I'm just about half way through my Caribbean getaway on the island of Grenada and I have realised I have told you about everything apart from the island itself!
Having been around the various landmarks of the island and spent a good hour in the museum I thought it was time to write a quick post about the history of this spectacular place.
For a small island there is quite a bit of interesting history, stretching from the original tribes who lived here through to the USA intervening to stop the spread of communism.
The Caribs were, according to what little information the museum has, somewhat cannibalistic and didn't want anything to do with settlers. During the French invasion of the island the Caribs sought to help them get rid of the British (who came slightly afterwards). However it soon became pretty clear that the French didn't want to ally with the Caribs, they actually wanted to capture them. Rather than spend their lives in captivity all of the remaining Caribs threw themselves off a cliff point in the north of the island to their death.
On our travels we were shown the Caribs rock dating back to sometime in the 14th century where you can see carvings made by the tribe.
What followed the were years of slavery by the British alongside the implementation of plantations. The local population is now almost fully descended from slaves and settlers.
Belmonte Estate is one of the last remaining old plantations which still produces chocolate to sell! It was pretty cool actually, learning how to make chocolate from scratch. The chocolate they produce is from 60% to 100% so super strong.
Talking of things which are super strong - as I am sure you know - the Caribbean islands are famous for their rum. So we had to visit a rum distillery- we went with the local one where everything is done by manual labour and it has the oldest wheel still in use (dating back some 300 years). When the time came for tasting Tim stepped up to try the 75% stuff...and almost fell over! The local rum has a very distinctive taste suffice to say.
Grenada is known as the island of spice! We had the opportunity to see where most of the spice came from and how they get turned into the form that they sell in your everyday supermarket. For example cinnamon trees take 13 years to mature before they get pulled down and their bark turned into cinnamon sticks. Nutmeg was also a bit of a shock to me - I had no idea that it looked like a sort of apricot before it was ripe and the nut itself is then covered in a red substance called mace (used as the spray, but also is the essence for some lipsticks).
Walking around the spice markets you get the real feel of Grenada with everyone selling their local produce, you will soon be enticed into buying a basket of spices (even though I can't cook), very dark chocolate (again perfect for cooking) and homemade wine (not sure what this is going to do to me but I will let you know)
Grenada is a great little island and I am going to have to be dragged onto the plane kicking and screaming when it's time to leave!
Until next time
X
Amy
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