The Significant Other's Club offered a free island tour two weeks ago. I wasn't going to miss it this term! The boys got to miss school for it, and we were bused around the island all day, in an air conditioned bus (woohoo!), and learned so much about our little island. A great opportunity for the boys to learn, in a hands on way, all about their current home.
Our first stop was two forts that are right next to each other. Fort Frederik and Fort Matthew. "Miss Alice in Wonderland" was a guide there and gave us a little introduction in front of the fort. I am skeptical about the legitimacy of her name, but she's got to do what she can to be memorable, and that sure worked. She showed us where the prison was and told us a little about it. It only houses about 300 inmates. Men, woman, and juveniles are housed there. Standing at the fort, we could see the prison below, along with their working farm and housing.
The history of these forts is so interesting. They were French, then British, then back and forth, back and forth. Fort Frederick was used as an "lunatic asylum" in it's later years. The U.S. accidentally bombed the fort in 1983 killing many people. There is still rubble and the broken down buildings.
The bombed out buildings can be seen below. There is also a tunnel system that seemed to go from room to room. The whole place was really cool and I really want to go back and take more time to explore everything!
Our next stop was the Nutmeg Processing Factory. This was my second time touring the factory and I really love it. It is one of those experiences that is so different from anything in America. The woman sort nutmeg by hand and they are incredibly fast. They get paid by the weight of their finished bag of sorted nutmeg, not by hour.
The woven bags that hold the nutmeg are labeled by hand with stencils and paint. There are metal stencils for cities all over the world.
The whole factory smelled like nutmeg. So yummy!
We drove from the west side of the island, through the middle, to the east side. I loved getting to sit back and soak in everything. The middle of the island is so beautiful, lush and green. We drove by so many farms, and the farms here are so different from farms in America. The farms here aren't separated by fences. It looks like random plants on various hills, but the farmers and people who tend the land know exactly what area is theirs.
On the other side of the island we stopped at the Belmont Estate, otherwise known as the chocolate factory. This is our new favorite thing to do here. The kids love it! We skipped out on the tour this time because we did it just the week before with Jason. We met another woman who also had been there a few times before, and she showed us this tree that had some edible fruit. The fruit is called one finger, probably because it looks like a long green finger. Everyone tried a bit. A little sour, but not bad, kind of sweet. Jake just kept on eating his. And like many other fruit trees here, the fruit grows straight from the bark.
The variety of fruits and vegetables here has really opened my eyes to how much about the world I never knew, and still don't know! I love that about this experience.
Parker was taking notes about everything along the way.
The chocolate factory also has a small zoo. Jake was so excited to get to go back and see Rainbow, the talking parrot, again. He asked me, "Mom, do you think Rainbow will remember me?" Love that. Him and Olivia really think the bird is talking to them and they love it! It says the same things over and over: hello, rainbow, happy birthday, polly want a cracker and goodbye. I know there are a few more but I can't remember right now.
The factory also houses goats for their goat dairy. They partner with local youth to help them learn how to make goat cheese. All the kids loved feeding the goats some grass.
The family picture (minus a studious Jason) under the tiki hut.
These are the drying racks where the cocoa "beans" are dried and walked through every half hour. They walk through them to break them up. It's the traditional way to do it, and I think they still do it because it attracts the tourists. They also have a greenhouse building where they dry the cocoa in a more modern way, using a rake to shift the cocoa around. It dries much faster in the inside area.
After the chocolate factory we drove to a rum distillery. Although I don't drink rum, it was still interesting to see the historical way they make their product. Below Parker is sitting on some old drying rack tracks writing his notes. I found their exercise equipment pretty creative. Grenadians can make anything our of cement.
The french built this distillery (I think) in the 1700's sometime. They used the water wheel to power the machines that squeeze the juice out of the sugar cane. Our guide showed us how it worked. It was fascinating to see the water wheel pick up speed as he let more and more water flow into it. With 3 young kids around though, all I could think about was how many openings there were into where it was spinning and grinding and how there was no way to stop it fast if something bad should happen. Just paranoid mom thoughts. ;)
The sugar cane gets squeezed and the juice flows out into a pipe that takes it to the boiler room. The juice is heated by burning dried, discarded sugar cane. It is heated in stages, and moves from one giant metal pot to another, until it reaches the fermenting room. Imagine the smell in there! Luckily it was mostly open to the breeze. From there it is processed more until it is finally rum. This particular rum factory was very proud of how they have one of the highest alcohol content in their rum. It was 75 proof! Not exactly sure what that even means but it sure impressed some of the drinkers in our tour. They can't even export it because the alcohol content is so high. Funny thing to be proud of.
The kids on the tour enjoyed climbing the sugar cane mountain. Except for Jake who had disappeared. Not the best place for me to lose a kid. Jake had a little problem on the tours. He'd just go wherever he wanted. Luckily there were two other woman who I know in the front of the tour and they kept their eye on him. I was more than a little frustrated with this little independence streak by the end of the day! I mean, you see that water wheel and that fire and that boiler room! Eeek!
I had to get a few pics along the way. There were fields of sugar cane, mounds of dried cane, creative back yard gardens, and fresh paint alongside the roads celebrating their recent independence day. I always love driving past this beautiful Anglican church.
Last stop was an area we called "the blow hole." An area where water comes in from two tunnels.
Goofballs, these two!
Olivia was along for the whole thing, but she stayed safely tucked away in the ergo for most of the day so she didn't make it into many of the pics. It was a long day of exploring but we all had so much fun! I am so glad we went. I have so much video footage to sort through and one of these days I will get around to it and I will post a video.
