Guide to Grenada

Monkeys, monkeys everywhere. These are Old World mona monkeys, weighing about 11 pounds and groomed as if they came from a beauty salon. Their fur is coffee brown, and their chipmunk-like cheeks are covered with bushy white tufts. Those closest to him sniff the air and reveal masks of bare skin around their eyes, making him look like a miniature Dick Turpin. They also act like robbers. Cautious, hungry, and with the slender fingers of a pickpocket, I fear they have come to steal my lunch.

“Mona is one of the few monkey species in the Caribbean,” says our guide Jeremy as we investigate the gang's hideout in the trees. “They act like they own the place, too.” Even from a distance, it's clear they're standing tall on the edge of a railroad track that cuts through the thick canopy of trees. As I watched them for a while, I felt for a moment that they were guarding the rainforest, swinging their tails like batons as we tried to lift the veil of their natural world. You can

Grenada's experience begins at the beginning, and this year the country celebrates 50 years of independence, having transitioned from British rule in February 1974. Five centuries before her, Grenada was first sighted by Christopher Columbus during his voyage from Sanlúcar. , Spain is on its third voyage across the Atlantic to conquer the New World. The Italians named the island Concepcion after the Immaculate Conception of Mary, the mother of Jesus, but they never set foot on its shores. It is said that Columbus suffered from recurrent arthritis that ultimately killed him, but after another week at sea, he landed on the island of Hispaniola. For me, it's much easier to arrive by minibus from the airport, as it lands near the waves of Grand Anse Beach.

Of all the islands in the Lesser Antilles, Grenada is a nearly forgotten point at the bottom of the banana curve.This country is one that is ignored by most travelers visiting this region — compared to heavy hitters like St. Lucia, Barbados, Antigua, and the Virgin Islands. And the land relies more on agriculture and export crops such as nutmeg and mace than on tourism. On first impressions, it's even better. Tourism is still developing at a relatively grassroots level here, and it feels decidedly authentic.

The first day begins on the road to Grand Etang National Park. The asphalt melts into the island's volcanic interior and rugged hills. It's a glorious autumn morning in St. George's, the island's capital. The sun breaking the clouds above Fort George's hewn battlements is a paean to the day ahead. Rainforest, on the other hand, is a thick skin with a dark dark green color. This is a place rich in nature, and as you enter the mountain road past the gas storage tanks from the suburbs, the looming bamboo begins to block the rippling blue sky. It's not that there isn't competition. Eucalyptus, teak, gum, guava, and rainbow trees creep toward the edges, almost blocking our entrance. This is not a prison, but our progress is slow.

The problem is that our minibus, with its loose exhaust and coughing engine, doesn't have enough power to accelerate uphill, especially since the air conditioner chases away the stifling heat. “The windows are open,” Jeremy shouts from the steering wheel as he turns off the air conditioning. He wastes no words, I came to learn, so our writhing bus becomes a safari vehicle, and the little details outside quickly become more exciting: our nostrils are earth, wood before heading into a car filled with smoke, diesel, and leaves. An out-of-tune steel band will make less rattles and hums than ours. As we stumble up the hill, a dizzying array of tarpaulin-covered vendors swing in with pineapples, breadfruit, and mangoes.

Grenada is oval in shape, resembling the cacao fruit that many farmers depend on, and the center of the island contains the seeds for most of this growth. It is La Grande Etane, a mineral-rich crater basin. It empties into the headwaters of steep valleys and tributaries of raging rivers. The air became heavy as I stepped onto the road's highest point, 1,910 feet above sea level. Just east of Grenada's tallest volcano is the view of the Caribbean Sea, the shallow curve of Grand Mar Bay, and the wonderfully named Mount Kua Kua, surrounded by forest greenery and where Columbus would have kicked himself if he went missing. You can see what it would have been like.

As I wander along the path to Lake Grand-Etane, my heart is filled with the landscape of what is here and what is not. In recent decades, Grenada has been hit by several tropical storms, including Hurricane Ivan, which caused widespread damage during the 2004 season. As we started driving west across the island, palm trees were pruned and the national park's tall forest canopy fell. The good news is that the species is recovering, and every candlewood and mahogany tree in the forest has recovered to knee-deep height, and the mosaic of wide, low buttresses on the forest floor is now moving out of shadow and into the light. This means that it has reached this point. At the same time, the sight of the rainforest parting and the sky dissolving into a crater lake fills my vision, and as I reach the water's edge, the silvery surface merges with the regathering clouds. The monkeys are still looking at us somewhere. It's like being in your own Indiana Jones movie.

