St. George’s, Grenada
Today we arrived in St. George’s, Grenada at 8 am. We docked next to another ship, the Britannia. The folks on that ship are on a 2 week Caribbean cruise and are on their 4th port. The ship is much larger and has over 4000 passengers. I doubt that it can pass through the Panama Canal and it may just do Caribbean ports of call.
Our meeting time with our guide was 9:30 am and we left the ship at 9:10. We carried nothing with us which makes it nice. I don’t like carrying water bottles, food, insecticide and any other needs.
The tour company contacted me through whatsapp. Most of the world uses this and wifi is all that is required to use it. We have t-mobile cellular and have cellular service included for most of the world. I’m very surprised that most travelers don’t use this company. They constantly rely on wifi to connect with the rest of the world while they travel. As we walked through the port and into the port buildings, we saw countless passengers from both ships sitting inside and taking advantage of the free wifi and sending/receiving email and making wifi calls.
Our pickup place was in front of the sweet inspirations cafe outside the port. Jeremy was right on time and we hopped aboard. We were unsure about the number of passengers there would be but were delighted to learn it would just be the three of us.
Jeremy started to give us a run down of the complete history of Grenada. They soon will be celebrating 50 years of independence. My own recollection is 1983 and Ronald Reagan sending in the US Marines to put down an attempted take over by Cubans and Soviets. Operation “Urgent Fury”. It’s nice to remember times when we put down communism instead of inviting it in. I got the feeling when I brought this up to Jeremy, the people of Grenada love Ronald Reagan and the US military.
Jeremy asked if 9:45am was too early to hit the distillery and do some sampling. We agreed it was a perfect time. Our destination was the Grenada Limited Distillers.
This was a Rum distillery and Jeremy said to use the hand sanitizer on the way in. “It smells like Rum and Coke”. It did!
5 tastings each for $2 each. The nice woman behind the counter described each rum before pouring a sample. She spoke with an accent that reminded me of Jamaica. Jeremy said that the language is English but the locals have a dialect that they use with each other. Patoi is what it is called in Jamaica. It sounds like mumbling broken English.
The brewery has won numerous International awards. The tastings went very well and we made a selection of 5 bottles. Unlike back home, we were very happy with the final bill. $80 usd.
We might have been at the distillery about an hour. We were the only visitors at this time and our host went way past the “5 tastings” each.
Our next stop was up a mountain to Fort Frederick.
Jeremy added interesting history to the Fort. Originally facing the Caribbean Sea, the English gave the French Fort a new front facing inward to thwart an inland attack previously used by the French.
Our next stop was a spice garden. We happened to arrive just at the time a HAL tour was starting. We joined them. We ran into two others that we had met on the Africa trip. Two men, one in a wheelchair. The able bodied gentlemen we remembered because he complained about everything that was not ADA compliant on behalf of his partner. We had a notice in our room just today about how HAL has made ADA accommodations and reminded us to observe them. We know that it is big business for some to go after large corporations for non-compliance. They measure sink height, table height, etc, etc. and then file lawsuits. Big corporations settle for what they consider “nuisance fees”.
We were able to see and sample all kinds of spices that are exported all over the world. The chocolate experience was interesting. The cacao tree has pods that when broken open expose slime coated smaller pods. We were given a slimy pods to suck on but they didn’t really have a taste. Inside of that was the cacao seed. This is what makes chocolate.
We finished the spice tour and went to chocolate store. The roads here are very narrow, especially in the city. Most are one way. Outside of the city, the many switch backs to climb the mountains create a very slow travel speed. Jeremy pointed on a map to where he lived. 2 hour drive. The length of the entire island is only 13 miles long by 7.5 miles wide. Jeremy said that driving the circumference would take 5 to 6 hours. No thanks.
Not much new to learn here. We have already been to the Hershey tour but we did try some 100% cacao. Needs sweetener.
We finished our tour and thanked Jeremy. We went back to the ship to drop off the rum (which the ship confiscates until the end of the cruise). It is possible to smuggle some in and I will leave it at that. We went back out and had a drink where the locals hang out.
We called it an early night after dinner. I think Terri now has what I had and the rest of the ship seems to be getting. Rest is needed.
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