To lime or not to lime…..

maz felt very welcome!

 our last day in Grenada is upon us so before depart to the most eastern of the Caribbean islands, Barbados, tomorrow we thought that we’d give you all and update on our last week here.

the title of this post has connections to the local phase which has become a bit of a mantra for us since arriving in the capital ‘St Georges’ last Monday. 'Liming' or to 'Lime' really means to chill out, relax with friends or to do nothing in particular other than enjoy yourself.

street vendors make use of all available space

so we're pleased to report that over the last week we have been mostly 'Liming' at the cricket, a match at the national stadium between the West Indies and England which, as with normal test matches, took place over five full days so therefore there was plenty of time to ‘Lime’.

we arrived in St Georges to stay with a couple who we had literally ‘bumped into’ on the beach, we suppose you could say that they were 'Liming' on the beach when we got chatting to them and told them our story about staying on the YWAM base and working for a charity in  South Africa. we also mentioned that we had yet to secure accommodation nearer to the cricket ground, and to cut a long story short they invited to contact them later in the week, where they kindly offered us a bed.

maz liming

we couldn’t have happened on such a wonderful couple as Richard and Angela who have not only made us welcome in their home, but made sure that we have eaten well and caught our local bus into town each morning.

it seems that Richard has had a varied career, he currently does some training sessions locally and leads worship at the local evangelical church, he also hosts a weekly radio show, where we even got a mention last week, he's the sort of person who everyone knows with many contacts and a never silent phone! 

buses (think south african taxi) at the terminal

Angela heads up a local charity (called New Horizons) working with the poorer communities around St George, they focus on helping adults learn to read and write as well as ensuring that the older people in the community have their health needs met.

it’s funny how God connected us with people with a similar passion, we suppose we shouldn’t be surprised as He has proved before, 'He has all things in His hands', although at times we can be too busy and miss those opportunities we are so glad to have made contact on a remote beach miles away from Richard and Angela’s’ home for such a time as this!

but when the sun shone it really made for some good lime time

as we said most of our 'Liming' has taken place between 9.45am and 6pm each day during our time at the cricket, it has to be said that both teams are at a low ebb at the moment but to see the support given to the England team from their fans and supporters who are commonly known as ‘the Barmy Army’ is a testimony to the ‘never say die’ attitude of an English sports fan. it was a little disappointing to see a low turnout from the local’s, however they were probably 'Liming' somewhere more interesting.

that said the local support was nothing but a riot of colour and music with a steel band, exuberant drummers and dancers attending each day and even as England hit the winning runs late in the afternoon of day five they were still singing and playing their rhythmic, if not somewhat repetitive, beat!

yellow bakkie!

one of our highlights of this trip has been the friendliness of the people, our days started early in the morning with a local bus (think South African taxi) journey with up to 15 other people into the bus terminal, again think of Cape Town’s taxi rank with literally hundreds of Toyota mini buses jostling for custom and position, all fitted with extra seats to cram as many people as possible into these projectiles which thunder along the tight and very hilly roads which cover the whole island. it has occured to us that the only people on the island who aren't 'Liming' are the bus drivers and how there aren’t more crashes no one knows.

queues at the public bus terminal 

once at the terminal we have had the pleasure of walking away from the hustle and bustle of the town of St George along a road with busy little shops and market stalls on one side and the beautiful Caribbean sea on the other. traffic is noisy with horns beeping but the fans travelling to the ground are busy chatting away with the expectation of the days play on their lips.

bring on the covers, again

the National Stadium is quite an impressive structure, which was rebuilt after hurricane Ivan ripped through Grenada in 2004 , and has great stands on three sides of the ground, our seats are  perched high with a good view of the scoreboard and replay screens, which operate on an adhoc bases, and with no local radio coverage this was one of the things that made it harder for Maz, who was attending her first test match, to follow the proceedings.

barmy army celebrate joe root's century 

the first couple of days were very very slow with some unexpected rain halting proceedings on a number of occasions, the local's blamed us for bringing it from England! however it was great to see little Joe Root hit a wonderful 182 not out, coming on St Georges day when we were in St Georges was equally special.

maz engaging in a five day test!

