Grenada – The Spice of the Caribbean
November 2-10th, 2005
 

I flew into San Juan November 1st to overnight at the Sheraton Old San Juan. Getting from the airport to the hotel was a quick and easy cab ride and once checked in, got to my room to discover that it had a wonderful view of the water. It was night time, but you can see the ships in port with their lights on. It was so humid here, quite the change from a November winter in Alberta, but in short time I was getting used to the temperatures and humidity and looking forward to almost a full day in San Juan before catching the flight to Grenada.

The next morning, when light, I opened my patio doors to take a few more pictures of the harbour, a leisurely breakfast in my room, then off to walk around and discover a bit of Old San Juan. There is a wonderful walk that you can do that takes you right around the city wall. The La Muralla or City Wall was begun in the 1700’s, is 42 feet high and still surrounds Old San Juan, in fact San Juan means walled city. I started walking from the hotel towards the Castillo San Felipe del Morrow on the path and was treated to the most incredible views of the water. Breathtaking! You can see a bit of the wall by looking at the picture with the big red entrance. If you went through that you would be on streets with houses and people as this wall forms the old walled city dating back 500 years. There is also a picture showing you how the wall was built – stone by stone and others showing you just how thick it was. Those little circular towers are where guards used to stand. What you are looking at are the tops of the walls, these walls were up to 20 feet thick! There is much to read here on this beautiful city http://welcome.topuertorico.org/city/sanjuan.shtml

Then walking through the streets I came across all kinds of wonderful facades, tile work and stained glass. Everywhere I walked there were reminders of the thick city walls that enclosed and protected once upon a time.

Now it was time to go to the airport to catch our American Airlines flight to Grenada. We arrived a couple of hours later to a couple of fellows singing us a welcome to Grenada and a nice refreshment was offered. Then to our hotel, the Blue Horizons http://grenadabluehorizons.com/ for the next week. How wonderful to settle in to one hotel for a fam trip. Most fams have you hotel hop. For this one we stayed in the same place and went to check out other hotels so it was very nice. The hotel was so quiet and I had the most incredible view of the rain forest over Grenada so I could see the rain clouds coming and the rainbows! Very nice and large – living area, kitchen, bathroom, bedroom and a balcony. This hotel looks down onto Grand Anse Beach, two miles of pure sand, clear water and gentle surf. Those in the know say this is the island's most attractive beach.
This fam got the nick name “Iron Man Fam” for a very good reason…as you see there were three groups within the one – the ones like me, who wanted to see the gardens, another one that was into the cultural side of things and the last group, that was the biggest, those of the multi-sport liking. Now coordinating us all were just two ladies from outside Grenada and one from the island, and boy did they coordinate! By the end of this fam we all felt like we should have won a medal…but that being said, it was fantastic how they looked after all of us, took all the nattering we did in stride and made sure we all got to see what we needed to see in order to make it a success.

This small nation consists of three islands: Grenada, Carriacou (pronounced Carry-a KOO), and Petite Martinique (pronounced Pitty Mar-ti-NEEK). Grenada is the largest of the three, with a width of twelve miles (18 km) and a length of twenty-one miles (34 km). Grenada’s National Flag is described as: Red for courage and vitality, Gold for wisdom and sun, Green for the lands fertility. 7 stars for the Parishes and Nutmeg for the Isle of Spice. They became independent in 1974. (People drive on the opposite side of the road as they do in England and be sure to bring a UK adaptor).