Island tour

We opted for the easy option, joining an island tour winding along the sheltered Caribbean shore. Gouyave, the ‘place that never sleeps’, was all balconies and fishing boats with a nutmeg processing plant pouring its aroma into the streets. Nutmeg is big business on Grenada, grown in small, mixed plantations wherever the mountainous terrain allows. You’ll also find plenty of rum, with the oldest distillery on the island, River Antoine, producing some of the best – and the strongest – in the Caribbean.

Rum aside, we did have some memorable moments on our tour. Breathing in lungfuls of fresh air in Sauteurs we looked out to the Grenadine Islands, remembering the indigenous people who jumped to their deaths here, at the Caribs’ Leap, rather than surrender to French colonists.

Then there was a taste of tangy soursop ice cream in an old plantation house on a mountain top, a peep at Mount St Catherine – the highest point on the island at 2,750ft – and a brief encounter with mona monkeys in the Grand Etang National Park. A sixth of the island is protected and mountains roll as far as you can see, wave after wave of rainforest sprouting afresh after the devastation wrought by Hurricane Ivan.

Wherever you are, there are waterfalls accessible by road or only on foot. “How about a trip to the Seven Sisters?” suggested the guide. “It’s only an hour’s trek and really beautiful.” So the next morning we set off, mud and walking stick provided – this was the jungle, after all. Great tangles of vines clung to the trees as we edged our way down the steep trail, soon swallowed up into the greenery.

The falls rumbled far below, invisible until we reached the valley floor and crossed the stream ever so carefully on a wobbly tree trunk. The first two ‘Sisters’ were cascading out gallons of water over the rock face but we declined clambering over the gigantic boulders in search of the others. The long haul back to the road would do just as well.

Coral Cove

It was a wonderful, steamy morning and the time had come to test our last villa of the week. We found Coral Cove at the end of the road, hugging the southernmost tip of the island. It was the perfect place to unwind, cut off by rocky outcrops away from it all.

We arrived to a brief shower of ‘liquid sunshine’ as an rainbow arched over the bay and, among the hibiscus and the oleander, the villas gleamed like new, sprinkled red and white on the grassy slopes which led down to the oval pool, shaded beach and jetty where you could snorkel and explore the reef.

Here, too, there was plenty of space and privacy, plus a tennis court and views to take your breath away as the coast meandered around fjord-like inlets, full of sheltering sailing boats. The water was crystal clear and the breeze rustled the coconut palms day and night.

But what was that scent outside the window? I opened the curtains. Flowers and spice and all things nice, Grenada was working its magic.