Beaches, Stampedes, and Family Visit Day 5 (Part 2)

After having fun at the Belmont (Chocolate) Estate, we were ready for some lunch. We stopped at Bathway Beach for a picnic lunch since we were all pretty hungry. We had some visitors too. :)



The water is pretty rough, so we didn't go swimming. Ali and I stretched out and started to nap (happens to be a habit of mine at this beach), but decided to head over to Lavera before it got too late.



Lavera is my favorite beach on the whole island. Maybe because it's like a unicorn beach. Rare and beautiful. I've only been to the beach three times, which I think makes it more special.

Ali and I wore matching shirts on accident, and it pretty much made my day. I was pretty excited that she wasn't mad about it. Twwwiiinns! :D

Next up is a little gem that Ross and I found over Christmas break. I knew that the fam would like it, especially since Dad had packed his binoculars.

We had fun checking out the mangrove but before long we headed back through Grand Etang. It was already Thursday and we had yet to see a waterfall, so we decided it was time to fix that. As we started to pay for our tickets (you know I got us a discount), we see a hoard of Germans flowing like a geyser straight down the trail. No sleep til waterfall! 




Panicked, I madly dug through my purse for coins and told everyone "goooooooo!!!"



Lucky for us all they decided to go on the nature trail before heading to the waterfall. It was nice to enjoy a few peaceful minutes by the falls before they came down.

I've never been to Annandale with no one else there. It was really serene.

As much as this country gets on my nerves, it has been weird to think that this is the last time I will ever see these sights. It's been good to take my family around and get to do all these things once more. 

Maybe because it's like slow steady closure. I know I have been here for less than 2 years, but it's still been a trip (mean that in more ways than one).

For dinner mom and dad wanted to treat us to some place nice. It's pretty sad but I had no idea where to go. Ross and I never eat out, and I think we have forced ourselves into a mentality of not being allowed to even think about it. We decided on a nice place, Sangria. Ross and I went there for our anniversary last year and loved it. Cass, it has an amazing "atmosphere" if you know what I mean.

The family got to learn about getting your food on Caribbean time (= forever & 1/2). But we just relaxed and hung out. It was definitely worth the wait. My seafood alfredo was amazing, but my parents' Catch of the Day swordfish plate was absolutely incredible. It was a fun way to end the day - fat and happy.

Belmont Estate: Family Visit Day 5

We decided that Thursday would be a really great day to go to the north side of the island. We hired a free chauffer *cough* Ross *cough* who was really great. Highly recommend.

First stop was Belmont Estate, which if I may add, we navigated to flawlessly!

Dad, Mom, and Ali went on the Cocoa Tour, Ross and I opted out since we had both already been on it.



Ross and I found some sweet chairs and chilled in the shade.

I'm a little glad I didn't go, because it looks like they made Ali do work.

We wanted to go on my favorite Garden Tour, but the woman wasn't there. I was really pretty sad about that, but somewhere within me, I found tour guide Kristen. You can almost see the pain in her eyes.



We had fun though, and kept it short because it was getting pretttttty hot.
Earlier in the day we had tried to see the monkeys at Grand Etang, but those little buggers are the worst non-humans ever. I even looked all around for bananas (only coming up with plantains) to try and cajole them. I don't have time nor patience for those uppity things. Anyways, Dad was happy he still saw a monkey, even if it was in a cage.



After our tour(s) we snacked on some chocolate. It's funny because I never much liked dark chocolate before coming here. But after I tried some of the chocolate from Belmont, I am absolutely in love.

Next we headed to some beaches on the north side of the island.

Forts & Facts, Kinda: Family Visit Day 4

I'm not going to name names, but on Wednesday the not-so-brightest-crayon in the pack locked herself in her apartment. No. Didn't lock her car keys in the car, but was physically trapped in her apartment. That's all i'm going to say on that.

After that fiasco, we headed to the forts above St. George's, after some missed turns and tight squeezes we made it.

Fort Frederick was first.

Since we paid for entrance (this time) I decided to be the tour guide for the family, which meant I just read aloud the few plaques on the premise. I also made up some facts and history because #PalmdaleIndianMuseum.

Beautiful views of St. George's and the south side of the island.



The forts are fun to visit because you can walk around in all the nooks and crannies, or just take a short walk and enjoy the view. I love history, and I love thinking about what it would've been like to live in a time like that. I got my Asian on and took a picture of the plaque you so you could feel like you were there. I think this bit of history is especially funny/ interesting.



Most people in this world that know me (and ya, probably some who don't know me) don't understand me. They don't understand my odd sense of humor, weird sarcasm, and quirky characteristics. But my family, they get it. My sister and I decided the Fort Frederick, with those killer arches, was perf for some senior pictures! Dad joined in too. That little look on his face just kills me!

