Seen from the air, Grenada is the shape of a teardrop, a floating leaf in the ocean 120 miles square and 100 miles from the South American coastline. It’s a country whose relatively small size belies its many flavors and contrasts, with enticements that go far beyond the allure of the fragrant nutmeg and cinnamon for which it is called “the Spice Island.”

The country comprises three islands: Grenada and the much smaller Carriacou and Petite Martinique. The main island is best-known to Americans as the site of what some locals tactfully call “the US. intervention” in October 1983. After a coup brought a pro-Soviet-Cuban party to power about 24 years ago, U.S. forces invaded the country - ostensibly to protect Americans enrolled at the medical college in St. George’s. Hurricane Ivan - the island’s first hurricane in 50 years - proved a greater menace when it swept over the territory in 2004, devastating as much as 85 percent of the infrastructure and ruining a great deal of the agriculture upon which the island depends, along with tourism. Hurricane Emily, a lesser blow, arrived the next year, nearly killing the tourist trade. It took 10 days before telephone communication was restored, according to one resident. Nearby Venezuela, she says, was the first to send aid. Eventually, even U.S. Peace Corps volunteers appeared - some of whom have remained. Grenadians offshore returned home in great numbers to help relatives get back on their feet. The two events, coming so close together, were traumatic, and they tested the resilience of Grenada’s 95,000 people. Now, Grenada is back in business, with ambitions that could make some other Caribbean islands jealous.

Cruise ships have returned. Airlines are adding more flights. Within the year, it is expected there will be direct flights to the island from Miami and New York several times a week. The best connections are made through Puerto Rico, Barbados or Jamaica.

‘Do Good and Live” - a motto spotted on the back of one of the island’s many taxi vans - sums up the optimistic attitude of the proud, self-sufficient islanders. “We know how to party more than to fight,” says a high-spirited local resident who weathered Ivan sitting in her bathtub drinking beer. Ivan did not stop bottling operations at the island’s oldest rum factory, the River Antoine Rum Distillery. Fabled Grand Anse Beach - a two-mile-long picture of unblemished sand and sea containing a mixture of high-end resorts on one end and a funky restaurant-disco at the other -has a few broken fences and some shattered buildings as reminders of those perilous times when winds blew off rooftops and shattered the island’s infrastructure.