Around The Island...Again

Last term, I went on an "around the island" tour with the SO's.  You can read about my last tour here, here, here, and here.  So last Thursday, I set out to take my family around the island as well.  It takes all day to do it, but there is no better way to see all of the island.

We started up the Eastern side and our first stop was Belmont Estate.  We took the tour of the chocolate making process and saw many of the animals (goats, birds, tortoises) including the monkeys which I somehow missed the last time I was there.

 

This is new! They no longer let you "walk" the beans.  They have this covering now as shelter from the rain.

Where the cocoa beans ferment.  So smelly.

Such a beautiful estate.

He really wanted my coke bottle.

You can't see it, but then he really wanted my watch.

We ate lunch in their beautiful open air restaurant and we all enjoyed the local cuisine, including the guava icecream!

A trip to Belmont wouldn't be complete without buying some of the fabulous chocolate bars and bon bons.  Of course, the bon bons melted in the car.  Bummer.  But the chocolate bars made it home intact.

What shall we get?

 After spending quite a large part of our day at Belmont Estate, we headed North toward Bathway Beach and Levera Beach.

If you remember correctly, Levera Beach was the location of the infamous bag stealing incident on my birthday in October.  I was glad to return and create some happier memories, though we kept all of our things with us.  I'm sure I had some pictures that looked quite similar to these on the camera that was stolen. :(

Our last stop on this island tour was Carib's Leap on the very Northern tip of Grenada.

We headed for home and after a very long day of driving, arrived back on the Southern tip of the island.  I think Mom and Dad really enjoyed seeing the whole island, but I don't know that I personally will be making that drive again.  Although I'd be happy to ride along!

Around the Island Tour: Pearls Airport

The final stop on our Island Tour was Pearls Airport.  This was the original airport on the island of Grenada, but it is no longer in use.  It now serves as a great grazing site for cows and goats.  However, there is an old abandoned Cuban Airliner on the side of the runway that makes for great pictures.

So that's it for the Around the Island Tour.  I'm worn out just writing about it! Traveling around an entire country in one day is tiring!

Around the Island Tour: Belmont Estate

Up next on the island tour was Belmont Estate in St. Patrick.  In my opinion, this was the highlight of the trip.  Maybe it's because we finally got to eat lunch! :)

  
Belmont Estate is a 300-year-old cocoa plantation in Grenada that is still fully functioning.  They have a restaurant with Grenadian cusine ( not my favorite due to bones, bones, and more bones in the meat), a tour of how chocolate is made, an animal area, gift shop and lots more. 

We ate lunch and then spent some time exploring the 400 acre estate.  They had some of the most beautiful birds.

And a bell that they used long ago to call the slaves in at the end of the day.

 Then we went on a tour of how the cocoa beans are processed.  It still amazes me that somehow you can turn this...

Cocoa pod

Into this.


Grenadian chocolate bar

After the beans are fermented in these shed-like things, they are then placed on these large tables to dry out for about 8 days.

The roofs are on wheels and if it rains, they can quickly be rolled over the beans to protect them.  The beans must be "walked" every half an hour while they are drying out.  And what better way to have them turned, than to have the tourists do the work for you!

Walking the beans!

It was actually pretty fun.  Although I don't know if I would want to do it every half hour in the hot Grenadian sunshine.  Even my sun-worshiper self wouldn't enjoy that.

Walking creates fun designs in the beans!

Kelsey and I in the beans.

I loved Belmont Estate and I want to go back soon.  Anybody up for a second trip?!?

Around the Island Tour: Carib's Leap

As promised, I'm picking up where I left off on my last post about the SO's around the island tour. 

After seeing the forts, we continued to the very Northern end of the island to a town called Sauteurs in St. Patrick Parish. 

Sauteurs claim to fame in Grenada is that it was the site of mass suicide in 1651.  The French were conquering Grenada and rather than become slaves to the French, many Carib Natives jumped to their death off of a 40 meter tall cliff which is now appropriately named "Carib's Leap."  The town was later named Sauteurs which in French means "jumpers."  A memorial now stands at the edge of Carib's Leap.

Whether you want to see the memorial or not, Sauteurs also offers a spectacular view of the Atlantic Ocean and on clear days, you can easily see some of the other islands to the North, including Carriacou.

Pretty stunning right? 

Around the Island Tour: The Forts

Yesterday, the SO's planned an "Around the Island" Tour.  There were 30 SO's in attendance and I think everyone had a really good time.  It was an all day affair and we stopped at lots of different destinations including two forts, a chocolate factory, an abandoned airport, and a lookout point on the Northern tip of the island.  With the island being only 21 miles long and 12 miles wide, you would think it wouldn't take long to drive around it, but with extremely curvy roads complete with potholes and steep drop-offs, it takes a surprisingly long time to drive all the way around it.  I took quite a few pictures and so I am going to split it up into a few posts.
Ready for a little history lesson?

Our first stop on the tour was Fort Frederick.  This fort, is situated on top of a mountain overlooking all of St. George's.  Fort Frederick is kind of unique in that it is a "backward facing" fort.  In 1779, the British were attacked by the French.  The British were expecting and prepared for a sea attack and had Fort George ready to defend the city.  Unfortunately, the French had a better plan.  They attacked from the interior, which was also higher ground.  Because they had the higher ground, the British gave up quickly realizing they would be defeated.  The French decided to learn from the Brits mistake, and began construction of Fort Frederick facing the interior of the island instead of the sea and the city.  That way, they would be prepared if anyone else ever tried to attack from the interior.

Alice in Wonderland, our tour guide at the Fort.

Under the Treaty of Versailles, in 1783,  Grenada was ceded back to Britain.  The Brits had learned their lesson the first time and decided to finish what the French had started.  So Fort Frederick was completed by the British.  However, I don't think that Fort Frederick was ever actually needed to defend Grenada and St. George's after that.

Whether Fort Frederick was actually used to defend the city or not, it definitely provides some stunning panoramic views of St. George's and the Southwestern coastline.

The City of St. George's

Southwest Coastline including Grand Anse Bay

Looking into the interior



The whole group at Fort Frederick

Next, we walked over to Fort Matthew, which is just next door.  I had a hard time finding out much history on this particular fort.  What I do know is that it was bombed in 1983 when the US invaded Grenada and so it lays in mostly ruins now.

After our history lesson, we were off to the next destination.  Up next, Carib's Leap and Pearls Airport!