Grenada Tour Begins

At precisely 10 o’clock on Saturday morning, Lennox was walking toward Django as we were heading toward him. He lead us to his taxi, which was quite different from the little blue beat up car he’d picked us up with on our walk. This van could seat 16 and came with all the mod cons...including, thank heavens, air conditioning.

Lennox and our conveyance

Lennox dug up a map and, in consultation with it and our Rough Guide to the Caribbean, we decided on a route that would let us see much of the island and sites that had particularly piqued my or WW’s interest. We set off first toward St. George’s, planning to pass to the northeast of it on our way to Grand Etang (which, given local pronunciation, I kept hearing as “Granite Town”) Forest Reserve.

Lennox pulled the taxi over at a lookout point up by a fort built by the French during their occupation of the island. Grenada, like many other Caribbean Islands, changed hands during the period of European colonization.

The British arrived first but it was the French who built the first town, in 1650, which sank into St. George’s Lagoon. The Carib inhabitants put up a fierce resistance to the French presence. Eventually, the last 40 fled and, finding themselves at the northern end of the island with the French in hot pursuit, they all leapt from a 100-foot cliff rather than surrender. The place is called Sauteurs or Caribs’ Leap.

Grenada passed to Britain as part of the 1783 Treaty of Paris and, barring a peasant rebellion in 1795, the British ruled peacefully until 1877 when Grenada was made a crown colony. It gained full independence in 1974 under the rather corrupt leadership of union leader Eric Gairy and his notorious Mongoose Gang (secret police). A bloodless coup replaced Gairy with Maurice Bishop’s Revolutionary Government in 1979. This was the government that became embroiled in the Cold War, receiving assistance from the USSR and Cuba. This eventually led to invasion by the U.S. in 1983, ostensibly to evacuate American medical students. However, concern over increased Soviet influence in the Caribbean undoubtedly played a significant role. Grenadians still seem miffed by the high-handedness of the action.

Since that time, Grenada has been puttering along nicely, with the exception of Hurricane Ivan, which slammed into the southeast of the island in 2004, followed almost immediately by Tropical Storm Emily, which mangled the northwest.

Agriculture, the basis of Grenada’s affluence (by Caribbean standards) was annihilated. The rainforest was levelled. Buildings were razed. However, the people have rebuilt their lives and their homes, and the greenery cannot be held back. I mentioned to Lennox what a comeback the island seems to have made. “Oh yes. Grenadians are resilient,” he said.

But revenons a nos moutons...the reason for visiting this hilltop fort was for us to have a glorious view of St. George’s from high above the city. Nature had other plans. The cloud was so low as to obliterate almost any trace of the town, with only the nearby prison visible in the murky downpour. Lennox decided to try an alternate route and save the rain forest for later in the day, when the weather might be better.

The nonview over the Grenadian prison down to St. George's

(The fort houses the offices of national emergency response body. Lennox told us it was originally called NERO for National Emergency Response Organization, however, its poor performance during and after Ivan had the head of government call it ZERO. It has since changed its name.)