Maz continued to make a real effort to engage with the game and has, via the use of her newly purchased binoculars, a hearty knowledge of the intricacies of Johnathan Trotts interesting antics before he readies himself to face another ball or Shivarine Chanderpaul’s crab like stance (neither of these performed too well during this test and we would be surprised if Trott is playing when we see them again this coming Friday) and she was equally vocal as Jimmy Anderson literally turned the game on its head on the fifth morning with a performance with the second new ball on a lifeless pitch.

the local people sitting around us were so welcoming, allowing us to try lots of their home made food, each day more and more on offer as they encouraged us to ‘Lime’ with them. we also met up with some great English fans as well and to cheer on the side with lots of local banter was great.

maz enjoying some local fare..

we will be very sorry to leave this wonderful island, full of colour, flavours and smiling faces but we will be back, soon we hope, however as we have been enjoying ourselves we are very aware that the world has been hit by some major disasters since we last updated our blog, so we know that everything isn’t all as rosy as life here in Grenada is for us, so we send our thoughts to those affected by the earthquake in Nepal, the avalanche on Everest, the unrest in Burundi and the continuing issues the plague those escaping Africa for the ‘dream of living in Europe’ and obviously South Africa (on their 'freedom day' today especially)

so as we finish this section of our journey we are already planning our next trip where England are due to play the West Indies in February and March 2019, if you wanna join us 'Liming'  in 2019 then you’d best start saving now!

amazing sights....

maz waiting for the fisherman to take us to our desert island!

well tomorrow we leave our home here in sauteurs (grenada) where we have been staying on the 'YWAM' (youth with a mission) base with sharron, josh and their team and move onto the capital st georges to take our place at the second test match which will start between the west indies and england on tuesday, however as we're uncertain of our internet access we thought we'd better update our blog on our last weeks highlights before we leave here.

you may notice that we have updated our 'books we're reading' section, on the right hand side of this page, with those that we have now completed, we seem to be racing through some fiction, biographies and also some spiritually challenging books which we are loving having the time to do.

our desert island, all to ourselves!

we had intended to upload two videos showing a couple of our highlights from this last week but with the lack of avaiable data and slower internet connection here we will have to publish a link to them on youtube later on in our trip, so you'll just have to sit tight, wait and make the most of a few photos!

the first of the video was of us being left on our desert island by the local fisherman for the second time during our stay, this time we had the whole island to ourselves where maz once again spent most of the day with her head underwater enjoying the huge array of sea life which could be found on the reef which surrounds this wonderful little island called 'sandy island' which sits at the northeast of grenada.

collecting the turtle eggs 

the second video was taken this evening (sunday 19th april) where we had the awesome privileged of being able to see a leatherback turtle lay over 80 eggs on the beach not a mile from where we're staying. the whole event took place during early evening so there was quite a throng of local people watching this wonderful event with us, there were also the volunteers from a local research centre who measure and tag each turtle, our one was a new turtle who had returned for the first time since hatching at the same beach years before.

this younger adult was just about five feet (144cm) long but some adult males can measure over six feet and weigh in excess of 700kg!, unfortunately this turtle had laid her first batch of eggs too close to the water and as a precaution the research team collected the eggs which they will bury on a near by beach, far away from the high tidy line and away from the local dogs who could make these eggs a nice breakfast tomorrow morning!

job done now wheres the sea?!

this was a truly inspiring time and one that will be a highlight not only of this trip but of our lives, probably because it happened so naturally on a public beach and with out us needing to pay thousands of pounds (sterling) for the privilege!

a time to rest....

maz waiting for the public transport (south african style taxi!

well you best believe what you've heard, we can confirm that the Caribbean is truly beautiful, that said we have only spent just over a week on one island, that of the volcano inspired and mountainous Grenada, but from what we've experienced so far not only are the people friendly but life is VERY laid back! 

our walk home from the beach

the whole of the Caribbean is made up of over seven thousand islands, some big and some small, with at least 28 individual nations. we have actually visited two of those, Grenada as we said, and also a small island just off the north eastern tip which we got to via a short trip with a local fisherman to a place where Robinson Crusoe would feel right at home!

since we arrived we have been able to fully rest, although our time in the united states was indeed part restful, as you can read in our previous post we did move around lots and that was tiring in itself so to arrive at such a peaceful space has been amazing and we are indebted to sharron and josh (the YWAM base leaders) for them allowing us to chill and engage as much or as little as we wish with their team.

our robinson crusoe island view

we are staying in the northeast of the island, well away from the madding crowds arriving off of the cruise ships in St Georges, in fact we are as far away from the airport as we possibly could be, however on an island that's on 21 miles long and 12 miles across that isn't too far, but with the winding roads which venture uphill and down dale at an alarming rate it's far enough and we feel that we are engaging with the real Caribbean and it's peoples, who are very chilled out and friendly. we are walking everywhere as the streets are peaceful, which is a real bonus, and have already made some good friends.

strange fruits

the main reason we ended up on the YWAM (youth with a mission) base is because of our youngest son's, arron, connections, he spent over 10 months in the Caribbean after sailing across the Atlantic from cape town in 2011 and end up spending three months on this base, everyone remembers arron and it's great to met the people that he speaks so fondly about.

