Elaine: November 2006

Grenada pictures

Finally blogger is allowing me to upload images so here they are...

Grenada,
my friend the monkey who pretty much takes the banana from your hand and doesn't even say thank you; how rude...

There were three monkeys and the debate began on them being pets or not...

What they call elephant trees. In spanish it is a Ceiba. They are found in the rainforest, up the winding roads.

Grand Etang which is the volcano crater turned lake.

The waterfalls.

Grand Etang, our tour of Grenada

October 27, 2006

As we spent our first morning relaxing and talking to the wedding coordinator Lucille, we arranged for a tour of the island.

We hoped in Terry's car (he is also know as terrible Terry) and off we ventured. We wanted to see Grand Etang, the town and nutmeg factory. I think Dave was hoping we would go to the rum factory, but there wasn't that much time.

We arrive at the town and start walking through their open air market. All you could smell was spices. So we decided to indulge on buying some spices and their famous cocoa balls. It was all a very entertaining experience as my new husband is not very good at negotiating prices and I am the queen of negotiating, I just enjoy it.

I decided to walk by the fruits as Terry was buying some bananas, and I found my ultimate favorite guava. Anyone who knows me knows I adore anything guava and passion fruit related. So I bought this big bag of guavas, realizing afterwards that $4EC is less than $2US. So I basically had now 3lbs of guavas.

We continue to the mountains...
I have to say Grenada just has pretty views, everywhere you are there is a good point to just stand and watch the ocean, you can almost feel it in the air.

We arrive at the waterfall, and there were tons of people bathing in it, so we decided there was just too much of a crowd and kept on going.

We stop to feed the monkeys near the volcano crater turned lake. Dave thinks these are someone's pets as they are not afraid of people. But after reading further I find out they are not pets, but monkeys who live in the rainforest.

We arrive at a small lunch place to eat with the locals, I am encouraged to order Ginger Beer. Now I thought it was going to be similar to an actual beer, but now it is ginger juice and it is spicy! So I make Dave drink mine, I am not a fan of anything ginger that is so strong tasting. ughhh!

Finally we to the nutmeg factory, where we get a tour and watch some locals sell nutmeg to the factory. Fortunately we ended with a bag full of nutmegs. Now how do you crack and use them, I have no idea but I have a feeling Dave knows.

I promise to add pictures to all of this, but we need to actually get them off our camera and since our house looks like a tornado went through it, you may have to give me some time...

(to be continued)

Pictures of Calabash

Here are some pictures of the stay. I will be writing about our stay over the next couple of days.

The view from our balcony.

The beach at the hotel, it was not the best day there, but it was the only cloudy day...

I promise to write about our rainforest adventure and the monkeys!

The beginning

October 26, 2006

We arrive in Grenada at 8:30pm.
It is extremely warm in this airport, ohh yeah I forgot no A/C. Good thing cars have A/C (right?)... We go through customs and collect our luggage, here we are! Where is our car? I know we had arranged for someone to pick us up, well maybe they are running late...

We grab a taxi, he introduces himself as David. So Dave and David hit it off on the ride to the hotel. I roll my window down and can smell the nutmeg and cinnamon, ohhh my how nice. I can hear the ocean in the distance, but I can't see anything as there are barely any street lights. I suddenly realize that Dave and David are talking about rum. Then our taxi driver manages to explain that he has already had a half-bottle of rum before picking us up.

Great! are you kidding me, has anyone heard of drunk driving around here, as I strap my seat belt tighter. We manage to get to the hotel in one piece. Calabash We do our usual checking-in and then we are asked to choose our choices for breakfast. Yippeeee mango juice! I am so excited you can see it in my face. Of course this will all be cooked and delivered to our balcony at our requested time.

We are too tired to think as we have been up since 4:00am.

As we walk in our room we find a couple of bottles of champagne and some gifts, it is all too nice. But I am hoping I can just make it to bed.

As the sun rises and the birds start chirping outside our room, I realize we are in paradise! and then I smell breakfast... this became the highlight of my day.