If You Can Drive In Grenada...

People here are accustomed to saying
"If you can drive in Grenada you can drive anywhere."
What they really mean is if you survive the daily terror of driving in Grenada, you may have a glimmer of hope that one day you'll drive somewhere else.

Here are some tidbits about driving on the Isle of Spice:

1. Grenadians drive on the left-hand side of the road.
   
2. Grenadian driver's seats are on the right-hand side of the car. Awkward...
   
3. Grenada is a small island (12 miles wide and 21 miles long to be exact). You'd think that one might get from one end to the other quite quickly. Wrong! See point four.
   
4. Grenada is extremely mountainous. Therefore, the roads are small, two lane scribbles that weave in and around the mountains. It may take up to 45 minutes to drive 5 miles.
   
5. With such small and curvy roads, you'd think that people would take it slow around here. Wrong. Drivers are in a hurry. A big hurry! If you don't put the pedal to the metal here, you're gonna get run off the road. Not maliciously though. Grenadians will give you a friendly toot of the horn and a wave as they run you into the ocean.
   
6. The problem with these small roads is that there's nowhere to turn off if you get in trouble. On both sides of the street you have gutters. These aren't Uncle Sam size gutters folks where you used to sail your homemade sail boats. The gutters range from 2 to 4 feet deep. In other words, if you swerve.... you're dead.
   
7. So with fast drivers on small, windy roads with cliffs on each side you'd think there would be ample driving laws to keep everyone safe. But alas, you're wrong again.
   
8. I don't know the laws here. All I know is you can pass people on hills and corners. There are no speed limits. There aren't lines on the roads to separate lanes. You can stop indiscriminately at any moment on the road. You may just see someone you want to suddenly talk to. No bother - the rest of us will just squeal our tires and swerve into the 4 foot hell pit gutter and die. Just make sure to give me a little 'toot toot' with your cheerful horn before we fall to our deaths.
9. Perhaps one of my favorite things about driving here is the roundabouts. Instead of yield signs, they have signs that say "Give Way". Quite charming if you ask me.
   
10. And ten....well, there is no ten. Just enough to say I kind of love Grenada. Crazy drivers and all.