Grenada is known as the 'spice isle' and we can fully understand why, the flora here is amazing, just outside our little apartment are grapefruit, mango, orange (both sour and sweet, yes there are more than one type of orange!), banana and papaya, all quite familiar to us europeans, however a little more strange and only a short walk away we find duppy soursop and breadfruit. we have also seen cashews nuts growing under their strange red fruity flesh which is all very different to how we had imagine them growing.

coco pods

we also made a visit to the belmont estate, via local public transport (think taxi service if you are in south africa!), which is home to the grenada chocolate company who harvest the coco beans which go into making their delicious chocolate which can in fact be bought in waitrose stores in england, should you wish to try some, which is well recommended!

tim at the chocolate shop!

other than all the walking we have visited two church services, spent time on the beaches, watching people fly their kites (its a big deal here in Grenada, especially at this time of year around Easter) and spent lots of time reading, which we both love, we have probably finished over four books each so far and if you want to keep up to date with those that we are reading then you can find our reading list at the top right hand side of this blog site!

lets go fly a kite

this truly has been a time to rest and whilst we are really looking forward to the next part of this trip, which includes us watching England play the west indies in a five day test match, we don't want to leave this amazing space, so we are glad that we have over a week left here and we might have to chat up another local fisherman to take us far far away to sandy island again before we leave next monday!

the key to life....great days and wonderful beds!

maz the mermaid

it's just over two months since we left the village of hope for our sabbatical time and whilst we miss the project dearly we have begun to appreciate the time we have been allowed to travel to new places and see new sights. part of that experience includes moving around quite often so we have also met some amazing people and stayed in some incredible beds!

baseball!

our travels so far have extended over three continents, africa, europe and north america, into four countries, south africa, uganda, england and the United States and over many states and counties starting off with three in south africa the western cape, eastern cape and kwazulu-natal then onto the central district in uganda, two counties in our beloved england, those of buckinghamshire and the county of bristol and whilst travelling for the first time in america we have visited viginia, maryland, georgia, south carolina and this last week the beautiful sunshine state of florida. 

our mustang

by the way we also started our trip to the states in washington dc which isn't actually a state its a specific district, please see this link to wikipedia for the definition!

margaritatime

we are obviously travelling on a tight budget so whilst we have visited these amazing places we have had to do it as cost effectively as possible, therefore we have made use of beds provided in homes of our family and friends but when we have had to seek accommodation in new areas we have also made use of all our contacts and stayed with friends of friends, used the online airbnb network and even a domain called couchsurfing and that's how we have spent our last week as we travelled down from our wonderful hosts in augusta right the way down to the southern most tip of mainland USA in key west.

our own slick of paradise

seven mile bridge, rail road and automobile

last monday we picked up our first hire car in augusta, a very well equipped toyota corolla with an incredible leather interior and a huge engine fit for a supercar rather than a family run around, but hey we're in america where everything is big and the fuel is very very cheap. our first stop was just outside st augustine, a historic seaside town, however the weather wasn't kind to us and the sea fog stopped us enjoying what would have been our first views of the atlantic from the other side of the world.

tim at the drive thru ATM

open mike, USA style

bike to the beach, oh go on then

on tuesday we made our way to orlando to stay with debbie, a friend of a friend who made us feel very welcome, we also had the opportunity to attend our first real live baseball game which was fought between the atlanta braves and philladephia philles, we were cheering for the braves but the went down 3-5 in what has to be said was a very slow but intriging game. we wouldn't want to offend any of our american friends who love this sport but to say that we were seated right next to disneyland florida the game could have done with some spicing up from old walt himself. it seems that the pitcher (that's the guy that throws the little white ball incredibly fast at the batter, or hitter) is really in control of the game and unless the batter or hitter can strike the ball way out of the park there is little chance of getting a home run as all the fielders are wearing huge gloves which makes catching the ball, and therefore getting one of the batters 'out', so easy that i think my sister could catch one that was hit so high in the air that it had snow on!....maybe time for some water hazards, bunkers and moguls to make it a little harder, or even less fielders or heaven forbid take the large gloves off, that might make the game a little more exciting. that said we had a blast, the fans were friendly, none of the football chanting and swearing that we hear in england, and i (tim) even got to keep one of the many hundreds of balls that were used in the game. strike one!

