BRENT PIN­HEIRO

Pro­duc­er

brent.pin­heiro@guardian.co.tt

Less than an hour away from T&T lies our clos­est Caribbean neigh­bour – Grena­da aka the Spice Isle. Grena­da and T&T share strong her­itage links, and vis­it­ing the coun­try is like vis­it­ing a home away from home. Blessed with beau­ti­ful vis­tas and friend­ly peo­ple, Grena­da is one place that should be on every­one’s trav­el list. And when you get there, here are 5 things you should def­i­nite­ly do.

1. Stock up on spices from the Isle of Spice

To bor­row, and remix, a line from Na­dia Bat­son’s smash hit ‘Mar­ket’... If yuh look­ing for spices to put in­side yuh bas­ket, Grena­da has d whole, d whole mar­ket! And that dear read­er is no ex­ag­ger­a­tion. Gi­ant cin­na­mon bark, mace, nut­meg, pep­per­corns - you name it, and you can get it prac­ti­cal­ly any­where on the is­land. But pay a vis­it to the his­toric Mar­ket Square in down­town St George’s for a glimpse in­to Grena­di­an mar­ket cul­ture. This vi­brant mar­ket boasts nut­meg, Grena­da’s black gold, in all shapes and forms – think lo­tions, balms, jel­lies, jams, med­i­c­i­nal sprays, BBQ sauce, the list goes on. You’ll al­so find oth­er items like clove, cake spices, berg­amot, and gin­ger, all neat­ly pack­aged for sale.

The mar­ket al­so boasts a wide va­ri­ety of fruits and veg­eta­bles, and you may even find some unique va­ri­eties of some fa­mil­iar pro­duce. Of course, no mar­ket vis­it would be com­plete with­out a lit­tle snack so bring out your in­ner food­ie at the nuts man with some hot on the spot hon­ey roast­ed or gin­ger peanuts. Or if you’re watch­ing your fig­ure, look out for the co­conut ven­dor who will be more than hap­py to give you fresh co­conut wa­ter straight from the nut. Even if you nev­er cook a meal while in Grena­da, it's still an ex­cit­ing way to meet the lo­cals while stock­ing up on some sup­plies for your spice mar­ket.

2. Sip cock­tails by the An­nan­dale Wa­ter­fall

Grena­da’s rain­for­est in­te­ri­or boasts 15 wa­ter­falls - some re­quire hours of hik­ing to ac­cess, while oth­ers are a mere 1-minute walk from the main road. An­nan­dale Wa­ter­fall lies in that sec­ond cat­e­go­ry. On­ly a 20-minute dri­ve from the cap­i­tal, An­nan­dale Wa­ter­fall & For­est Park fea­tures a stun­ning 30-foot drop wa­ter­fall with an emer­ald-coloured plunge pool. The colour can change de­pend­ing on the amount of rain­fall so don’t be sur­prised if it's not ex­act­ly IG per­fect. Still, it’s easy to ac­cess with a stair­case right next to the falls. On cer­tain days you can even see some lo­cal dare­dev­ils jump­ing off the top of the falls, much to the de­light of the on­look­ers.

Perched at the edge of the falls is the Wild Or­chid Restau­rant and Bar, an open con­cept restau­rant with a drink menu is far more ex­ten­sive than the food menu, not that any­one is com­plain­ing. Af­ter all, it's al­ways five o'clock some­where am I right? It’s a fan­tas­tic lo­ca­tion to re­lax and en­joy the sooth­ing sounds of the wa­ter rush­ing past (and al­so cheer on the jumpers!). On the way back from the falls, stop by Mark’s Sports Bar for some un­der the counter – Grena­da's ver­sion of ‘babash’. One shot is enough to have you speak­ing an­oth­er lan­guage! Which one... well, you de­cide!

3. Take a Spice Food­ie Tour

Un­der the counter is just one of the many things savvy trav­ellers know Grena­da for. Like many Caribbean coun­tries, the is­land has some fan­tas­tic food and what bet­ter way to dis­cov­er them than on a food­ie tour. This isn’t your av­er­age food­ie tour though; in fact, this is the one tour where it is ac­cept­able, en­cour­aged ac­tu­al­ly, to walk with your ‘bel­ly in your hand’ be­cause the food keeps com­ing!

