Sights and Sounds of Grenada

Our first sight of Grenada was actually Carriacou. It is an island north of Grenada, but part of the country. It was there that we cleared in at customs. One of the sights I remember from Carriacou was standing in the police station waiting for customs and reading the board that listed the statistics for accidents for the island. In January they had 5 non-injury accidents and in February there were 8 accidents with one being a fatality accident involving the death of a child, in March there had been no accidents. The previous year they had 48 accidents, no fatalities and 5 adult injury accidents.

On Grenada itself, the taxi drivers we have talked with told us that there are very few accidents. This is surprising considering the way people drive. They all drive fairly fast. At most major intersections they have round-abouts (traffic circles) instead of traffic lights. The local buses, we have taken a few, think nothing of stopping and asking people on the other side of the street if they want a bus, or stopping and waiting for people to catch up with the bus. The buses are actually vans which are privately owned. The fare is $2.50EC approximately $1.00CDN. The fare is paid to a conductor who sits in the back of the van and also has the responsibility of ‘drumming’ up business. To get off the bus you either get off at a regular bus stop or tap on the side of the van and the conductor will tell the driver to stop. Actually the conductor insures a safer bus ride because the driver can concentrate on driving rather than looking to see if anyone wants a ride. There is a main bus depot in downtown St. George’s. Catching a bus there, or anywhere for that matter, you have to make sure that the one you are getting on is going where you want to go. On the upper left corner of the windshield is listed the places the bus stops, but you still need to clarify with the driver/conductor to make sure that is where they are going. The bus we took today had 14 passengers, the driver and the conductor on it.

While on our tour of the island we noticed that a lot of the garden walls and retaining walls along the road were painted red, green and yellow. Dexter, the taxi driver/tour guide, explained that every February 7 the communities have a competition to celebrate Grenada’s independence. The competition is to see who can decorate their property the best. Some of the decorations were quite elaborate with pictures of the political leaders of the time while others consisted of the tires around flower beds being painted.

Saturday in downtown St. George’s was an eyeful of sights. It was reminiscent of our market experiences in Thailand. The streets are very narrow – basically room for one vehicle and one lane of parking. Most of the streets were one way. In the market area one street was closed off and the market expanded into the street. Most of the storefronts were narrow – some went back a long way and others were extremely tiny with only enough room for two or three people. All of the stores were packed with merchandise for sale.

Griff found a little restaurant, Kaycee’s Barbecue, that advertised barbeque so we stopped there for lunch. It was actually a ‘Pay and Take’ place, like our take out, but the owner had a corner set up with one table and we sat there. We had callalou soup yet again. And yet again it was different – pieces of chicken including the bones and crabs. One of the local fellows came over and showed Griff how to eat the crab – bite off both ends of the legs and then suck!! It was actually quite good. The barbecue was different. I had pork, but I’m not sure what cut of pork they were using – not ribs for sure.

While writing this blog I am reminded of the sounds of Grenada. We are moored a short distance from a hotel restaurant. It has live music almost every other night. Tonight we are being serenaded yet again by the pleasant sounds of a saxophone. This has been the case for a number of the nights – saxophone, steel pans (drums) and vocalists. On the whole it has been quite enjoyable and they are usually finished by 10 pm.