Saturday came too soon, of course. A and I ate our leftovers from the night before, and then had plenty of time to kill. Eventually we went to the pool bar, where I got more than a little drunk on Banana Quit and Coconut Kooler - for some reason none of the bars offered any kind of food, which might have helped me out a bit. C and :R: joined us for a bit, but then :R: left to go back to air-conditioning. The three of us moved over to Spicer’s (I think I was able to walk on my own) and shared a couple of plates of fries. We found :R: in the Television Lounge in the main hotel building, and we sat around and watched music videos for a couple of hours until it was time to go. Getting to the airport was no problem, but we did have a bit of a wait to check in. Of course they had problems printing my tickets, so it was a while before we could join the next line, the preliminary security check. While the other three stood in that line, I went and paid the $20/person departure fee. When I rejoined my friends, they’d moved about halfway through the line - only one man was checking everybody’s passports! Once we got past him, it was the usual metal detector check and then on to the waiting areas. A bought a couple of things in the duty free shops, and then they announced our flight, so everybody got up and formed a line…and stayed put. They finally announced a problem and said that boarding was canceled, so everybody sat back down…and stayed put. They didn’t update us for a long time, and finally I heard that if you showed your boarding pass at the snack bar, you could get a free non-alcoholic drink. I presented ours and got a couple of sodas; meanwhile A had ordered some cheese sandwiches from the upstairs restaurant to be brought to the snack bar, because after passing through security you had to stay there until your flight left. She also tried contacting US Airways because we could tell we’d miss our Philadelphia connection, but she couldn’t get any further than the Grenadian operator; the gate agents were utterly useless as they promised everything would be taken care of by the time we got to Philly. Our cheese sandwiches arrived within minutes of our flight being actually called for boarding; A held onto both of them even though we were in separate rows. When the flight attendant came around with the snack bags, she said “here’s your vegetarian meal” and handed me…a low-fat meal. With meat. I pushed the button and got her back, and she realized that she’d given my meal to :R: “and he’s already eating it.” Okay, fine, could she please go up to Row 12 and ask the woman for one of the cheese sandwiches? It took a while for her to figure out what I was asking (and apparently she still wasn’t clear when she asked A about it), but she did return with my cheese sandwich. I missed out on the plaintain chips and cookie, but the sandwich was heavy and compensated somewhat. The rest of the flight was uneventful; C and I did my crossword puzzles together, and we played Scrabble on my Visor. Of course we did get to Philadelphia quite late, and because that was our port of entry we all had to wait for the baggage to be unloaded and show up on the carousel, and then we had to go through customs and immigration. The baggage was the longest wait - the legal proceedings went fairly quickly, we’re American citizens and only bought souvenirs overseas, and we weren’t in a country where Mad Cow Disease is prevalent - but I don’t think there was any chance we could have made our connecting flight to BWI, even if we hadn’t been two hours late leaving Grenada.

Friday was our last full day in Grenada. C had decided that in order to get any good snorkeling in we should go in the morning, so the three of us (:R: wasn’t interested) put on sunblock and rented equipment. I was amazed at how easy it was - I’d expected it to be much more difficult to breathe, but when I was in the water I just swam around and looked at the coral and the fish. It was a really cool experience! My mask was pinching my face, though, so after a while I treaded water and tried to fix it…but ended up loosening it instead, and even holding onto A for support I couldn’t get it back together. I was getting very nervous and panicky, so A patiently followed me as I doggie-paddled back to land; I’m very grateful to her for not sending me off on my own. I got out and stood on the beach for a little while, then fiddled with my mask and decided to go back in. I swam around a bit more and took some pictures with C’s underwater camera, then decided I’d had enough. While trying to climb ashore, I slipped on the coral and immediately felt sharp pain in my left ankle. I screamed (A later told me I’d worried some people relaxing on the beach), and had no idea if I’d cut myself or broken something. C was right beside me and was telling me to get out of the water; I was in a lot of pain and insisted I couldn’t, but he told me I had to. So I finally swam/crawled/hobbled along, clutching my left ankle, and what do you think happened then? Bingo! I slipped and cut my right ankle. I bawled again and dragged myself out of the water, barely remembering to make sure my bikini top wasn’t too revealing - it’s illegal to go topless in Grenada. I stumbled back toward the dive shack to return my snorkeling equipment (it was halfway around the resort from where I’d come ashore), and on the way I managed to peer at my ankles. I’d really done a number on the left one, which was quite bloody but hadn’t yet dribbled onto my water shoes. I paused to dab at it, and when I got to the dive shack and handed in my gear I asked if they had a first aid kit. The guy gave me the biggest band-aid he had (it wasn’t big enough) and some spray-on Bactine, but I had no freshwater to rinse it with. I sat in a chair outside the dive shack and patted it dry the best I could, trying to push the dirt out of the way. As I was finishing up, one of the braid ladies came up and offered to do my hair. I had been planning to get some braids done before leaving, but right then all I wanted to do was go back to my room and rinse my cuts a little better, then raid C’s first aid kit. The woman was very aggressive, though, and I ended up having my hair done on the spot. She did more than I wanted to - I’d asked for five on each side, which at $2/each used up the $20 I’d budgeted for having my hair braided - and I wound up with eight braids on the left and six on the right, a total of 14 for which I was charged $25. She’d promised to make the right side even with the left, so she cheated me out of two braids, but at least she made them even so it wouldn’t be too obvious. For dinner we went to the Brown Sugar Restaurant (which provided free transportation), which was wonderful. The prices were all-inclusive, which meant you got an appetizer, salad, main course, and dessert. I chose callaloo soup for my appetizer and ate my salad, but by the time my pumpkin ravioli arrived I was too full to eat more than one of them! They were delicious, I wish I had the recipe. I had the rest boxed up, of course. For dessert I chose what sounded like a delightfully unique cheesecake, only to find that the only dessert they had left was a chocolate cake I could have anywhere. I was grumpy about that, but got them to give me a free drink instead; I had another “Your Business Brown” which I think came in a bigger glass than the one I’d had at the beginning of the meal.

