Gouyave

We were going to rent a car.... the out of order cash machine changed our priorities and mid morning we caught a local bus to the next 'conurbation' in search of beer chips.

After the experience Mr B found this info on local buses: link on buses

You really do need to read that. It's hilarious, and true. Who wants to rent a car at EC$180 per day when you can catch a bus all the way to the big smoke an hour away for EC$2.50 (less than US$1) each way and rub shoulders with the locals.

(We are not staying in, or anywhere near, the 'hotel belt'.)

In Antigua, the passengers just yell "Stop de boss, mon" when they want to get off. Here, (Grenada) they bang on the windows. There doesn't seem to be a timetable and if a bus is too full to get on, another will be along any minute. Every seat has a 'jesus/allah/buddah handle' in front - the one you hang onto while praying to your god that you will survive the next bend in the road, especially the ones with a long drop on one side and a cliff on the other.

Our bus picked us up going in the wrong direction: "St Georges" yelled the driver as the bus headed north. We piled in anyway. We'd already been left behind by one full bus. What followed was some whacky tour of town while the driver collected various people from outside their front doors (regulars?) and hared off back in a southly direction.

While waiting in a three car traffic jam behind a parked jalopy, we studied the queue outside the Nutmeg Museum . Hard to believe that half the town's population needs to visit a museum at 10 am on a Monday. Only on the way back did we realize it was the queue for the Credit Union,  the village's only source of cash with the ATM out of action.

Life takes on a whole different set of priorities in a place like this.

Gouyave (the name is a remnant of French influence here), the next town south, is  picturesque but not in any chocolate box kind of way. Once a thriving fishing community, it has alleys of tiny wooden cottages clad in cedar weatherboards that were never grown or sawmilled on this island. Many were painted in tropical colours. Bright on the eye. Most are now faded. Even if they were painted last year, tropical sun is unkind to paint.  Grenada is south of the hurricane belt but in 2004 a hurricane ripped through here damaging as much as 80% of the island's housing. Few such cottages survive still in use. Modern people want modern homes.  Who can blame them? These days they build with cement. No doubt that has to be imported as well.

Things grow here, virtually anything, but is is remarkably difficult to get salad. The local cuisine is big on carbs, meat and lentils. A slice of tomato might be the only nod to veg. The fruit and veg market for this village is across the road from us. It consists of 1 stall with 6 kinds of produce. At least three of those are starch: sweet potatoes, yams, plantains.

Tomatoes are sold green.

I bought plantain. 

Next door, the supermarket (grand name for a tiny village store with an extremely limited range on offer - rice and lentils feature large), has hand-filled bags of the best peanuts I have eaten in years. 

Big. 

Fat. 

Fresh. 

Tasty.

They beat the heck out of the dreadfully rancid things we were given at Raffles in Singapore.

I'm happy to survive on plantains, peanuts (well these peanuts) and a steady supply of local rum.

Pelican

Same pelican

Views from a beach shack selling beverages