I was fortunate enough that Nick was able to come down to Grenada for Easter. Since he's in the army it's not easy to get time off, but he was able to beg the right people and came down here. He landed on Wednesday night after I got out of class. I hadn't been back to the airport since I landed and I wasn't exactly sure how I was going to get there. But luckily another girl in my class had her husband on the same flight and we were able to borrow a car to go pick them up. We drove down the road and found the airport. It's not hard to find and you can see it from the the school, but we never go down that road and it's not well marked, so fortunately we just ran into the parking lot. We waited impatiently and finally got the guys! The first night Nick and I went to Owl's, which is a restaurant/bar on the beach for dinner. The next day I had a couple of short classes, but Nick and I were still able to walk on the beach and run a few errands. That night we went to a bar called Old Skool Pub to watch one of our friends play the drums in a band the vet students have made. They played various rock songs and we had fun watching.
Friday morning we woke up early and met a few friends downstairs to catch a taxi. Our plans were to go to Seven Sisters, which are water falls on the northern part of the island. As I've explained before the taxis here are actually small vans which are typically packed as full as they can go and the drivers drive really fast and swerve through traffic. The students call them Reggae buses; you can imagine the music typically blasting. The good news is they usually only cost between $2.50 - $6 EC so it's a really cheap form of transportation. We took the Number 1 bus to St. George's to the bus depot so that we could catch the Number 4 bus to Seven Sisters. However, we didn't take into account that Grenada is a highly Catholic country and so on Good Friday the island practically shuts down. There weren't any 4 buses. Luckily there was a 1 bus who agreed to take us to the falls and pick us up for a higher price. We agreed. On the way there, the driver was flying around corners (Nick swears we were on three wheels at one point) and accelerating and braking hard. Getting easily car sick is not a good quality to have when riding in a Reggae bus. On the way there our driver stopped on a road to talk to a car who was passing going the other way. The driver of the other car gave our driver a cup of red wine. It isn't illegal to drink and drive in Grenada, you just have to wear your seat belt! Our driver said, "You see how it is in Grenada? Always a good time." We unfortunately already knew.
We finally got to the falls where he gave us walking sticks and told us he'd be back in a few hours. At first we all kind of laughed about the sticks because we didn't really think we'd need them. As the hike went on we were so glad to have them!! At points there were uneven steps carved into the dirt, but they were very old and often non-existent. Then after a while there weren't any more steps and often we had to climb over boulders and walk through muddy paths. That was the easy part as we were yet to find out. We came to a river and walked across boulders to the other side where we found several locals cooking something on a rock. They were all wearing just tattered shorts and had long dreadlocks. There were kids fishing for craw fish with strings tied to sticks. We weren't sure but it looked like they lived there. There was also a small gathering of tourists around this guy who apparently was called "Super Butterfly." He was wearing a bandanna on his head with the Grenadian colors (red, yellow and green) along with a matching jersey tucked into matching shorts and to top it off, he had red, yellow and green jelly sandals on. Remember those sandals from the 80s and 90s? He was wearing them. There were two waterfalls; one that he said was 35 feet high and one that was shorter. These were the bottom two of the falls. He asked if any of us wanted to jump off of them and told us he would demonstrate. He proceeded to climb a cliff, which I have no idea how he found places to put his feet, and got to the top of the waterfall. He stood with his back to us and did a back flip 35 feet into the water! Then he came up and dove off the smaller one, which wasn't really that small for a dive. He told us that in order to "enjoy de moments" of the falls we had to jump from one to the next, but once we decided to jump from the top one, the only way down was to jump down every single one. We couldn't walk if we didn't want to jump one of them. We all decided that wasn't our cup of tea, especially since we couldn't see any of the other ones.
Then he asked us if we wanted to see Honeymoon Falls, which is the first fall in Seven Sisters. We agreed and he lead some other students and us to a path, which after a little bit wasn't a really a path at all. We crossed the river constantly and the only way across was to go across on boulders. One of the girls with us is only 4'11" and she had a really hard time stepping to some of them. Every step was precarious and we had to rely on our walking sticks a lot. After probably 25 minutes of hiking we got to a point where there weren't any rocks and we just had to wade through the stream. Then, with his help, we climbed up a rock where water was running and through a little gully and finally saw Honeymoon falls. It was very pretty and we were able to swim in the pool below. We finally got back to where we had first found him and he informed us that we needed to pay him $40 EC for the tour. Very typical. But since he had a rusty machete and the other people had sharpened sticks, we paid him with a smile. He told us to "enjoy de moments" many more times. Keep in mind, the entire time we were with him he was chain-smoking joints. I am not sure I have ever seen anyone smoke so much weed ever, and I've been living here for a while! We hiked back and while we were waiting for the bus, Super Butterfly showed up and went behind a shack. He reappeared and was changed into nice jeans, a Gucci shirt, and looked very nice. He said he was going to go spend time with his family. TIG. We took the Reggae bus back to Grand Anse and were thankful to make it alive after getting off the bus.
Friday night we went to campus and a group of us played kickball. I don't think I've played that since elementary school, and it definitely showed. Luckily I wasn't the only one who wasn't skilled in the game and we all had fun.
Saturday morning 17 of us went snorkeling. We found a place on the beach at a resort where, for $60 US, they took us to three dive spots, gave us as much water, juice, rum punch and beer as we wanted and also fed us sandwiches. The snorkel gear and fins were also included. The first spot we went to was the statue garden. It's an underwater museum of sorts where artists have placed statues of people and other various things. Then the sea life begins to grow on it and it creates a man made type reef for the fish to swim in. The fish were beautiful, but the statues were really creepy! I have a few pictures of them in my album that I'll put at the end of this post. Unfortunately I got stung by a jellyfish across the throat and it hurt so badly! The marks from its tentacles are still really clear and it's been four days. We went to two other reefs and saw some beautiful fish and urchins. That night we went to Banana's and played some pool.
On Easter Sunday, Nick made me breakfast (Biscuits and gravy, yummy!) and then we went to the beach for a little bit. It was a very relaxing day. After talking to the locals, we found out that the kids on the island look forward to flying kites on Easter. They have these beautiful handmade kites and they wake up really early and stay out late just to fly kites. We asked them about Easter egg hunts and they thought it was really funny and had never heard of it. I guess it is kind of a weird concept to hunt for eggs.
Yesterday Nick and I went into town and bought a few souvenirs for people in the army and then we went to a nice dinner at Dodgy Docks, which is on the bay and very pretty. This morning we woke up and walked out and found a taxi. I saw him off at the airport and came back to my apartment. I really miss him and had so much fun with him, but I have a lot of studying to do. I have finals coming up because I get to go home in 29 days! It's very exciting.
Check out all of the pictures I took from this weekend!
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