Day 3 - Monday, St. George

Monday after breakfast we met with the activities guide for the resort and sort of planned out the rest of our week. We decided to go downtown for a few hours just to see the city a bit. The hotel runs a shuttle that leaves around 10:00 and picks up around 13:00, only 3 hours but it is hot in the city. It is obvious that St. George is old, the city was in the path of hurricane Ivan in 2004.  Over 90% of the homes were damaged by Ivan, so there is a lot of construction in the city still going on.

We were dropped off in the center of the city and decided to hike up to Fort St. George.

It is a climb up to the fort but the views were spectacular.













The fort like most buildings in Grenada was severely damaged by hurricane Ivan but surprisingly, the fort is still occupied by a shoe shop, that does all the boot repair for the local police.

The fort is historic, being built in the early 1700's and played a part in nearly every conflict in this region since. At this fort in 1983 Prime Minister Maurice Bishop and his supporters were executed by the more Marxist wing of their party, as were many ordinary citizens.  We also ran into a group of walking guides, that appeared to be in training, getting schooled on the fort's history. They were also having debates about political subjects, it was interesting to hear the banter. One of the guides explained to the girls the proper pronunciation of Grenada.  It is not Gre-nodda, that is a place in Spain, here it is Gre-nay-da.  He further explained that they love Americans because President Regan liberated them in 1983 when the Communists were trying to make Grenada another Cuba.

From the fort the views are just spectacular of the city and harbor.

The fort itself is in decline and it does not appear that there is any money to restore it.

Parts of the fort without roofs are going fast.

You also get a great view of St George's Presbyterian church which was destroyed by Ivan.

We saw several tall ships coming to port, they are majestic to say the least.














After the fort we took a different path back to the city and wandered around the city lost for a bit, but found our way to the spice market.  The smells were awesome, but the vendors were a bit predatory for us, so we did not spend much time.

We wanted to sit and take a break, so asked people where to go and were given pseudo directions to a restaurant called Nut Meg. The directions were basically go thru the tunnel and ask someone.

To get there you have to share the tunnel with the cars, it is a bit nerve racking but everyone survived.

Barely enough room for people and cars.













Once through the tunnel, I asked a man for directions, he said "I will take you". The people are amazingly nice. It was good that he took us because it was a zig zag path through the city.
We had a nice time at Nut Meg's, we each shared Nut Meg ice cream.  We eventually made our way back to the pickup point and shuttled back to the resort.

At one point yesterday while exploring I followed a trail up a ridge trying to find my way to the next resort, I didn't..but I found goats and a coconut. The next challenge was how to husk and crack it.

It is amazing what you can do with a butter knife.

The coconut was very sweet and tasty.


















After resting a bit we planned to go to the end of the beach and check out a restaurant called the Aquarium.  On the way is Trader's beach bar, part of our resort. It is on the beach under the shade of palm trees. We were only going to check it out, but once we sat on the deck in the nice breeze, it was hard to leave. The only thing that got us out was that they close the bar at 5PM.  So we moved down the beach to the Aquarium, it is closed on Monday...doh, but we checked it out. It appears to be high end but a very cool place. We may check it out again later in the week.

While at the Aquarium, I tried to scale the rocks to get to the next resort "Sandals", again I failed. Climbing the big rocks was fun, until I lost a flipflop down into the rocks.  I crawled down into a bit of a cave to retrieve it, as I reached for it a crab about the size of my hand decided to defend his new find.  I banged my head, swore and thew a rock at the crab....but I got my flipflop and got out before I met anyone else.

We ended the evening on the main Terrace listening to the DJ, it was the end of another fun day.

Tuesday, we are taking a driving tour of the island.