Well, I got sick last night - burning up with fever, cold chills, diarrhea. Must have been the salad. So I hardly slept at all. Oh, and still have pretty solid neck pain to go along with the food poisoning. Rough, rough night.
Being sick sucks anywhere, but let me tell you, it sucks soon much worse when you're on a foreign island with no medical care. Ugh. Thankfully I had some drugs with me, and took some ibuprofen to break the fever. But yeah, not my best night.
Alarm went off at 4:15am to get moving and finish packing. Out the door by 5am to make it to the airport by 5:30 for a 6:40 flight.
Got checked in fine, but security is tough here! They make you take everything out of your bag - laptop, iPad, phone, any charger you might have for said devices... but they don't care about brining water in, ha!
Anyways, the gate area was pretty empty. Not many people on that early of a flight! I just collapsed in a chair and waited. Still not feeling well and no energy from being sick and not sleeping.
We boarded on time, took off on time, and then I realized we were supposed to land at 6:55 and my connecting flight to Grenada boarded at 6:50. Now how in the world was that supposed to work out?
At least my bag was checked all the way through, but I still had to get off the plane, out to the main part of the airport, back through one security line to the international part of the airport, and then wait in another giant security line for the actual gate entry. I knew it wasn't going to happen. The line was so slow. But I was too sick to really care at that point. Eventually, an airport worker came walking back through the line asking for any passengers going to Grenada. Yep, that's me! So we got pushed to the very front of the line - everything out of the bags again - and then on to a bus and out to the plane. Last ones to make it on!
I slept the whole way to Grenada -- the whole like 20 minute flight that it was. Just from the feel of the airport, I knew this was going to be a better island!
Bags came right away, no line at immigration or customs -- although the customs guy did question me quite a bit more than usual. Usually if anyone questions me its at Immigration. But I got through fine. Grabbed some cash from the ATM, haggled the price of taxi down to $20USD (that's a lot!) and hit the road.
They use the Easter Caribbean Dollar here, and the exchange rate is roughly $1 USD to $2.7 ECD. I'm getting better at mental math after all these currencies!
The island is much cleaner than Trinidad and Tobago. Just has a nicer feeling. The roads are way better, too! No trash on the side of the roads, no stray dogs everywhere. (That's my indicator of how a country is run, haha!) Just green gorgeous hills and blue gorgeous ocean views.
The lady I found to stay with, Maudlin, has a basement apartment below her residence. On the map, it looked like its as basically IN St. George (the main town on the island) and just a block or two from the water. Well, the map wasn't right. It's up a ways in the hills, maybe a 15 minute walk down to town.
(I always take screen shots of the location I'm staying so I will always know how to get back to them if I get lost!)
The place is fine. A little run down, but really, it's fine and has everything I would need. Location isn't exactly where I wanted, but oh well. Now to figure out transportation!
Turns out everything in Grenada is closed on Sundays. Like, everything. No buses run, market is closed, most shops are close. It's crazy! And there were two cruise ships docked here today! I would be so mad if I docked in Grenada on a Sunday and there wasn't one thing open. But they DO have church services. Churches everywhere, all packed, and man do they par-tay for their church! Loud music and dancing! Looked so fun!
We really needed to rent a car or a scooter, and not planning ahead, figured we could just get one in town -- since I thought the apartment was IN town. Now we were stuck to our own two legs to get around until we could figure something out. Maudlin was nice enough to get us some eggs, bread, and milk, and drove us in to a little local grocery store for some more food, but they didn't have much.
(Local grocery store in St. Georges - main town on island of Grenada)
The locals are nice here, they all speak English, and it seems pretty safe. Grenada is pretty great so far. A step up for Tobago, for sure.
Back at the place, it was internet research time, trying to find a car or scooter. But you know that problem I mentioned earlier...nothing is open today. Eventually we got through to a scooter renal company, but he was so wishy-washy. He said to call back at 2:30. It was 10:30!
I still wasn't feeling well and was so tired, so I took a nap for like two hours, and then did some more looking for fun things to do on this island (and surrounding islands). The dudes "2:30" turned in to closer to 4pm until we had a scooter. So annoying.
With a mode of transportation now we could get to the big IGA supermarket over off Grand Anse beach. It's so funny how things are segregated sometimes. The market was big and nice and clean and had all the things Westerners buy...and was full of all white people! I definitely loaded up on all the things I wanted. Eating healthy is so expensive sometimes!! (Still haven't had a bite of meat since I've been gone -- just fruits and veggies and nuts and grains. Really trying to limit and processed foods and sugars as well.)
Back to the apartment to drop off the food, and I really got sick again. Ugh. So annoying. But we had to get down to Grand Anse beach for sunset. I had sat around in the house long enough.
The hilly and bumpy scooter ride didn't do well with my neck or stomach, but Grand Anse beach was so worth it. The best beach I've come across so far on this trip, in my opinion. Endless white sand, calm water that wasn't freezing cold, and not over run with tourists at all. Hardly any, actually. A few beach resorts and bars, but mostly full of locals. It doesn't look that great in the pictures, but Google Image that place. It's fantastic.
Had to come back to the apartment quickly as I felt myself getting sick again, and spent the rest of the evening just laying around on the couch. Being sick on vacation is just so not cool!
Veggie burger for dinner (bought the expensive kind at the market), fruit for dessert, and then off to bed. No AC in this place, and it's quite warm. TWO fans going tonight, hopefully that will cool the place off and drown out any potential dogs/chickens/music I'm expecting tonight...
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