We arrived back on Arrival Day. At least I thought it was Arrival Day. Despite it being another holiday we do not need, I was always a bit excited about Arrival Day. It seemed made for people who looked like me and who had no "day." But the folks at Piarco obviously think different. The display was all about East Indian culture and on the car radio the talk was about Indian Arrival Day so I guess it's turned back into an ethnic holiday. Just what we need, something celebrating our differences. Liat left on time and arrived in time but our luggage did not. The obstinate Liat agent at Maurice Bishop Airport informed us that our bags had been left behind because of "overweight." Since the total weight of the two small bags was 45 pounds, that seemed a bit thick. Maybe she was referring to the group of five Chinese Chinese travelling on to Barbados who checked in, in front of us, and whose first of six very large bags weighed 57 pounds. Someone should really check up on all of these foreign Chinese travelling around the Caribbean. Over the last five years, every time we return from Venezuela, the plane is half full of them. Where are they going?
Except for one passenger who travelled with a briefcase, it seemed a bit odd that the luggage of every single passenger who disembarked in Grenada was left behind in Piarco. Liat has stopped flying to Tobago, do they want us to stop flying to Grenada? It seems a bit unfair on the Grenadians who I have always found to be straight, upright people and this last trip confirmed my impression. Every where we went, people smiled and greeted us happily, much more than sour Trinidadians and, now I am told, Tobagonians. Grenada has a very poor road network with no signs, but the truth is they do not need road signs, their road signs are their people. Every Grenadian is willing to be stopped, at the road side, in their so solid houses, in restaurants and bars and bus stops, and asked for directions, which for the most part were amazingly concise and accurate. On occasion, if they were going our way, they jumped into the car and off we went. And went we did. The costal road from St George's to Sauteurs in the north was completely blocked by an accident between two huge trucks around a turn on a bridge, and the drivers, comfortably sitting and talking on the restraining wall, could only say that the vehicles would be cleared "when the police arrive." We went inland.
Inland means up 2,000 feet to Grand Etang, into the centre of the island and then down to the west coast again. It took three hours. The road is small, pot-holed and up and down. In fact the whole interior of the island is up and down, in and out, brake left, brake right, accelerate up, scatter fowl, scrape past oncoming car, smile at the rare walker and be smiled at. Small precipitous hills towered over and around us. The higher we went the cooler it got and up at Grand Etang it was positively cold and wet with dribbles of mist crossing the road. We were always surrounded by lush hunter green vegetation and small rivulets crossed by strong but narrow concrete bridges, acres of bananas, isolated groves of nutmeg trees, crosses of swaying bamboo, swamps of eddo plants, monstrous breadfruit and mango trees like peas. Occasionally, we would pass a clutch of scattered houses, bare of people, quiet on a Friday morning.
Everywhere there was strength. Whether it was breadfruit trees, the number of new, solidly constructed houses, built I suppose to withstand hurricanes, but perched on impossible slopes, or the hard, wiry, old men with huge calves, quietly walking up the road or the equally huge women, buttocks stretched taut as they bent over to wash clothes in the river, the impression was that of a composed firmness. The hotel, near the RC church in Sauters, where 40 Caribs are supposed to have leaped into the sea rather than surrender to the French, must be one of the best in the Caribbean. Gloriously perched over a little cove with Carriacou in the background, it is not a place if you want to fete but the natural and unpretentious friendliness of the staff, the English ale, the comfortable four-poster beds, the bathrooms open to the sea, were perfect for a quiet weekend. The food alone is worth the trip. The memory of the young English chef's callaloo, of a texture and taste like coconut ice cream, will linger a long time. Even the bitch who walked down the steps of the swimming pool, swam around us for a while and then paddled off to its owner, had a calming effect; it was so natural. Grenada was nice but Liat, like FIFA, needs to get its house in order or get some competition. Where is REDjet, Mr Warner?