(no subject)
Woohoo! I have managed to snag one of only 6 PCs at the university with a chair. This makes me a happy bunny.
We went on a tour of the island on wednesday. Our first stop was a waterfall surrounded by rainforest, very beautiful and half-hidden by the elephant hair (a kind of vine, I think). There was a fella there who makes his living getting tourists to pay him to jump from the cliff into the pool below the waterfall - nice work if you can get it! Looked like a lot of fun.
After that we went to Belmont Estate, where they process cocoa to export or sell to the Grenada chocolate company. Cocoa grows in a pod, which is hacked open to reveal the wet, white cocoa. This is laboriously fermented then dried over a period of weeks before polishing. This used to be achieved in a similar manner to treading grapes, but with the cocoa the treaders wear traditional dress, the steps are choreographed and there is drumming music. Done by machine these days of course. Ignorant city girl that I am, it surprised me how much effort is involved in making a single bar of chocolate. Another local chocolate product is the cocoa tea, a form of hot chocolate. Utterly delicious, with fresh cinnamon, nutmeg and bayleaf (of all things).
We stopped on the beach for some local food (chicken and chips, LOL) then continued around the coastline to Carib's leap. The Caribs, after being defeated in their last stand against the French occupation, elected to throw themselves from the northern cliffs of the island rather than subject themselves to French rule again. There is a memorial there and a rather melancholy atmosphere as a graveyard creeps almost up to the cliff edge. The cliffs themselves are not that high, but at the bottom lie enormous quantities of sharp, pointy rocks.
Only one week left in the hospital :D
We went on a tour of the island on wednesday. Our first stop was a waterfall surrounded by rainforest, very beautiful and half-hidden by the elephant hair (a kind of vine, I think). There was a fella there who makes his living getting tourists to pay him to jump from the cliff into the pool below the waterfall - nice work if you can get it! Looked like a lot of fun.
After that we went to Belmont Estate, where they process cocoa to export or sell to the Grenada chocolate company. Cocoa grows in a pod, which is hacked open to reveal the wet, white cocoa. This is laboriously fermented then dried over a period of weeks before polishing. This used to be achieved in a similar manner to treading grapes, but with the cocoa the treaders wear traditional dress, the steps are choreographed and there is drumming music. Done by machine these days of course. Ignorant city girl that I am, it surprised me how much effort is involved in making a single bar of chocolate. Another local chocolate product is the cocoa tea, a form of hot chocolate. Utterly delicious, with fresh cinnamon, nutmeg and bayleaf (of all things).
We stopped on the beach for some local food (chicken and chips, LOL) then continued around the coastline to Carib's leap. The Caribs, after being defeated in their last stand against the French occupation, elected to throw themselves from the northern cliffs of the island rather than subject themselves to French rule again. There is a memorial there and a rather melancholy atmosphere as a graveyard creeps almost up to the cliff edge. The cliffs themselves are not that high, but at the bottom lie enormous quantities of sharp, pointy rocks.
Only one week left in the hospital :D