This is a cleverly written story by one of our guests at the hotel. Some areas are exaggerated but overall a wonderful article. Please read and enjoy!!!
http://dinghypursuits.com/2011/06/17/machetes-and-mayhem-an-accidental-budget-vacation-in-grenada-2/#comment-17
Machetes and Mayhem: An Accidental Budget Vacation in Grenada
The man with the machete stood before us.
He emerged from a tangle of frangipani trees bordering the broken cement road. Tall and slim, his tattered white shirt and mahogany skin mimicked the colors of the foliage, briefly creating the illusion that the frangipani tree had come to life and, inexplicably, freed itself from the Grenadian jungle.
Or maybe we’d just been hiking too long.
He’s going to kill me, I thought. Not machete man — my husband. I glanced at the man I’d been married to for 15 years, his face perspiration-drenched from our hike down the deserted road, and waited for his familiar “what have you gotten us into?” look.
* * *
It all started when my husband, Terry, mistook Grenada for the Dominican Republic. Under normal circumstances, that’s not an easy mistake. One is located on the island Hispaniola in the central Caribbean. The other barely makes it onto the Caribbean map, a small dot at the southeastern fringe of the Windward islands. One is Spanish-speaking, the other English. One was invaded by American forces under president Ronald Reagan when a regime cozy with Fidel Castro attempted to stage a bloody coup.
Yet, my husband did mistake the two islands. Or maybe he wasn’t listening very well when I proposed we go to Grenada. That kind of thing happens after 15 years of marriage, especially when one’s spouse is transfixed by a sailboat on Ebay.
“I know you’re going to think I’m crazy,” I started, clearing my throat in an attempt to earn his attention. His eyeballs slowly detached themselves from the sleek blue 40-foot Morgan.
“I think we should take a vacation on Grenada.” Before he could respond, I lunged ahead with my attack. “It’s an undiscovered gem. Grande Anse beach is one of the prettiest. There are fruits and spices growing everywhere. They hardly ever get hurricanes. And it’s a lush, tropical paradise.”
He gazed at me, considering, but didn’t look as shocked as I’d anticipated. Maybe he’d forgotten all about that little political problem in 1983.
Two months before our trip, however, lounging on our back porch, watching dust waft through the air during what had become the driest summers in history in the southern U.S., he asked to see a map of the island. I handed him the map in my travel guide, pointing to the town of Grand Anse where I’d booked a cottage surrounded by tropical flora at the Blue Horizons Garden Resort. He studied the map for a long moment with his eyes scrunched up.
“The shape of the island is all wrong,” he finally stammered.
Wives sometimes feel responsible for fixing everything that goes wrong. I’m one of them. But an island’s shape being wrong?
The next moments led to intense map pointing, arm shrugging, brow wiping and arm crossing. The shape of the island, it turned out, didn’t look right because Grenada is shaped nothing like the Dominican Republic on Hispaniola. We’d been planning a vacation together, but planning it on different islands.
* * *
More than anything, my husband was perplexed. Why would I, former city girl, admitted wimp, and occasional nerd want to go to a presumably dangerous island?
Sure, the United States invaded Grenada in a bloody near-revolution. But 25 years had passed since then. And sure, murder rates are high in the Caribbean, but Grenada boasts one of the lowest. And yes, Grenadians carry around machetes as casually as executives carry cups of Starbuck’s coffee. But that’s just because the jungle is so thick.
The reactions from our friends and co-workers didn’t help my case.
“You’re going where?”
“Is that safe?”
“Aren’t you afraid you’ll get kidnapped?” Presumably, I suppose, by hooligans with links to Fidel Castro who would drag us to Cuba and brainwash us into joining the Communist Party.
“You’re going to Grenada?” Quipped an especially psuedo-witty co-worker. “Well that ought to be a blast. Get it? Grenade… blast….”
That’s when we stopped telling people where we were going.
* * *
At the airport, approaching the gate to board our plane from Chicago O’Hare to Grenada, we passed cheerful honeymooners awaiting flights to normal places. Puerto Rico. St. Thomas. I felt my stomach knot as we grew closer. I leaned toward my husband and whispered, “If all the people waiting to board the plane to Grenada look like crazed murderous, we could just keep walking.”
We rounded the corner and paused, gazing at the islanders we’d be spending the next 7 days amongst. “Oh,” I murmured, feeling foolish. The Grenadians looked….just like everyone else. Near the ticket counter, two travelers laughed softly and smiled as they shared photos on I-Phones — a tool for which I still deemed too expensive for my budget.
We plunked our bags down and collapsed into the hard molded airport seats in relief. These smiling, kindly folks looked like the gentlest people we’d encountered over fifteen years of Caribbean travels. I had a spiteful urge to dial my co-workers (using my nontouchscreen nonsmartphone.) I hadn’t messed up after all; I was still the master of budget vacations.
I was, however, concerned to notice one slouching figure slumped in a seat across the room from my fellow travelers, head shrouded by an oversized grey hoodie. His jean-clad legs were askew, scattered before his torso like a Los Angeles street punk who’d just been stabbed. I could sense my husband looking, too. The hoodie suddenly shuddered once, shuddered twice, and a weak rumble of a cough escaped the fabric.