On Thursday I really started to feel like time was running out. I had seen some shops mentioned in a tourist brochure, so I’d been wanting to visit their respective shopping centers. A agreed to go with me, and we got up around 9:45 to head to breakfast. To our dismay, the International Restaurant was already closed, but they told us to go over to Spicer’s instead. I’d seen on the daily activity list that Spicer’s was open from 10am on, so I figured this would be fine, and we went back across the resort and up the long stairs. What did we find when we got there? No food! Apparently they wouldn’t actually open until noon. A and I were amazed that a resort that purports to be all-inclusive there’s a two-hour period when you can’t get any food. (The employees at Spicer’s suggested room service, which we of course couldn’t afford.) While we were trying to figure out what to do next, C showed up - he never eats breakfast anyway. A and I hadn’t put on sunblock for the day, so the three of us went back and chit-chatted while slathering ourselves with SPF-50. By the time we were done it was almost 11:30, so we hung out for another half-hour before going back to Spicer’s. I ran into astonishing ignorance from the staff there, who had apparently never met a vegetarian before. The cashier didn’t know anything, and when we asked the manager about a vegetarian sandwich he said he’d have to ask the cook. There was a long pause before A finally said “well then can you ask the cook?!” He went into the back for a while, and finally said they could make a cheese salad sandwich for me. I’ve never heard of “cheese salad” before, so I asked for just a plain cheese sandwich. No, they could give me cheese salad - okay, fine, I missed breakfast, I’m hungry, gimme the damn cheese salad sandwich! When it was finally brought to the table, it turned out to be a very nice sandwich: a couple of different types of cheese, plus some lettuce, a tomato slice, and dressing I couldn’t identify (probably just mayo) between two innocent pieces of white bread. It was rather tasty. While we were eating, A and I told C about our plan to go shopping. He didn’t have any other plans, but I could tell he didn’t want to come along. He was nice, though, and sucked it up because I admitted I would enjoy his company. The three of us headed to the lobby and a cab came quickly. (They always do - I think they must be somewhere on the resort grounds or something.) We went to Spiceland Mall first, and I picked up some trinkety souvenirs because I knew I wouldn’t have another chance to get them. There was a supermarket in the mall, so we got snacks there, and C stopped in at a fabric store to buy a blanket for the picnic we were planning that night. We next walked across the street to the Le Marquis Complex, which was utterly boring; we could have walked a little up the road to the Grand Anse Shopping Centre but it was hot and we were all sweaty, so we found a cab and went back to the resort. A little later on I was browsing through the pictures already in my camera, and suddenly I noticed some that were very dark, as if the flash hadn’t been on in a dimly lit room. After that were pictures of people I didn’t know - the cab driver’s family had taken pictures of each other with my camera! It was amusing, but at the same time I felt vaguely violated. Then again, I know I’m lucky to have the camera back at all. C and I tried to go snorkeling, but his mask broke and I had a terrible time trying to swim with my eyes squinched shut, one hand pinching my nose, and another holding the snorkel - I gave up and just frolicked while C swam around with his goggles on. He decided it was too dark to see anything, so we went back inside. Our picnic went nicely; we set up our blanket on the beach after dark and lit citronella incense to stick in the sand around us. We had pizza delivered (I had to go to the lobby to get it, which I did barefoot despite the “dress code” that claimed I should wear shoes in public areas; if you carry yourself properly nobody notices your feet), and we ate some of the snacks we’d picked up at the grocery store earlier. The snacks, incidentally, included some British food - Cadbury candy bars and little cookies called Go Ahead, of which I’d picked the forest-fruit variety. The mosquito population left us alone while we drank the rum/eggnog :R: had bought at the distillery the day before; I didn’t like it and handed my glass off to C.

