A Waterfall Walk in Grenada

            We spent our first day in Grenada poking around the woods, hiking up to a waterfall at a high point on the island. The waterfall was a beautiful cliff, slanting enough that the water bounced from one rock ledge to another, before finally arriving at a small pool at the bottom. Some of us ascended part way up the fall itself, holding on to barely existent bits of roots and other plant matter and attempting to dig our heels into the rock face and small amounts of organic matter.

            We used the stream as our trail for sometime, as well as following trails through farms and woods, encountering multitudes of plants not found in our temperate zone homes. The tropics are a lovely place, full of strange and beautiful plants. We passed Giant Heliconia plants whose huge leaves provide shelter from damp, and whose stalks provide material for delicate baskets and twine. A fallen tree in the river offered a mountain of excellent bark to make twine from. The name of the tree escaped me, but the quality of its bark reminded me of the tulip poplar tree we use as a fiber source in the Eastern US. My feet found the local stinging nettles, which are also an excellent fiber plant, as well as being an extraordinary skin irritant if handled carelessly.

            Walking through the cocoa plantation at the beginning of our hike, we encountered banana, mango, plantain, guava and nutmeg trees. They were tucked in throughout the plethora of cocoa trees, which were covered in green, yellow and red pods. Seeing all the trees laden with fruit was a fun introduction to the projects we would do the following two days on the cocoa plantation.

Mira Watkins Brown