30 April 2025

Grenada

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Slow time!

There are only two paces in glorious Grenada. Leisurely is the fastest, and if that's too hectic you can change down to total chill-out. Paul Gogarty tells you how.

1 Grenada carnival 2 Grenada beach 3 Carmel Falls

THE ONLY "DUAL CARRIAGEWAY" on the island lasted only 200 metres and had just enough room for one-and-a-half cars.

By the roadside, amid a forest of Sixties hand-written ads for Players, Guinness and Alka Seltzer, a warning sign caught my eye: “Undertakers love overtakers.” Such wisdom seems to sum up Grenada. Why hurry?

We hadn’t. After a decade of promises, my wife and two children let out a collective sigh: We’d finally made it. Back in 1990,we had sailed into the Caribbean’s prettiest harbour on a fleeting, one-day visit and discovered an island more deserving than any other on our cruise itinerary. It had taken us a while to get back.

Apart from the one, measly stretch of highway and a handful of traffic lights (so rare they’re marked on the map), Grenada’s roads corkscrew across the island with such enthusiasm that you rarely get out of third gear. It’s slow time.

Like the reggae beat blasting from every boom box. Like the sublimely indifferent pair of chickens walking across the car park at KFC, oblivious to the fate of their breadcrumbed cousins inside.

In slow-time Grenada, it was slow Sunday. Children were flying kites; dogs were out on their constitutionals. Outside the Baha’i Centre local women, dressed from head to toe in white, giggled and spilled out onto the street.

We were staying in mid-range, low-key accommodation - 15 modest rooms (sea-view balconies, king-sized beds, air conditioning, a microwave, fridge, kettle and toaster) - hidden away at the end of a promontory just ten minutes drive from the airport.

True Blue Bay resort had a posse of cats, a maniacally tail-wagging mongrel, swimming pool with slide, trampoline, a couple of kayaks that could be launched from the beach, the Scuba Express Dive Centre and an elegant but relaxed waterfront restaurant.

Hypnotic sound

On Monday, I woke at 7.30am to the hypnotic sound of lapping water. I opened one eye and, through a crack in the curtain, watched three fishermen pitching gently in a rowing boat on the bay. I had to pinch myself.

Tucked away in our secret inlet, I felt like I was at the end of things, secluded, cut adrift. The sea was gently rising and falling over the roots of mangrove trees, a cat was creeping along the branch of a sea grape and my son was impatiently pacing the balcony looking for action.

We took the kayaks down on to the silver beach and slipped out into the bay to surf a fizz of white caps breaking off the outer reef.

Over the next week we divided our days between the pool, a string of nearby beaches and exploring the island. Our first full-day sortie took us from our base on the south-west tip of the island right up into the north-eastern corner.

Having skirted the colourful wooden waterfront buildings along the Carenage, in the capital St George, we headed up into the when-dinosaurs-walked-the-earth vegetation of the Grand Etang tropical rainforest.

After 20 minutes driving skywards, we pulled off the main road and followed a sign for Annandale Falls. Where the road expired, a track led past flowering lilies, jasmine and begonias to mustard-coloured rock walls draped with enormous elephant-ear ferns and vines.

My children stripped off and leapt from a stone platform into a large pool at the foot of the falls. Eventually, we dragged them away and continued on the skinny, potholed road that, at every hamlet, was appropriated by cricket-mad locals (the road was the only flat stretch around). We passed through a string of pretty clapboard villages until we reached the north coast, where a dirt track led us to the Helvellyn restaurant; the closest Grenada gets to an Indian hill station.

Lush tropical garden

The coastal views were spectacular, and the lunch in the lush, tropical garden was genuine Caribbean - coconut fish, fried aubergines, sweet potato with onion and chilli, finished off with soursop ice cream.

Relaxed and refuelled, we scrambled down the hillside to the deserted beach where we worked off the extra pounds body-surfing the rollers.

On our return journey south, we decided to hug the east coast. We were rewarded with a massive open-air party at Bathway beach.

We ditched the car alongside the others abandoned at any angle on the road. Reggae boomed from 16 speakers stacked beside an impromptu stage as kids turned cartwheels into the sea. Others dived through floating tyres or tugged on kites that hovered above the wind-swept palms.

Beneath the trees, a grill teemed with fish, jerk chicken and corn cobs. Beside it, Carib beers chilled in ice-filled plastic buckets while we, and seemingly the rest of Grenada, chilled with them

During the rest of the week, we did plenty more exploring. On one particularly memorable day, we roped in an absolute peach of a beach, La Sagesse, and a larger waterfall, Mount Carmel.

At the latter, a hugely knowledgeable guide, Kenrick Ruffin, transformed the vegetation into a pharmacy, chose five luscious mangoes from the trees for lunch and showed us a rockslide down which we scooted into a pool in which he’d learned to swim as a child.

On other days, we visited a rum distillery, a botanic garden and even squeezed in a couple of dives with the excellent Scuba Express.

It might sound like we packed a lot into a week, but we never hurried. Grenada is a leisurely island with time enough to chat and be spontaneous. Wherever the whim took us we followed.

Most importantly, we made sure we left enough unseen for a future visit - and it’s unlikely to be another ten years away.

0330·100·2220i 0330 calls are included within inclusive minutes package on mobiles, otherwise standard rates apply. X 0330 calls are included within inclusive minutes package on mobiles, otherwise standard rates apply. X