"Let's go for a hike?" SHE asked "It'll take about 4 hours..."
"Is that one way?" Dave warily asked, "or there AND back?"
"Good point" I said.
"No worries" SHE said "it's a go at your own pace hike, not a forced march"

Dave and I were pretty excited and Gung-Ho about the idea. We love hiking. We love the Grenadian lands. What better way to explore than with someone who's been there, done that... besides, we had some serious remnants of our extravagance that were summer poutine's and pizza's and Donairs to burn off, as well as some brand new CamelBak's to baptize.

"We'll meet at the bus terminal for 7:30. After that, won't take long to get there" SHE continued and she was right, about half hour later we were there. "There" being the rainforest around the Grand Etang Forest Reserve, high up in the mountains.

Indeed, as the bus zoom-zoomed up into the hills on our way there, we felt the air get "a little" cooler, which on our currently very hot sweaty skins, immediately and immensely felt better.



The stupendously brilliant flowers alongside the gates of the Grand Etang Forest Reserve greeted us with a warm welcoming embrace.



This is the Grand Etang Crater Lake. Look how close and level to it we are. (Most of the Caribbean islands are volcanic in origin, however, crater lakes can only be found in Dominica and Grenada).



Remember this view. The lake is actually quite shallow SHE said. It's a natural waterfilled crater of one of Grenada's extinct volcanos. Tres cool.

Some research after the fact to satisfy my curiosity on the mysterious sides of life that don't include scientific facts had me surprised to learn that the crater lake depths are home to Orisha, the (Yorubian) Goddess of Water. And another interesting tidbit of information has me quoting the following:

"Each year, the Fire Baptists make sacrifices to the goddess Orisha on the shores of the lake", explains Wilan Hamilton, Education Officer of the Forestry. "The legend has it that the mermaid-like goddess seduces men to then drag them down into the depths of the water". Others believe that those drowning in the Grand Etang reappear in distant places: St. Vincent, Trinidad or even Venezuela."

And so we started the walk, to hike. We left the road and headed towards the hillside, quite behind the last of the shaded picnic tables. We chatted as we moved along, it was gorgeously breezily cool, and pretty soon we stopped for some GORAP, and before you knew it, we saw views such as this.



Notice the lake? Yep, that one, WAYYY DOWN THERE, towards the right, down below? That was THE lake I told you to remember - The one we WERE level with, ya?



Made us laugh it did. Anyhow, the trail got narrower,



to almost non-existent,



Just follow if you will the almost imperceptible cut through and up at the treeline,



and that's where we headed. And beyond that, was another one, even higher, see it beyond the first hilltop ?

The views more and more spectacular as we continued,



our untrained and unfit bodies had our breathing starting to get a tad more laborious, and our pace was starting to slow,



our faces more beet red, but still smiling.



The leaf strewn paths had some serious shoe sucking muddy sinkholes to navigate through. There was no point trying to stay clean, close your eyes, step into it, and hope you don't lose your shoe as you lift your leg out is really the best you can hope for.



Other than the constant cool breeze that had the hollow bamboo trunks loudly knocking their songs, we were truly alone in this world. The heat had the very noisy cicada's blaring their shrill tunes,



sounding quite like car alarms, and what an ugly, yet quite impressive, creature they are! In some areas of the world, they (especially the female) can actually be considered a delicacy ! Hmm, no thanks.

Some beautiful butterflies,



some scarred gum trees. "They use the gum that seeps out to burn in the churches as incense" SHE recounted.



After this,



SHE very kindly tucked my camera away, told me to double tie my shoelaces, and then life got very serious, very fast.

Dave (believe it or not) followed the path in and within seconds had disappeared into the unknown depths of the body-sized leaves,



and intrepid explorer that I was, followed him in. Basically cause I couldn't turn around and go home. And I couldn't sit down and cry either.

An ouchie that required a band-aid stop,



and SHE was ready to keep going.

We became quite mindful at the re-bars mysteriously protruding not even inches from the ground and only sometimes covered by empty upside down Coke bottles as a reminder to watch out. Sometimes they are used to build in some "steps" to aid the hiker along the path.

There are NO more photos for the next 3 hours of the hike, as I was too busy being challenged by nature and myself and my surroundings. If we weren't going UP the "last stretch" (or so SHE thought), we were going DOWN, on our already mud-covered assess which actually helped us slide a bit better. "I think this is the LAST serious push guys" SHE said, as she offered up one of her granola bars, in the hopes we wouldn't faint and she wouldn't have to carry us out.

We splashed around serious sized boulders laying in refreshingly cold streams of such clean water that we happily washed the salty sweat of our faces. Then cleaned the mud and muck off the tread of our shoes that allowed us then to find and grip the steady rocks to clamber out of the rushing stream and back into the red mud that is the hillside and start all over again.

