Ann's Blog

Grenada:
December 28, 2009
Mountains and mud, cocoa and callaloo: A hike that had it all

Weeks ago, Hunter and Devi on Arctic Tern had proposed a hike they thought Steve and I would enjoy: Starting at Grand Etang, the vast national park in the middle of Grenada, we would hike to Fountainbleu Falls and Concord Falls, then walk another mile-and-a-half (on paved road) to the village of Concord, on the island’s west side, where we could catch a bus back to St. George’s. The plan was derailed, however, when a landslide blocked a section of west coast road, and therefore our homebound route.

But just before Christmas, the road reopened. With a forecast of dry weather ahead, we set Dec. 28th for the hike. It would be my last Grenadian adventure before I headed north for the launch of The Spice Necklace in Canada. And it delivered a bit of everything I love about this island.

Eight of us convened on the dock in Lower Woburn at 6:30 a.m. – the crews of Arctic Tern, Tusen Takk II, Unicorn, and Receta – and walked up to the road to await a bus to St. George’s, where we would catch the bus that crossed the middle of the island, going past the entrance to Grand Etang. Rain came before a bus (so much for that dry forecast), and a young man invited us to shelter on the porch of his house. “Looks like you’ve starting liming early today,” Hunter said to him, noting the can of Carib he was drinking. “No,” he replied. “I’m waiting for the bus, too, to go to work.” Turned out he was a bus driver himself, heading into St. George’s to pick up his bus – just lubricating himself for the work ahead. (In The Spice Necklace, I quote a long-time resident of Grenada, who described the island’s bus drivers as “busy private entrepreneurs with an urgent appointment with death.” Our new acquaintance seemed to be proving the point.)

By 8:00 a.m., we were at the entrance to the park. The mona monkeys, which usually appear to greet visitors, were nowhere to be seen; they must have known it was too early for tour buses – whose driver/guides carry bananas – and that hikers with backpacks and walking sticks are an unlikely source of treats.

The hike started on a well-groomed (by Grenada standards) trail that climbed steadily towards the summit of Mt. Qua Qua. This was the Scenic Vistas phase of the hike, offering views of the Grand Etang crater lake, the mountains, and the sea. The mountainsides, though lushly carpeted in green, still showed the effects of 2005’s Hurricane Ivan, with snapped tree trunks sticking up through the mat of bushes, vines, and other quicker-to-make-a-comeback vegetation. About two-thirds of the way to the top of Mt. Qua Qua, a more rugged, trail branched to the left towards the falls. Now we were going mostly downhill – and steeply, with Hunter and Chuck at the front of the pack, occasionally swinging their cutlasses to cut away the vines, bushes, branches, and razor grass that encroached on the trail. (Razor grass, also known as saw grass, gets its names for good reason: It’s sharp faces tear at your skin, leaving scratches and drawing blood. On a hike to the top of Grenada’s highest mountain, St. Catherine, the trail was overgrown with razor grass in several places, and despite deft cutlass work by the guys, we returned looking like we’d spent the night in a sack full of cats. “You vex with Steve last night?” our Grenadian friend Dwight asked me, when he spotted Steve’s heavily scratched arms.)

 

This was the hike’s Gorgeous Close-Ups phase: beams of sunlightpickingout brilliant red heliconia, vines twisted artfully around tree trunks, water burbling over stones, my by-now mud-coated hiking shoes…. Our group hadn’t seen anyone else since the start of the trail – until we climbed over the boulders that were the final approach to Fountainbleau Falls. Suddenly, there were other people right behind us: They’d come from a different direction, walking in a short distance from a road nearby, their aim not a hike but a swim under the falls. Drat. We wanted the Swimming in the Wilderness Phase to ourselves, and we got company.

The falls drop 65 feet into a glorious pool  – irresistible after almost four hours of hiking – but no place to change into swimsuits. We all improvised (since quickly slipping my sweaty body into my one-piece suit was impossible, I opted for a fetching and reasonably modest combo of the Lycra top I’d been hiking in and my leopard-spotted panties) and headed in. An awesome cool down, especially right under the falls, where the pounding water delivered a brain freeze that left me gasping.

The Old Plantation Phase came next, as we walked a rough track that cut through fields that had once been part of a nutmeg, cocoa and sugar estate. Steve spotted one ripe cocoa pod on a derelict tree, twisted it off, and cutlassed it open, so we could suck the beans. (The white pulp that encases them seems especially sweet when you’ve worked this hard to get it.) Some areas were still under cultivation – we spotted sorrel ready for harvesting, bushes with seasoning peppers, lots of callaloo. As Steve, not noted for a great sense of balance, paused before stepping-stoning his way across the stream one more time, an older Grenadian woman approached and offered her longer walking stick. She had accessorized her modest dress with no-nonsense rubber boots and a pork-pie style rain hat, and she carried an umbrella and a large sack as well as her walking stick. Hunter offered to carry her sack since she, too, was heading towards Concord Falls, and this was how we made the acquaintance of Dora – 75 years old and still farming a plot of land on a steep hillside above the track we were walking, taking tomatoes, callaloo, sive and thyme, and whatever else was bearing to the market in St. George’s every Friday.

Concord Falls, easily accessible by road and thus part of the regular tour bus route, lacked the secluded, undeveloped beauty of Fountainbleau, but was a handy place for us to lighten our packs by consuming lunch (tortilla rollups with peanut butter and guava jam, dried fruit, and a shared bar of Grenada 71% cocoa chocolate for the crew of Receta, in case you’re wondering.)

Afterwards, we found Dora still waiting for a ride the last mile-and-a-half down the road to the village of Concord, where she lived. So Hunter once again shouldered her sack, and she walked along with us. (The road was quite steep – going this way, at least, was downhill – but Dora said she sometimes walked between her farm and her house twice a day.) At the falls, I had spotted callaloo growing, but unlike the familiar green variety, the leaves of these plants were a velvety midnight black, and I asked her about them. “I’ll show you when we get to my house,” she said.

She didn’t just show us. She insisted on cutting a large bunch of black callaloo for our group to take home from her glorious garden. “You cook it just like deh other callaloo – but this one very rich in iron.” (Callaloo tastes like a rogue spinach – with a stronger taste and texture. We love it cooked in coconut milk with seasonings such as garlic, sive, thyme, and a bit of hot pepper; my favorite recipe for it is in The Spice Necklace.) And then Dora also plucked branches of santa maria, a minty herb used for tea. “We Grenadians like to share,” she said. This was clearly the Another Reason We Love Grenada Phase of the hike.

We promised we’d search her out in the St. George’s market when we were next there on a Friday, and headed on down the road, finishing the hike with cold Caribs in the village of Concord while we waited, as the Grenadians say, for the bus to reach.

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