“Oh. He’s just sick. Not a murderous gangster,” I whispered. As the cough racked his weakened frame, his eyes shone out from the fabric for a moment, eyes streaked with angry jags of red. I leaned closer to my husband, my whisper more of a hiss. “I think the poor guy might have Dengue fever!”
I’d learned from my Grenada travel guide that Dengue fever, a nasty virus spread by mosquitos, occasionally makes an appearance in Grenada. Dengue feels like the flu, but worse, although it usually doesn’t kill its victims. I hadn’t been too worried about it — it seemed less dangerous than the yellow fever you coud catch in nearby Tobago, which we’d briefly considered as a vacation destination.
Terry sighed and flipped open his Mainsail magazine. “Just don’t let him cough on me.”
“You can only catch it from a mosquito. You’re in the clear,” I assured him.
* * *
The night watchman at the Blue Horizons Resort was a gangly fellow, slim with an easy smile, and didn’t look particularly equipped to take on murderous criminals or crazed, machete-yielding overthrowers-of-the-government.
We asked him if it would be safe to at least explore the resort grounds. And in the morning — we planned to hike to a waterfall — was Grenada a safe place for hiking?
He appeared amused by the question. “We don’ ha much crime on Grenada.” Either his patois lilt was amazingly subtle, or we looked like the type of tourists that would be unable to interpret a Caribbean-influenced accent. “Jus’ watch dem mosquitos. Dat be the most dangerous ting you find on our island.”
My husband cocked his eyebrow at me. Dengue fever, I knew he was thinking.
* * *
Despite the guard’s assurances of safety, we were now face to face with machete man. I could almost hear my husband cursing me in his mind and wondering why, why did I have to pull him away from comfortable deck furniture, sailing magazines, and Ebay’s Boat Angel in order to hike to a waterfall in the middle of nowhere on Grenada?
Machete man motioned toward a dilapidated, dingy-white lean-to at the side of the road. “Come in, come in!” he implored, leading us to the shack-like structure like a long-lost friend waving us into their home for dinner. As we reluctantly followed him, I darted my eyes back down the road, willing someone else, anyone, to appear. We were completely alone.
“I am Eldon.” He extended a hand with long, callused fingers. He’d laid the machete on a long countertop amid scattered piles of cinnamon sticks, nutmeg, coco and a gaggle of unrecognizable spices. Shelves lined the back of the lean-to, precariously supporting a few bottles of spices for sale.
“These are spices we grow in Grenada,” he began, he speech monotone as if he’d memorized the routine. He ran through a monologue of the health benefits, uses, and flavors provided in the multitude of food, occasionally offering us a whiff of the products displayed on the counter.
I was feeling particularly giddy that he was a harmless salesman; therefore I’d probably not be losing a limb so long as I purchased one of Eldon’s spice necklaces or bottles of vanilla.
But I felt uneasy about why he was selling spices in the middle of nowhere rather than on the beach like all the other vendors.
“Do you sell these things at the beach, too?” I couldn’t help but ask.
“No, no, no. Dis be my fahm.” He gestured at the jungle surrounding us.
What I didn’t know — but learned thanks to Eldon – was that many Grenadian farmers grow multiple crops on small plots of mountainous land that look nothing like a mass-market farm in the U.S. To the untrained eye, the farms look like any other tropical forest. That is, unless you were lucky enough to have someone like Eldon to show you.
“Do you grow dasheen?” I asked, suddenly very interested in Eldon and his farming business. You see, when I’m not playing budget Caribbean traveler and writer, I’m a dietitian. I read up on traditional Caribbean foods before our trip and knew that callilou – a soupish mixture and Caribbean favorite — contained the dasheen plant.
Eldon re-appraised me, eyebrows raised slightly, then smiled widely. “Dasheen! Yes, here it ’tis.” With more arm waves, he led away from the shack to an elephant-ear looking plant. “Have you tried callilou?”
I sheepishly shook my head, glad he wasn’t aware that most of my knowledge about callilou had come from a Jimmy Buffet song. But Eldon was clearly warming up to us.
* * *
Nearly one hour later we emerged from the jungle farm with our backpacks a little heavier from nutmeg, vanilla and cinnamon. Not only had Eldon taken us on an extensive botanical tour, he’d freely chatted about life in Grenada and perked up even more when I asked if I could snap his photo. He’d worked the farm his entire life. He’d survived the invasion, countless hurricanes, and was farming again despite the destruction of Hurricane Ivan. He was a Methodist, like us. His Mother had died just last year at the age of 92. She was buried in a graveyard behind a church we’d just hiked past and photographed solemnly, looking at its ruins. hurricane Ivan had taken it, too.
* * *
Exactly one week later, we walked the road leading from Morne Rouge beach to our hotel, swatting the mosquitos that had emerged after sunset, happy saying “hello” to everyone we encountered along the dark road. We’d become a part of Grenada if only for one week. We felt fearless. Early the next morning, we flew home with only a handful of souvenirs, but many photos and anecdotes about the friendly people who inhabit Grenada.
Two days after arriving safely home, I returned home from work to find my husband huddled on our livingroom couch, shivering wildly and wrapped tightly in a quilt. He’d been vomiting, feverish, and had a splitting headache.
“It could just be flu,” I said as I felt his forehead, knowing full well that flu season was a month away. In my head I was thinking…that hotel guard knew what he was talking about. Dengue. Mosquitos. That’s the only thing to worry about in Grenada.
Like this:
One blogger likes this post.