We found buried sturdy black cables just inches from the ground, that allowed a firm hand grip so we could repel ourselves downwards and onwards. What foolishness, although I never would have attempted going down without holding on. To something.

We gingerly stepped on some precipice ledges that showed absolutely no evidence of solid ground underneath, the dried interwoven leaves surprisingly strong and holding our heavy bodies. Some ledges were barely the width of our feet, and the remainder was a jaw-dropping non-stop stretch of downhill slide that would probably not end up in a Jewel of the Nile vision of a cold romantic pool to splash into.

I have no words to adequately describe to you the jumble of feelings and emotions that were swirling within me.

They were, during the time we were going along, sometimes full of swear words and grumpy whining and complaints. They were a realization that I was seriously out of shape, my thigh muscles shaking and spasming as I stood there, uttering veiled threats of unfriending the SHE lady (despite my eagerness to participate).

The sometimes hidden razor grass once again paper-cuts my exposed and sweaty flesh of forearms, thighs, palms, calves... and a string of swear words erupts.

They were also overwhelming, mind numbing and head spinning musty green and brown earthy aromas, with splashes of orange and purple and blue and white flowery filled smells that made you stop in your tracks to inhale, and inhale some more. The sounds of the blue hummingbird like creatures flitting from tree to tree had us trying to spot them in the maze of overhad canopy. Truly we were hoping to spot a Mona monkey or two,a s we stopped to drink our almost still cold water from our packs. Our eyes locked together and an unspoken message passed, we were in absolute foolish agreement (or utter desperation perhaps) but we laughed it off, remaining impressed with the beauty that nature was surrounding us with.

We didn't see the monkeys, but I laughed out loud at these gorgeous creatures feasting on the tree,



my whole being jumped into an ear-to-ear smile as I counted dozens of them inching their way along the branches. How totally incredibly beautiful are they?

And after a most challenging 3 hours we found ourselves walking towards this,



which was the end result, the ultimate end of a almost 5 hour journey: Concord Falls. Wow, what a triumph.

Lunch of earlier made sandwiches. A swim in the very cold and refreshingly deliciously water had us moaning with relief. The power of the gushing falls noisily pounding down into the green depths that was the pool, creating a swirling vortex of water that drags you quickly behind the waterfall. Strength is required to swim away.

And then it wad time to go. From the falls we walked another few (very painful) miles (for yours truly) towards the village of Concord. My legs hurt. My toes hurt (new shoes). My thighs weren't even cooperating anymore. It was all downhill. There was no more shade to hide behind and the sun beat any remaining energy out of us. There was no more cool breezes to be felt, and the paw-paw and nutmeg tree leaves just lay limp in the stillness of afternoon high heat.

I put on my mud splatted ball cap and whined behind. We greeted the locals with a smile and a hello, as they were sitting in their shaded porches playing cards, and knew we were getting close to something as we could hear car horns honking somewhere down there...

Around the bend emerged a few identically uniformed school children walking towards us, all of them greeting us rather shyly, and all of them sucking on a small purple coloured baggie.

SHE asked where they got it and we were pointed to the small shack of a home up the way behind there. We kindly asked the lady for some, and sure enough, she disappeared into her home, and I smiled as the dozen roosters flitted about my feet, cock-a-doodling, the leashed scrawny brown dog happily wagging his tail at visitors and the local lady emerged with three small baggies, tied in a knot,



that, at a quarter EC apiece, the frozen-cream-custard treat was the best treat EVER. Dairy Queen has nothing on this...

SHE SAID it would be wonderful. And it was. SHE SAID we'd go at our own pace, and we did. SHE SAID swim it out, put on some of that nutmeg oil and it'll help. IT did (but not enough), we are still quite painfully sore. However, it is a sore from lack of muscles and lack of exercise, that will disappear with time and is a serious reminder of how important fitness and exercise is to the general well being of the body we have been given.

Ok, perhaps not a serious 4 hour hike through the Grenadian jungle exercise, but still, exercise, as in DO something serious to wake up your muscles, every day !!

What a great time. Thanks Lynn.

SHE said, as we were sitting by Concord Falls,

"I, at this moment, feel completely and utterly at peace" and that simple proclamation resonated completely with every fiber of our tired beings.

Every single pore of our bodies had been sweated through and through, every muscle of our bodies vibrant and alive, every sub-atomic cell exhilarated and invigorated. Our senses completely awakened to what is real and around and within us.

And speaking of senses, the crazy fast bus ride back, was bumpier and funnier than the walk through the jungle. Perhaps it was because we were finally sitting down, head beat-bopping along to the very loud and non stop song that is Soca Music. Now this is Grenada to the core. And our heads bee-bopped greetings to people getting on and off as we continued our crazy drive, honking around the corners towards St George's. I do believe it was simply bcause our heads were the only part of our bodies that could still move.

Would we be so Gung-Ho-to-Go next time? You bet your shoe-sucking muddy ass we would, WE SAID.