means “Visitor 1”. We are a bit proud to be the first visitors with an own car on this island. Soon we realize that too many cars circulate already in St. George’s, especially mini taxis which force their way through the ever congested narrow one line streets, blocking them even more. How will this chaos end when in November the big cruise ships call in again and release 3’000 passengers at once? And how will this small town with only 4’500 inhabitants handle the situation when the new - in our mind too big Cruise Ship Terminal - will be finished, which can accommodate three of those monsters at the same time. But Grenada lives mainly from the cruising tourism, besides the export of nutmegs and some bananas.

 

 

Our LandCruiser with the local

license plate V1 = „Visitor #1“

at the light tower Anse aux Epines

A touch of Pacific: The deserted

Levera Beach with its offshore

Sugar Loaf Island

The traditional houses in

Sauteurs are colorful

Now in the rainy season – actually we don’t feel much of it - this mountainous island looks to us all over like one single lush green park, dotted with wonderful exotic plants, flowers and fruit trees. Everything is blooming and growing in excess: nutmeg, cacao, bread fruit, mango, grapefruit, oranges, and guava, only to mention a few – the fruits literally grow into our mouth - and the scent of cinnamon, clove and vanilla is hanging delicately in the tropical air. Nestled between the lush vegetation are luxury villas, but mainly simple wooden houses. We watch an old woman who cleans her yard with a broom made of leafs; we watch naked children swimming in jungle rivers while their mothers or sisters do the laundry; we watch people carrying piles of wood or fruits on their head; and we watch the goats and cows graze on fat meadows – it is a peaceful rural atmosphere.

 

 

The crater lake of Grand Etang

National Park is a little oasis

The Mona monkey in the Grand

Etang National Park waits for bananas

View of the lush green hills from

the rooftop of „our“ house

 

 

Which ever road we drive, along the East or the West Coast or across the interior, we always wind our way through steep hills and discover many nice spots along the road, which invite for a stop. On the South East Coast it is Lower Woburn with Hog Island in front, then Point of Fort Jeudy, where the coast is wilder and with its low growing grass and bushes remembers once more to distant Northern regions. La Sagesse Bay with its two beautiful little bays of white sand and a restaurant in between is a place we will not forget so easily also for another reason: Exactly on the last few, badly potholed yards to this attractive point a smell of smoldering reaches our nose. Immediately, Emil turns off the engine and realizes that the cause is the burning compressor of our little refrigerator. But we still have hopes to be able to fix it. Time shows that after nearly six years of providing us cool beer, it cannot be repaired anymore – a hard knock-down for us!

 

 

Nutmeg, the main export

product of Grenada, has its

symbol also in the country's flag

The milk of the coconut is a

delicious drink of the tropics

The sour star fruit looks

very decorative when cut

 

 

Most of our days we spend in the North Eastern corner in Bathway with its still deserted beaches. We are allowed to lodge in the empty house of George Dias, whom we met at a Christmas party in Georgetown/Guyana. It is situated on a hill, overlooking on one side the forested hills and on the other side the three “Robinson” islands of Sugar Loaf, Green and Sandy Island. Exotic flowers and mangos, guavas and star fruits grow plentiful in the well kept garden – and all of them are just beautifully ripe to eat! We feel a bit like Adam and Eve in paradise! The beach, with its pearl white sand, turquoise sea and the swaying palm trees is only half a mile away, but a miserable stretch downhill through an awfully washed out river bed. During the week, we have the beach for ourselves, but on weekends we keep away when trucks arrive with loads of people for partying, what normally ends with drunkenness. That’s when we prefer to sit on “our” rooftop, enjoying a “sundowner” in the evening and watching the sunsets, which always present a new spectacle with new colors and intensities.

 

 

The Guava fruit is found

abundantly in Grenada

Cacao belongs also to the fruits,

which grow in Grenada

Black centipedes are

feeding on a ripe Mango

 

 

The days are relaxing and we never get bored. Emil always can keep himself busy with the computer, and I discovered in George’s interesting library the book of Wilfred Thesiger “Arabian Sands”, which I always wanted to read. Soon I start to dream of desert sand, bedouins and camels. Is it time for a change? But already the next moment, I dismiss this idea when my eyes wander through the lush green surroundings, sensing the intensity of the colors, the different shapes of the plants and see the colorful feathers of the birds. Then I know that this is still the place where I want to be now. The place where every morning we enjoy the wonderful singing of a small, tame bird, where we expect the visit of a shiny humming bird feeding on the sweet nectar of the purple flowers, and where a bird of prey is waiting for hours on the same top on a pole shrieking loudly in a regular interval. We even got accustomed to the many green lizards which crawl everywhere and the countless black centipedes – or were they millipedes? - which feed on the ripe fruits. There are only two things we could easily miss: The hordes of black flies and mosquito’s pestering us and the nearly unbearable heat in the night when we lay motionless under a mosquito net and are trenched in sweat. May be it has to be that way to make our departure less hard. There is definitely no real paradise on earth!

 

 

A fishing boat waits for passengers

to the Sugar Loaf  "Robinson Island"

View from „our“rooftop to a

hamlet nestled in the dense forest

Mazda mechanics want to inspect

the engine of our LandCruiser

and eat our sausages

 

 

We cannot collect many miles on Grenada. The island measures only 133 square miles and is home of 98’000 English speaking people: 82% are Negroes, 13% mixed and 3% of Indian origin. The population intensity is 737 inhabitants per square mile (USA has 78). Grenada has been ruled by the English and by the French before it became independent on February 7th, 1974. One of our last visits before we say good-bye to Bathway brings us to the small village of Sauteurs in the North, where the last battles between the islanders and the conquerors took place. It is said that 1651 the last families of the aggressive tribe of the Carib Indians jumped over a 135 feet high cliff, called “Carib’s Leap” into the sea rather than to be taken prisoners by the approaching French.

 

 

The neat village of Sauteurs

between sea and mountains

A wild jungle river in the

interior is a place to cool off

The island character of this

village street in Sauteurs is obvious

 

 

Then we are back in St. George’s again. While we are checking out the shipping possibilities to our next destination St. Vincent, we are allowed to spend the nights on the compound of the local Toyota distributor. Nicholas Steel, the owner, is very helpful and assists us even in finding a vessel. We happily accept also that his company is taking over the freight costs as a most appreciated support of our big journey. “Mother Luck” is smiling warmly on us again! When on September 4th, we leave Grenada with its laid back charm, St. George’s is gleaming again in the same warm evening light as it welcomed us 25 days before. We are standing at the reeling of the gravel boat “MV Gondola” until night sets in. Then we enter the mess room and stretch out on a long bench for a short night.

 

The pristine Bathway Beach in the Northeast has different faces

N.B. It was devastating to hear that one year later, hurricane “Ivan” - the terrible, has destroyed 90% of this beautiful island. Our thoughts are with all the people who crossed our way!

 

 

The splendor of a tropical sunset

Grenada’s West Coast is covered

with palm trees and dense jungle

St. George's is gleaming in the warm evening light at our departure

Articles in newspapers about us in Grenada:

Interview: "Guinness World Record Holders visited Grenada", August 2003