Day Tripping with the SOs

Almost a month ago now (oops) I went on a day trip with a bunch of other SOs.  We loaded up on two buses, headed off at 8 in the morning, and didn't get back until 4.  There were two big jugs of rum punch on my bus and despite the fact that Mallory and I didn't drink, the other 10 people polished them off easily.  Needless to say, our bus was a bit rowdier than the other one!  We had a blast and it was a nice change of pace to actually have something that took up my whole day.

We started off by going to the nutmeg factory.  Factory is used in the loosest sense here.  There were only about 10-15 workers in the whole place and none of them were working very quickly.  The tour was fairly boring, but the place itself was interesting--albeit rather old and outdated-looking.

This sign was one of my favorite parts.  Apparently their workers aren't supposed to talk to each other while they work?

 

This was the part of the factory where they just let the nutmeg dry.  It was basically an entire floor of these wooden bunk-bed looking things full of nutmeg:

They label the end of the trough with the date the nutmeg was placed and they take it back down to the main floor for processing after three months.  And unfortunately I got distracted having a quiet conversation at the back of the group (boring tour, remember?), so I didn't get any more pictures.  I still think those nutmeg beds were the most interesting part.

After the nutmeg factory, we headed up to the Seven Sisters waterfalls.  Yes, the same waterfalls I jumped off (and failed to jump off) only a few weeks earlier.  I didn't get any pictures here, but the waterfall was thick and brown with mud, as was the pond, thanks to the copious amounts of rain we had.  No one hiked up to jump and we only stayed at the pool long enough to eat our lunches before we hiked back out.  I swam in the pond with some other SOs and thanks to the wind and the spray from the waterfall, we actually got cold!  There were goosebumps and everything!

Here are some of the girls after we hiked back out from the waterfalls.  They are the real housewives of Grenada (more on that later)

When we got back on the bus, someone asked me to fishtail braid their hair.  I then proceeded to braid the hair of pretty much every girl on the bus.  Luckily I didn't get seasick, but I did (apparently) make a weird braiding face.

Here's some of my handiwork:

After the waterfalls we stopped t the rum factory and were treated to yet another tour.  This one was more interesting, but I still don't really remember any specifics.

We all got to wear hard hats, though, and that was fun!

Here are some of the giant tools they used to use as well as some of the old machinery.  Who knew rum distilling used such big equipment?

 

I've got to say that visiting the rum distillery definitely did NOT make me want to drink any rum. 

 

 

Doesn't that look appetizing?  The smell was pretty gross, too, but most of the SOs did sample a lot of the rums afterward and said they were good.  I'm ok with not finding out, though.  After the distillery we all loaded back up on the buses and returned to campus.  On our ride back a group of us decided we should start a TV show called The Real Housewives of Grenada.  There is a definite lack of drama in our group, but we brainstormed quite a few ways we could ignite the drama.  I'll let you know if we ever get our idea picked up by a TV studio, because I know you would all be dying to watch!