George and Deborah's Great Adventures: Ride With Winston

Sunday, 5 January 2014

Grenada is a small island nation. It is about 31 kms long and 19 kms wide. There are almost 110,000 citizens and of those, 34,000 live in St. George’s. To learn a little more about the place, we hired our new friend Winston to drive us around for the day and give us his take on the local geography and history.

Tour Guide Winston

Apparently the Carib Indians were the first inhabitants. They were a fierce, warring nation that regularly feasted on their enemies but when the French arrived in 1649, they didn’t take to French cooking and committed mass suicide jumping off cliffs rather than face French rule. The French influence remains and can be seen in the many place names around the island.

The British took over in 1763 when Grenada was a spoil of war between England and France in Europe. It remained under British control until independence in 1973. Grenada continues with the British democratic system and right hand drive cars on the left side of the road.

Winston was a boy but clearly remembers the invasion by the US in 1983. Maurice Bishop and his Marxist party usurped the democratically elected government in a bloodless revolution in 1979. Winston said they took over the radio stations and when folks woke up the next morning, the airwaves were filled with messages about remaining calm and that a new government was in place. Apparently things were going okay and people loved Maurice Bishop. That is everybody except his deputy prime minister who, backed by the army, had Bishop and his cabinet executed. This prompted the American invasion. The Americans said it was to protect the American medical students at the university. The US troops were met with resistance from the Grenadian army, supplemented by Cuban and U.S.S.R. troops. In Winston’s words, the Grenadians changed uniforms very quickly but the Cubans and Russians fought hard. It was all over in short order and while the US’s actions were condemned by the United Nations; the Caribbean nations were fully supportive. According to Winston the bodies of Bishop and his cabinet were never found. The national airport now bears Bishop’s name.

The rest of the day was spent meandering the steep, narrow, mountain roads hearing about the nation’s rich farming history. Grenada was known as the “Spice Island”, rich in nutmeg, chocolate, and cinnamon among others. The industry took a huge step backward in 2004 when Hurricane Ivan destroyed most of the agriculture. Grenada was once the world’s top producer of nutmeg but lost most of their trees in the hurricane. Since it takes a nutmeg tree 10 years to produce, maybe there will be resurgence in 2014. Now the economy is mostly based on tourism.

Deborah’s pictures will tell the tale of the day.

Cocoa Pod

Cloves

The Cocoa Bean from the Pod

Coffee Beans

Apparently Folks Here Eat Them

Breadfruit

We ended the day with a dingy ride to Roger’s Beach Bar for rums and BBQ as the sun went down.