It’s my first day in Grenada. The day dawns hot and sticky, so I walk very slowly to breakfast. Luckily, there is a table free on the shaded terrace so I go about the business of having my eggs (staple I can’t live without) and decide on a Caribbean favourite to accompany it. Today it will be banana fritters. The fruit and fruit juice served with every breakfast at the Kalinago Resort are sweet and almost over ripe but refreshing. I eat three fritters and take three with me for my lunch.
A local variety of crow keeps hopping onto my table and underneath it, looking for something to eat. But what really surprises me, as soon as I move away, is that he has a packet of sugar in his beak. Sugar is what he was after!
Golden Sand Beach with Turquoise Water
A walk along the beach outside my hotel is just magical. Morne Rouge Beach is quiet, the pure turquoise water, calm. Pale golden sand crunches under my feet and a cooling breeze has just started ruffling the water. I catch a glimpse here and there of skittering, scurrying sand coloured crabs.
Scurrying into his burrow
There is a perfect conch shell tumbling in the surf. In the old days, I would have picked it up and taken it home. But thought better of it today.
Being buffeted by the waves
As I walk onto the hotel grounds, a green coloured lizard with an iridescent belly crosses my path. The bartender and I admire him.
Harry the bartender, explains that the round, brown object I have picked up is not a spice at all but a rotten apple from the Manchineel Tree. He instructs me to be careful as a ripe piece of this fruit is somewhat poisonous and the juice will irritate my skin. We move on to the beautiful almonds that are lying about. I try the fruit of the nut and then he cracks one open with a rock, so I can try the almond as well. Both are delicious.
In the afternoon, it is over to True Blue Resort for a cooking lesson with duo Esther and Omega. It is actually more of a comic routine as the two of them are very funny indeed. Apparently, they appear on Grenadian television. Along with about 15 other people in the audience, we learn to prepare Callaloo Chicken and Plaintains cooked in Ginger Orange Sauce. Both are Grenadian specialties. There are lots of jokes about ‘breasts’ when volunteers are brought up to stuff the chicken meat. All very funny. I particularly warm to Omega, a large and lovely lady, who has a very self-deprecating sense of humour, while Esther seems to be the one with the cooking know how.
I couldn’t have a better start to my seven night trip and am looking forward to sharing more about this wonderful island.