The day started out bad when the pest control guy came around and we had to vacate the room for a while. We decided to take a taxi tour of the island, and of the three drivers’ business cards we had we chose the one A and :R: had taken home from the capital yesterday. (Most cab drivers can serve as tour guides as well, and they’ll offer fixed-rate trips.) We realized we didn’t have the camera, so I went back to the room to look for it. I am notoriously bad at looking for things, but I really couldn’t find it, and I started getting kind of headachy from the fumigation. So I went back to the hotel lobby (it’s several minutes’ walk from our room, by the way) and reported that it wasn’t there and that I was worried. Knowing how bad I am at locating things that are right in front of my face, A got frustrated and went off to look for it; C went after her. They came back a little while later and reported it was nowhere to be found, at which point I really started to panic that it was gone. (This is the several-hundred-dollar digital camera my parents got me for my 21st birthday.) A put in a lost-item report at the front desk, and I continued to freak out. Finally we asked the cab driver - who had been waiting a while by this point - and it turned out he had it! A had left it in the taxi and he had taken it home, figuring it belonged to one of the cruise passengers he’d driven around the day before. (We’d noticed a large cruise ship docked in the harbor.) Although I didn’t know where the driver lived, I hoped it would be somewhere close by so he could run and pick up the camera right away. He didn’t mention doing that, though, so I kept quiet and rode around all day without a camera. (:R: had his, and he took some pictures during the day.) Our first stop on the tour was the distillery for Clarke’s Court rum, which I thought smelled absolutely terrible and didn’t find interesting in the slightest. We drove around for a while after that, passing at least one fort and climbing higher into the mountains. The next time we got out of the cab was at Annandale Falls, where members of the Annandale Jumpers Club were waiting for us. For US$15, they would climb to the top of the rock cliff and dive into the pool below so we could take a picture; it was much too steep a price and we declined. (I felt bad about it, because I did want to see them jump and because they probably don’t make much money doing the stunt. Then again, when a large tour group comes by, they probably make a lot of cash all at once.) From there we drove to Grand Etang National Park, where we had lunch and got another tour. This one involved a lot more walking - and could have included even more if we’d taken the full tour. A and I were rather dismayed that our tour guide kept picking flowers to show us - we could see them just fine, he didn’t need to kill them! He also pointed out the sensitive plant I’ve been looking for for years but never known the name of, but he called it “sleeping flower” so I still don’t know what it’s called. It looks like a tiny fern leaf, but when you touch it the fingers of the leaf close up, making the leaf fold in half. We also saw lovely small white flowers with yellow centers and pretty red stems that looked like coral; the guide called it “bread and cheese” and handed us what he’d picked so we made the best of it by putting it into my ponytail. After the park we headed back toward civilization, and got to pass Grenada’s national stadium, where all the important cricket matches are apparently held. We stopped at a roundabout to wait for the driver’s brother, who handed off the camera to us; after that we went back to the hotel and had tea.

We took a taxi into St. George’s and had ourselves dropped off near the Grenada National Museum. It was a very tiny place; one of the major attractions was the marble bathtub used by Josephine Bonaparte when she was a child in Martinique. There were also exhibits on Grenada’s relationship with Great Britain, and the history of Grenada’s political turmoil during the mid-20th century. The first building was awfully cramped and dark, but after stepping outside and around a corner the second building (upstairs from the first?) had more space and light. The current highlight was an art exhibition, which was very nice. Another exhibit that interested me was the model of Grenada; it gave me a much better sense of the island’s physical layout than I’d had previously. After leaving the museum we stopped off at a convenience store (”Low Budget Drug Store” to be exact) to pick up some conditioner, because A and I knew our hair was going to be in awful shape from the salt water. We then visited two arty-crafty type stores, and C bought an expensive batik shirt in one of them. We wandered through the city for a while after that, ducking briefly into a supermarket and getting persistently invited for a tour of the fish market before getting ourselves lost by going in circles. :R: finally decided that we should split up, so he and A went one direction and C and I headed…up the hill. St. George’s seems to be on two very different levels, with major climbs and long staircases between them. C and I still managed to walk in a circle, so when I ducked into a bookstore to apply more sunblock (my shoulders had felt like they might be burning) we also picked up a map of the island. We wanted to sit down for a bit and look it over, so we headed toward the only semi-recognizable place: a “Royal Castle” that looked awfully like a White Castle (I didn’t see a single McDonald’s or other chain anywhere). On the way there, I had ended up a few feet ahead of C and found myself getting ogled a bit. He went to stand in line for sodas while I sat at a booth and started looking over the map, and I could feel the eyes of the young men at the next table boring into me and trying to get me to look up (I didn’t). When C came to the table, I put my arm around him in an attempt to discourage the guys…but it didn’t work, so I didn’t look up from the map the entire time we were there. C finally managed to figure out where we were and how to get where we wanted to be, so we set off again. We made it to the Carenage and peeked in a couple of shops before deciding to head back. It occurred to me that we should get some food before heading back to the Land Of Expensive Eating (aka our resort), so we wandered back to Hughes Street and stopped at the Island Thyme Cafe. I was delighted with their veggie pizza - it had lots of oregano, some carrots, and other vegetables. It only came in a whole pizza, so I had plenty to bring home, but Grenadian pizza seems to be thin crust so I ate it up fairly quickly because it wasn’t very filling. We caught a cab back to the hotel.

