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| Entering the country of Dominica |
Dominica
The island of Dominica looks very retro-authentic, a lot like
all of the Caribbean islands probably looked years ago.
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| Colorful town of Roseau |
Our ship docked next to
a simple platform, and we walked down a narrow pier directly into the colorful laidback
city of Roseau.
We had no tour planned; instead we just wandered around the small downtown. The streets near the pier were lined with umbrella-covered tables where locals were selling their wares. We bought a small basket made by the Caribe, an indigenous Indian tribe on the island.
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| The vendors of Dominica |
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| One of the faces of Dominica |
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| Frank tries what has become his fave Caribbean beer! |
We also dropped into an eatery to try the local beer,
Kubuli. Excellent brew! One of the best
we’ve tasted in the Caribbean.
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| Beautiful Barbados! |
Barbados
For a change of pace, we had reserved a tour at the Agapey
Chocolate Factory in Bridgetown, Barbados. We left the ship and walked about a
mile into town to the Agapey facility.
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| Derrick teaches us all about fine chocolate |
We received an excellent tutorial on chocolate-making from
the owner, Derrick. Derrick had been a chemical engineer in the U.S. before
chucking it all to make fine choco in Barbados. We got samples of his chocolate
wares, all dark, delicious, and fresh.
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| Derrick shows us his handmade winnowing machine |
Afterwards, Derrick walked us through
the processing: roasting, winnowing (to remove the cacao shells), and mashing
(to grind out the grit).
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| Derrick and his mashing machine |
The mashing process was especially interesting. Two wheel-shaped
stones exerted a 1000 pound force on the chocolate nibs, rolling back and forth
over the nibs, crushing and liquefying them as they put pressure on the
chocolate.
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| Chocolate oozes out of one of Derrick's machines |
Of course, we had to buy some of this delicious chocolate,
but some of the other people on our tour bought so much, we were afraid Derrick
was going to run out. We think Derrick thought so too! These folks were serious chocoholics.
Luckily, they left a couple’a bars for us!
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| Banks Beer of Barbados |
All that chocolate-making had made us hungry, so we stopped
by The Polka Dots Café for some chicken with rice and beans. Delicious! We also
tried the local Barbadian beer, Banks Beer. Always good to drink some beer as we work on this blog -- gets the creative juices flowing! Banks Beer was good, but we liked the
Kubuli on Dominica the best.
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| Lush and colorful St. George, Grenada |
Grenada
We were really looking forward to exploring the famous
“Spice Island” of Grenada. Anne had read about this island years ago and always
wanted to visit. This was a real highlight, and the last island of the cruise before
we head back to Puerto Rico.
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| Our cruise ship (docked next to another one) in St. George |
Our ship docked at St. George where we met our tour guide
for the day – Glenroy Grey. Glenroy was
a 50-year old native Grenadian who had many wild tales to tell us about his
days working for the American Embassy after the revolution of 1983 when Ronald
Reagan sent our Marines into Grenada. Glenroy was still in high school at the
time of the revolution and was actively involved in protesting against a
communist government. He was lucky to live through it, since many Grenadians
were executed by pro-communist forces.
When he spoke to his many street friends as we walked along,
Frank thought he was speaking a foreign language. At one point, Frank even asked what language
he was speaking. Glenroy responded in
his quick stiletto-like voice, “I am speaking English.” Then we could hear it. Glenroy called it “Creole” or “patois,” but
to us it sounded like a slurred, fast-spoken unintelligible stream of English
words. It was tricky, but as we grew to
know him, we became more familiar with his way of speaking.
Glenroy took us all around St. George in his white Nissan
van, and we experienced a town with a tight network of narrow one-way streets,
lots of traffic, and steep up and down hills that reminded us a little of San
Francisco. Cars were parked on each of the narrow streets, making driving even
tighter and tougher. Sometimes Glenroy would try to make a turn, stop, backup,
then make more tries until he succeeded. That’s how you do it on Grenada. Driving
on the left added another dimension of difficulty to the driving equation. The
bottom line is you really don’t want to rent a car on Grenada if you can avoid
it.
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| Steep terrain of Grenada |
Out in the jungles of Grenada, the hills are every bit as
narrow and steep. Maybe even worse
because now the roads are two-way. If you meet an oncoming vehicle, you need to
find a wide pull-over spot that allows both vehicles to pass. Then passing each
other in slow mo is required, all the while hoping you don’t scrape each other
in the process. The turns are tight and
often blind going up and down the hills, and you could meet an oncoming vehicle
coming around the bend at any time. Sometimes even an unexpected tour bus. The
drops off the sides of the road can be deadly, if not vehicle-disabling. A horn warning is almost perfunctory when you
enter a blind switchback. Here in Grenada, caution becomes second nature to
drivers. As Glenroy said, “Driving in Grenada is all about cooperation!”
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| Dramatic Concord Waterfall |
He drove us into the countryside to see the Concord
Waterfall, an impressive cascade surrounded by dense green vegetation. Grenada
is one of the lushest, most verdant places we have ever seen! And one of the few small Caribbean islands that actually has a few rivers for fresh water.
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| Beans drying in trays in the sun at the old processing plant |
We stopped at an old cocoa processing plant that looked like a derelict building but was still in use. We saw cocoa beans drying in the sun, and Glenroy opened a cocoa bean pod to show us the cocoa beans surrounded by goopy white stuff.
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| Goopy insides of a cocoa bean pod |
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| Nutmeg in its natural state |
He also showed us nutmeg in its natural state surrounded by
a yellowish pod and covered with a stringy substance called mace. The red mace
is used in making cosmetics such as lipstick and nail polish. The colorful
nutmeg looks like a work of pop art!
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| Magnificent jungle scenery and plantations in Grenada |
Glenroy was an expert on indigenous plant life, and he was
always pointing out spices and fruits that we knew from shopping at our
supermarkets, but had never seen growing in the wild. He drove us through a
plantation in dense rainforest with all kinds of trees: nutmeg, passion fruit,
golden apple, guava, clove, papaya, mango, 5-fingers, rock figs, blubber,
plantains, bananas, squash, cinnamon, and more.
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| Nutmeg processing plant in Gouyve |
He took us to a nutmeg processing co-operative in the town
of Gouyve where we watched workers go thru the steps of sorting, crushing,
shucking, and bagging raw nutmeg nuts by hand.
It appeared that the nutmeg operation was about the same as it was 100
years ago – backward, very labor intensive, no mechanization, and probably using
mostly underpaid, unskilled workers.
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| Ladies removing nutmeg shells at the processing plant |
Nutmeg has always been a major crop on the
island, but in 2004, hurricane Ivan (known as "Ivan the Terrible" by those who lived thru it) wiped out 90% of the nutmeg
plantations, and the nutmeg industry is still recovering from the devastation.
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| Crater Lake in Grand Etang Tropical Rain forest |
On a lighter note, we stopped at the Grand Etang Tropical
Rain Forest of central Grenada which has been likened to the great Amazon rain
forest, on a smaller scale, of course. As we entered the park, we were
serenaded by steel drums welcoming us with the reggae beat of island music. From
the observation deck, we enjoyed beautiful views of Crater Lake and jagged mountain
tops with a thick canopy of green.
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| Incredible lushness and scenery of Grenada |