by tuesday the sun had come out and just in time as we picked up our second hire car, a ford mustang convertible which we had hired via some air miles saved up from my time working in europe many many moons ago. this was the perfect car to travel down from miami to the truly stunning keys which sit at the south eastern tip of the united states, although the car wasn't fitted with the massive 5 litre (funny how they still used gallons under the imperial system but rate the size of engines under the litre and therefore metric system here!) engine that is available, however the 3.7litre engine was quite powerful enough to speed the car along at 55mph.....the only time we were able to let it loose was when setting off from the traffic lights, which was quite often cause there are loads of traffic lights here, when i (tim) could do my lewis hamilton impression with a 0-60 of around 5 seconds it only took a little under that to hit the speed limit!

the florida keys are an incredible strip of tiny islands which arc out into the atlantic and mexican gulf, with large bridges, one over seven miles long, which stretch over the aqua blue waters which hold host to many hundreds, if not thousands, of plant and marine life. it was a truly once in a lifetime experience to drive down the US1 which connects key west at mile marker zero all the way to the mainland 127 or so miles away.

the first night in the keys was spent in our first couchsurfing experience, we were hosted by the wonderfully attentive and inclusive kimberley and her partner and best friend in their home in islamorada, they made us very welcome, let us use their bikes to visit the local beaches with their warm waters and fish life, shame we got a puncture which slowed our progress, they even took us to a friends house for an early party jamming session. kimberly and her friend mary are great singers and later that evening we went to an open mike type event where mary sang and we all cheered her on.

by the friday we had to move on this time to a friend of a friends home in marathon which sits almost in the middle of the keys, jennifer was our amazing host and she also made us feel very welcome, along with her two attentive cats. we enjoyed suppers together, time at the beach and best of all we got to visit the local dolphin research centre were jennifer had worked for many years. she knew all of the dolphins by name and we must say that we're sure that those dolphins recognised her so well. 

on saturday evening jennifer had booked us on a boat trip with a difference, the difference being that we were going out with a group practicing their yoga class, all well and good we hear you cry but tim's balance and flexibiltiy isn't the best on dry land let lone when bobbing up and down on the ocean, however maz seemed to get on well and soaked up the zen with jen!

on sunday we made the extra fifty of so mile trip down to the bohemian town which is key west, key west has some amazing architecture like none we had experienced in america before and whilst on the trolley bus tour we were able to take in some of the sights, the different style of buildings and the homes of many famous people including ernst hemmingway (long since past). we also had time to sup a margarita or two however they still don't compare to gerry's down at zest in gordons bay, south africa and visit the most southern point in mainland america, all very touristy but one has to do it sometimes.

one thing we have noticed is the plethora of state parks which help to protect what is a very fragile environment, our best visit was to one called bahia honda which sits just to the south east of the famous seven mile bridge which henry flagler had had built as part of his railroad dream to connect key west to the rest of the united states, a feat that he achieved in 1912 just two years before his death and although the bridge has now been replaced by a hugely impressive road bridge parts of it remain open to the public and we were able to spend a few hours walking from marathon to pigeon key along it. our day at bahia honda was picture perfect, we found a couple of palm trees to sit under and enjoyed bathing, and maz as normal, upping her competition to become a mermaid, snorkeling as if her life depended on it.

to cap off our trip the the united states we couldn't pass by the oppertunity to use a drive through ATM (bank) but us being us we had to do it slightly differently, so we drove through on our bikes!

today we fly out from miami on the next stage of our adventure, a month at the YWAM base in grenada, where we hope to get some real chill out time, we know that sounds strange but since we left south africa we really haven't had that much time on our own and that is key to this part of our sabbatical so we hope that the guys are ready to point us in the direction of the beach and let us read, swim and further relax in preparation for our more reflective, retreat and reinvigorating times to come.

goodbye america we'll be back!