I remember looking at pictures with my Grandpa when I was younger. There were lots of 1960s quality scenery shots of vacation places like Yellowstone. I remember my grandpa kind of chuckling to himself and looking at me and telling me how much he wished he would've taken more photos of people and not places. Because looking back 40 years later, the shots of the camping site picnic table don't really mean anything.

I've thought about that a lot, so now I always try to get lots of pictures of people. And if my mom is up for a picture, I take a thousand! She is so beautiful I don't get why she always refuses.



As you can see on the left, my dad took every opportunity he could to make pirate faces in pictures. Speaking of pirates. Got a little pirat-spiration and took this picture.

I think we really nailed it!

Next we headed over to Fort Matthew, which is a lot more interesting, and apparently has a lot less humongous piles of guano.

We had fun poking around the underground tunnels and secret gardens. 

I can't stand how cute my mom is! 

We all chuckled a little bit about what a dangerous place this was, decrepit walls, rotting wood, 2x4s with tetanus nails swinging in the breeze. It's kinda fun to not have security guards breathing down your back and ropes blocking off dangerous tunnels. Definitely not much of a UNESCO world heritage site going on here.

When the Civil Engineer saw this, she just shook her head.

For dinner we got some chicken at KFC, picked up Ross from school, and went out to Quarantine Point for a picnic. I thought it would be a good place to watch the sunset.

I'm omitting this story, because I am still a little traumatized; despite that cute smile on her face, I think she is too. 

Dinner was good and it was fun to watch the sunset.

I guess I am slightly obsessed with my parents.

And since this is my blog I can put as many cutesy pictures of me and Ross as I want. It's nice to not have a selfie every once in a while. 

I love Quarantine Point, it has nice views of Grand Anse beach and BBC beach.

And a nice creeper shot of the hotel.



I'm pretty jealous of my dad's panoramic photo capabilities.



It was another great day, and I can't believe they have already been here for 4 days.

Selfie Sunday: Family Visit Day 1

Saturday night my parents flew in, and after jumping the proverbial gun and waiting at the airport for over an hour, their bright smiling faces emerged from their day long journey across half the globe!

It was so wonderful to see them and know that they were all mine for almost a whole week. We hung out at my place while I rounded up some dinner and they gave me and Ross tons of goodies. It's pretty fun to be so spoiled. I think my absolute favorite was two WHOLE boxes of Samoa Girl Scout cookies.

Oh happiness!

I hope they weren't too nervous zooming around the awful roads, on the left side of the road, when it was completely dark out, but we got them situated in their hotel room and let them get some rest before our adventure packed week began.

My parents landed a pretty incredible hotel, thanks to their crazy clever travel agent. This HUGE staircase to their room really put the "grand" in "Grand Anse Beach Palace Hotel." The whole week we had fun joking about how grand it was

Sunday we met them at the hotel, which is just a stone's throw from the church building. We had a fun adventure and walked to church in the morning. We ooooo'd and ahhh'd at the beautiful view, but my parents are a little spoiled because they have almost the same exact view from their hotel room. Lucky ducks.

With these two, I was bound to have incredible looks.

After Church we made some lunch then headed up into the jungle. But not before dad and ali dipped their toes in the Caribbean Sea for the first time (just like Rissa, had to get photo evidence)!

I've mentioned it before, but Grand Etang is one of my favorite places on the island. It was fun to steal Ross away to chauffeur us up there.

The lady at the ticket booth gave me some attitude when I politely asked if we could get in for free because Ross was a student.
"No. Today, you pay."

I took my parents aside and told them it wasn't worth it to look at their crusty "museum." So we said never mind thank you very much. Then the lady got more attitude and was like "whatever, you are here, just go in."

Yes we will thanks.  Typical. 

So we spent two minutes looking at their crusty posters, spending a minute taking the perfect selfie for #selfiesunday. Oddly making it's debut here on a Tuesday #betterlatethannever.



Then we took a purposeful NEAT-ure walk. I love that we drove up from the west coast, but here is a view of the east coast.

It's been a bit windy lately, and on our walk we heard the bamboo clinking together like wind chimes. I tried to capture it.



After we gracious thanked the lady at the ticket booth with many smiles and kind words and headed to the lake to try our hand at, well, hand fishing. Thanks to my cool friend CeCe. I've kinda become obsessed with teaching others about hand fishing.

No fish catches today. I would day I am a horrible teacher... but instead I will say I take great selfies and my students aren't very serious. I mean, just look at these students.