The majority of Grenada’s population is Catholic, so we were confronted by Easter Monday. We were told a number of places in town would be closed, so we spent another day hanging around the resort. C and I went kayaking again, even though the boats were crummy no-name sit-on-tops without any useful features. We played out in the water for a bit and C tried to surf (yes, you can surf in a kayak), but the waves weren’t good enough and all he managed to do was dump himself out of the boat several times. I just had fun positioning myself directly in front of the waves and letting them fall in my lap! :R: had expressed an interest in going kayaking too, so I went in and sat with A while he used my boat. C tried to teach him proper paddling form, but of course it didn’t stick and so :R: just tried to avoid the waves I’d been chasing. That night was the weekly “manager’s cocktail reception” at the pool bar, but C didn’t feel much like going. A, :R:, and I went and had the little drinks and eats they gave us, and I had another drink and got myself more than a little bit tipsy. I remembered most of it the next day, but what I remember is that A and C had to help me change clothes for dinner!

A and I started Easter Sunday with breakfast, but then I went back up to the room and kept myself entertained while A hid some plastic eggs out on the beach. She had also brought treats for the Easter Bunny to leave in our respective hats, but we had to leave :R:’s outside his room with a note - and it was stolen! It had only been a chocolate bunny and little things like that, but I was disappointed that somebody had taken it. :R: didn’t mind, though, and said he hoped a kid was enjoying it somewhere. He didn’t really participate much in the egg-finding, and C found them much faster than I did! He found six before I found two, and then helped me hunt for the remaining four. There was some confusion about where the last one could possibly be, before A realized that she had counted wrong and we had already found all twelve. We sat on beach chairs for a while, and C went out into the water. A finally convinced me that the fish wouldn’t bite me (I was reluctant to hop right in the sea) and we swam out to where C was, where he informed us that he’d left his wallet and passport in the pocket of his swimming trunks! He went back to the beach and went inside to lay everything out to dry, and A and I swam about a little bit. I was disgusted by the taste of the water - I don’t think I’ve ever tasted salt water quite like that before! When C finally came back out, I convinced him to go with me to the resort’s watersports shack so we could rent a couple of kayaks.

Getting to Grenada was quite easy. I drove to BWI and didn’t have trouble finding parking in one of the satellite lots, and we had timed it perfectly to hop right onto the shuttle to the terminal. Checking in was no problem, and the line for security was long but moved quickly. (C set off the alarm and had to be swiped with a wand, but of course there was nothing to find.) We had a while to wait before our flight, but it wasn’t crowded and we boarded easily. When we got to Philadelphia, we moved quickly to get to our next gate, but then we still had some time to wait. We were all in the same row, and unfortunately that was the very last occupied row in the plane. (The row behind us was reserved for the flight attendants, one of whom was crocheting a cool handbag.) When we landed at Point Salines we were dreading the wait to get off the plane, but suddenly they announced that we would be deplaning using front and rear stairs! This made us the first ones off and put us first in line for immigration. That went very smoothly, and we were waiting at the baggage claim before it even started moving. (Naturally our bags weren’t the first to show up, but at least they all made it there.) As soon as we headed out of the claim area, we were accosted by someone offering a taxi ride - well, sure, we had to get to the hotel somehow, right? We were a bit dismayed to find that it was only a five minute drive to the Rex, as we’d thought we were to be closer to Grand Anse and St. George’s. We didn’t feel like doing much right away, of course; A and :R: got some drinks at the poolside bar (which was not accessible from the pool, but rather was adjacent to it), where I joined them a little later. Finally the four of us had dinner at the Oriental Restaurant, which had a vegetarian menu but whose pad thai wasn’t quite what I was expecting. It was good, though, and I had my leftovers packaged up to eat later (I never finished them).