Start off with a typ­i­cal Grena­di­an break­fast of bake, salt­fish souse, frit­ters, and boiled egg washed down with fruit flavoured sea moss. Then make your way to Mark’s Sports Bar for round 2 of un­der the counter plus rum punch (with a sprin­kle of nut­meg of course) and a les­son in Grena­di­an fruits and spices. Walk, or stum­ble, back in­to your trans­port and head north for some fresh co­conut wa­ter, and roast or boiled corn be­fore stop­ping for a sump­tu­ous lunch of oil down. Grena­di­an oil down is a lot dri­er than Tri­ni oil down which tends to be wet­ter. Now I will not be held re­spon­si­ble for spark­ing an­oth­er is­land war of words over food (who say cur­rants roll? #iykyk) but I will say this... it was DE­LI­CIOUS!

Don’t get too com­fort­able yet, there’s one more item on the menu – snow cone! This isn’t your reg­u­lar snow cone though, Dwayne aka ‘Ice Dan’ in Grenville has not one, not two, but NINE­TEEN flavours! We’re talk­ing sor­rel, tamarind, straw­ber­ry, pineap­ple and, of course nut­meg! This one tour that will have you say­ing please sir can I have some more!

4. Tie the knot un­der­wa­ter

Get­ting mar­ried in Ve­gas is so 2008. For some­thing far more ex­cit­ing, head over to the new un­der­wa­ter chapel at Grand Mal, St George’s. With an arch and 4 bench­es in­stalled, your wed­ding par­ty (and the oc­ca­sion­al fish) can watch you tie the knot while 15 feet un­der­wa­ter. You’ll swim away with one heck of a sto­ry to tell at the next din­ner par­ty. Just ask Amer­i­can cou­ple Kim Ter­rell and Arthur Miller who were the first black cou­ple to say I do un­der­wa­ter just a few days ago.

If a wed­ding isn’t quite on the cards for you yet, don’t wor­ry. There’s al­ways the Mo­linere Un­der­wa­ter Sculp­ture Park on the oth­er side AND there are even new sculp­tures to dis­cov­er at the lat­est in­stal­la­tion ‘A World Adrift’ in Car­ri­a­cou. Sev­er­al of the sculp­tures can be seen by snorkel­ers but some do re­quire ei­ther scu­ba gear or the abil­i­ty to free dive. The sculp­tures act as ar­ti­fi­cial reefs but they al­so car­ry a mes­sage about the cli­mate cri­sis, re­mind­ing vis­i­tors of the ecosys­tem’s frag­ile na­ture.

5. Learn how ar­ti­san choco­late is made

The Aztecs be­lieved co­coa was giv­en to them by the gods. Con­sid­ered more valu­able than gold, they used co­coa beans as a cur­ren­cy to pay for goods and oth­er items. Nowa­days, you prob­a­bly won’t find a sin­gle es­tab­lish­ment that ac­cepts pay­ment in choco­late not even those gold choco­late coins! In­stead grab your US or EC dol­lars and head to Bel­mont House for an “au­then­tic tree-to-bar choco­late ex­pe­ri­ence” in Grena­da’s north. The es­tate has been grow­ing co­coa since the 1700s for ex­port to Eu­rope and vis­i­tors can take an in­for­ma­tive tour to learn how co­coa pods are picked from the fields and the beans turned in­to fine choco­late. Along the way there are co­coa tea sam­ples (my favourite thing), and an op­por­tu­ni­ty to ‘walk the co­coa’ on the dry­ing trays. The tour fin­ish­es up at the Choco­late Fac­to­ry where you can watch choco­latiers hand­craft the small batch choco­late bars. The at­tached gift shop al­lows any­one to buy sou­venir, or two, to take home.

There’s al­so an on­site restau­rant that serves up some de­li­cious lo­cal cui­sine – just in case the tour works up an ap­petite!