Driving in Grenada

Thanks to a gigantic favor from my dad, we were able to buy a car here in Grenada.  We bought a Suzuki Escudo, you're probably wondering what an Escudo is, we did when we first came.  Escudo's are really popular on the island because they are pretty cheap to fix, and can handle the super bumpy bad roads.  The cars here are usually old, but still really expensive, it seems like they get to a price and just don't depreciate anymore.  The cars are usually pretty torn up inside; with our car, one of our back windows doesn't roll down, the paneling is torn, there is a big hole where the stereo should be, and whenever it rains outside it rains inside our car too.  I know that sounds bad compared to American cars that we're used to, but we actually got a good car for a good deal.  Right before we bought it, it got a brand new paint job.  So we are driving around in a dark green car with glitter.  Yes, you read that right, actual specks of glitter are in the paint.

All those dots are specks of glitter

Very colorful

Driving in Grenada has been quite the experience, in Grenada they don't have driving rules so much as suggestions.  You can drive as fast as you want, stop randomly in the road, reverse whenever you want to in the middle of the street, drink and drive, park in the middle of the street, but if you dare drive without a shirt on you're in trouble. 

Blinkers are for decoration, not actually used, they like to use their horns instead.  Horn honking here is a language in and of itself; they honk to say hi, bye, how are you doing, I'm coming over, I'm turning, I'm going around a corner, move, I'm passing you, you're an American so I'm going to honk for no reason, or good afternoon good evening and goodnight!

Another experience with driving here is there aren't addresses or road signs.  So getting or giving directions is hard.  Here is an example of some directions I was given, "left at the tire roundabout, right at the next roundabout, turn left on the second dirt road, drive past the herd of goats tied to the side of the road (they actually didn't say that, I added that for fun, the herds are really common here and are everywhere), veer to the left at something that kind of looks like a fork in the road, turn left at the next dirt road, park and get out and walk 30 yards because cars can't do the last part, and it's the house at the end, I think it's white." As you can probably guess, I was lost for over an hour looking for a place that was maybe 5 minutes away.

We've decided if people can survive driving in Grenada, you can drive anywhere!