January 5th - Grenada (Day Five)
The captain on EC1 seems to like to hear his voice over the intercom so we were woken up by him again this morning. St-Georges & Carenage port in Grenada were surprisingly beautiful…tied for most beautiful port with Port Elizabeth, Bequia. Picked up some maps and directions to the bus terminal from the Tourism Office and off we were. We went walking and found the Food Fare, a supermarket I read about. This was the most impressive grocery store i’ve seen so far in the Caribbean…stocked with a huge selection of cheese and tons of thai cooking sauces! We kept on walking around and popped into many little food shops looking for a snack. We never really found anything…most places were already sold out of their beef rotis, so we found the #2 bus and headed to La Sagesse. They dropped us in front of a narrow paved road (more like driveway). It was a scenic and quiet walk down. We saw lots of lush greenery, an Indian man who confirmed this was the right way to the beach, a black ox, and more goats. On the way back Kevin spotted a group of ants working together to transport a large bug. We’ve never seen a group of ants working together to carry something…must have been about 40 ants working as a group. La Sagesse Nature Center is a hotel owned by a Polish lady, Nancy. She greeted us when we entered and I told her we would hang out on the beach and then come back for lunch. I picked a secluded spot (apparently infested by mosquitos), laid out the beach towel, and ran out to the water. This beach was very unique. The sand was not white but mocha color, the softest most powdery sand ever. It was tightly packed so when you walked on it, it didn’t spread all over your feet. The water was warm like bath water and there were little gentle baby waves. We swam around for a bit and I relaxed on the water, floating on my back with my arms out like a cross. It was the most relaxing 30 minutes of the entire trip…suspended in a calm ocean, warmed by the sun and water, completely silent and peaceful. Swimming always makes me hungry so we retreated back to the hotel’s restaurant. We snagged a table right next to the beach and ordered grilled kingfish, pumpkin soup and a side of fries. The fish was delicious but the most interesting part of the meal was the salad dressing. It was a beet and cabbage vinaigrette dressing which I poured all over the fries. Nancy, the owner, joined us for a while. She was living here since the 80s and had the nicest things to say about Grenada (but not about Americans). She just bought 7 acres in the rainforest and said there were little farms up there that were the “sweetest” things.

After lunch, we went back to the ship to shower and change. We stopped by Food Fare to buy Caribbean hot sauce, bread, blue cheese, havarti and sausage for late-night snacks. We had dinner at the Creole Shack; a cafeteria-style restaurant filled with locals. We tried the stewed pork, pumpkin, cole slaw, pelau, and fried fish. Delicious! We were hassled by a bum and a man named Walter on the walk back to the ship. He told us tons of stories about being in the Vietnam war, living in San Diego & San Francisco, and being born in 1949. Interesting stuff but I doubt most of it was true.

Back on the ship we snacked on the cheese, sausage, and bread. Kevin had a late night snack of fries while I was sleeping. I was pretty tired and was out cold for the rest of the night.