My dad was absolutely thrilled to put his feet in and have the millions of fish chew off his dead skin. No joke, this was a bucket list. What a lucky guy that he didn't have to make a separate trip to Asia.

Our last stop was the Lance aux Epines tidepools.


























Ross and dad had a fun time poking around at the crabs. Getting some awesome neat-ure shots. Classic dad. We ended the day at my apartment. I probably made something for dinner. But I am pretty sure it involved snow-cones.



It was a full and fun day. As you can tell from my dad's dramatic face, it was pretty hot.

Treat Yo' Self: Belmont Chocolate Factory

Monday, December 30th, 2014

I think we saved the busiest day for last, which is really saying something because we really had some busy days!

For Christmas Santa brought Rissa and Ross massage gift certificates! Monday morning ended up being #treatyoself Monday.















In honor of this day, we started with some donuts from Nick's Donut World in Lance aux Epines and had a picnic at Grand Anse. Eating donuts and looking out at the sea? Yes please. Rissa got her massage and said that it was amazing! Yay (go Santa!).

Then we headed up to the north side of the island through Grand Etang.

Ross was the master navigator and we somehow lucked out and avoided going through Grenville. Grenville is the second largest town in the country. It is located on the west coast and is the capital of the most populous parish. The Ross Route (TM) probably saved us at least 30 minutes and a massive headache trying to figure out how to get through the one-way route through town. Ross: 1.

Eventually and with a little uncertainty, we made it over to Belmont Estate. Aka The Chocolate Factory!



I have been here just once before with my friend Tammy on an around the island tour. I thought Rissa would like to visit because she is a big dark chocolate fan.


















You can pay for a tour, we got a student discount and it was about $10 or $13 EC. Ever wonder where chocolate comes from?

I have blogged about the cocoa fruit before. It comes from pods like these. They are yellow or red-ish, like our tour guide is holding below.

The cocoa fruit is actually pretty delicious. You just suck on the gooey white stuff, and the chocolate comes from the seed. During the tour they show you all about the process of collecting the beans, fermenting them, drying them, polishing them, processing them, the whole shebang, tree to bar!



In the olden days especially they would "walk de beans" throughout the day. Workers shuffle through the beans to turn them so they dry evenly. On the tour you get to try it out (not on real beans of course, you aren't that cool).

It is an interesting little tour, can't say I knew any of that beforehand. In my humble opinion, the best part is when they pull out these fancy dishes with CHOCOLATE (Brigette, you know what I am talking about). They let you sample some of their chocolate bars, 60% cocoa and 70% cocoa.

The woman also brewed us up some cocoa tea. It's a Grenadian drink, they mix up they chocolate balls ( cocoa + spices) with water or milk. Much like hot chocolate. It is absolutely delicious! After that tour we decided to go for the grand slam and do the Garden Tour as well. #treatyoself



It started with this display of local spices. How many can you name?

Hopefully you at least got #8. The garden tour was awesome!! I love plants and flowers. We got to go all over around and down the grounds of the Belmont Estate. We saw the herb garden, vanilla garden, vegetable garden, cocoa trees, and of course tons more. Top left is a stinky noni fruit, the middle right is a bunch of cocoa fruit blossoms, and the bottom left is a bunch of vanilla

It's hard to pick which photos to share, so much beauty all around.





































Belmont Estate also houses the Grenada Goat Dairy Project. It's a non-profit organization that helps local farmers transition to "sustainable income-generating production."

I think the Garden tour was better than the Chocolate Tour, and it lasted quite a bit longer. They have a mini tiny zoo area. Just some monkeys, and parrots and such.



Just a few more collages! Rissa is modeling some lovely local fruit. The five-finger fruit (starfuit) and one-finger fruit. Can you see the sea in the bottom picture?

Our guide knew everything. She was really fun and nice. She takes care of the gardens on the estate and does the floral arrangements. Just the evening before they had a wedding so the arrangements were still up.

At the end of the tour we got a big sampler of fresh fruit, straight from the garden! #treatyoself

















It was so delicious. Definitely glad we took the garden tour.



Since it was Treat Yo' Self day. I spoiled Rissa with some chocolate, truffles, and cocoa balls.



It was a very eventful visit to the Belmont Estate. It's funny because I didn't much care for dark chocolate before Grenada, but now I love it! The dark chocolate is really that good. You can eat as much as you want because dark chocolate makes you happy right?!

All dark chocolat'd up, we look pretty happy.























There is actually a documentary that was made about the Belmont Chocolate Company, the trailer is only a few minutes you can watch it here.

Since we were already so far north, we decided that we would head to a close-by windward beach.

To be continued...