A Journey Inland

the first of Seven Sisters Falls

the price of tropical living (pre-DEET)

cocoa fruit

fermented, drying cocoa nibs

drying mace

cocoa tea

 We all agreed it had been one of our favorite days, renting a jeep and traveling inland to Grand Etand National Forest on New Year’s Day.  The roads were narrow and winding.  Justin had the challenge of driving on the left hand side of the road with the steering wheel on the right and the stick shift on his left.  Grenadians, wise after the devastation of Hurricaine Ivan, have built their homes on stilts.  Many were barely bigger than Nina’s bedroom at home, but tidy and colorfully painted with curtains hanging in the windows.  In every village we passed through, Grenadians were out and about, sitting on their front porches or out front at the corner bar or store enjoying the holiday.  As if to remind us that teenage girls are pretty much the same everywhere, we saw some teen girls in tight clothes hanging around the center of one village.  One had a red hair weave and texted on her cellphone.  Another laughed and slapped a third girl on the arm. We passed a restaurant advertising “wild meats,” which we later found out includes iguana, opossum and armadillo.  At Grand Etang, we hiked down slopes slippery with rust-colored mud to the Seven Sisters Falls.  Later, we drove further north and toured Belmont Estates to learn how cacao is grown and processed into confection.  We sampled their version of “cocoa tea,” which is made by steeping balls of cocoa, with other spices (cinnamon bark, vanilla, nutmeg, clove, or bay leaf) in hot water, then adding milk.  The locals can be a bit poker-faced when we first approach, but Toby is the perfect ice-breaker.  She asks, “whass yer name?”  and they answer her with a smile then smile at her some more, and say how beautiful she is, and soon enough they’re even smiling at us.