Over the next few days, we peel back the layers of Grenada, like peeling a coconut shell piece by piece. There's so much more to see, so we keep driving, looking. I often have the urge to lounge on one of Grenada's 45 beaches, but I'm drawn instead to the deep green colors of the highlands, the clutter of the market's fruit bowls, and the burnt amber of the chocolate factory.

Still, today cocoa bean farms are becoming increasingly rare on Caribbean islands. Here they appear fleetingly on the roadside, almost stationary, in conflict with the complacent fat big producers of Ivory Coast, Ghana, and Ecuador. And today, the raison d'être of Grenada's cocoa farmers seems to be to provide a more sophisticated response to their supposed rivals. It's as if their story deserves a more romantic reimagining.

At least, I feel this is the case in St. Andrew Parish in Jouvet. This is a modest production site firmly built into the cradle of a cacao tree, from which the seeds are effortlessly harvested. When I arrived, there was no one there except for our tour guide, Nolan, who spoke little but laughed a lot. “It’s just a small dot on the map and hard to find, but you can get the best chocolate in the world here,” he said with a laugh.

Since the work is done for the day, you can have the factory operations to yourself during your independent visit. The building is almost a relic, with ragged outlines, empty wooden floors, exposed stone walls, and a basement floor that leads to a silent drying rack shed, where millions of dark chocolate-colored Raw cocoa beans are huddled together in the dark. Tomorrow, they'll be driven back into the morning sun, like a tanning shop on steroids. According to Nolan, the soundtrack is always the soft rattle of a tambourine as the seeds are scraped.

Eventually, you will reach a wheelbarrow where you will store the cocoa pods. Nolan singles out one. So he said that if you drive a knife into the seed to break the skin, then run the blade around the abdomen, the seed will open up like a Faberge egg, revealing a gelatinous white center and a mass of beans. he looks happy “I'm going to make cocoa tea with this,'' he said, handing me the pod to smell. The scent was musty, almost sour, and stuck to my palms. “It's like Viagra and the island's bestseller.” He chuckled again and clapped me on the shoulder.

Like cocoa, sugar cane processing, along with its by-product molasses, was a popular industry throughout the Lesser Antilles. River Antoine Rum Distillery, located in St. Patrick Parish, is Grenada's oldest warehouse, with water-wheel-powered machinery and a sugar cane crusher, dating back to 1785, shortly after the island was ceded by France to the British colony. It was established in the northern part of the island. But on my last afternoon, I stopped by Clark's Court instead. I don't think any place better captures the spirit of Grenadian hospitality: casualness, indulgence, and inebriation.

Along with my guide Danny, I took a tour of the distillery's corrugated hangar. Its abdomen opens onto oxidized red piping, gantries, and the skeletons of worn-out tanks and tanks, some of which appear to have been salvaged from a scrapyard. Even though it's technically a work day, there's a definite sense of fun in the air. Rum is an integral part of Caribbean culture and is used throughout the region as a tonic to baptize newborns, remember the dead, and ward off evil spirits. And it's not hard to understand the open arms gesture and sense of camaraderie that comes from this wonderful liquid sunshine.

When I hold rum in my hands, I too can feel its warmth. At Nick's Barrel House, located next to the factory floor, a strong vanilla spirit coated my tongue and throat, immediately taking on the influence of alcohol. There, merchandise is sold to visitors and calypso music is played on the television. A sweet melody fits the mood perfectly, and there's an undercurrent of satisfaction as the browns, coppers, and caramels of the various aged rums swirl in the glass like freshly mixed paint. Around me, locals twirled and laughed as they emptied bottles of nutmeg, cinnamon, and hibiscus rum.

Then I went back to St. George's and talked about the other Caribbean islands I know, Jamaica, Barbados, the Dominican Republic, and how I was there, rushing around each island impatiently in search of our own little piece of paradise. Reminds me of all the tourists. It could be the evening sun. It shines gold and falls from the horizon into the slot like a coin, but I stare for a moment, looking back at the misty rainforest, volcanoes, winding roads, and tropical delights I wish the island would become. . It will continue to grow for the next 50 years. In Grenada, it feels like history is happening now.