Hiking and Orientation

We were up way too early for a hike this morning. 8:30a came way too quickly since we are all still sleep deprived, but it was well worth it. Our bus drove us through a large portion of Grenada and it was fascinating to see the surrounding area since all I have seen so far is a small portion of campus and the airport. The island is beautiful and really looks nothing like the US.

(St. George-capital)

The hike we went on led us to a fabulous overlook of the island! It was a lot of uphill travel (really steep uphill too!) but it wasn't very far and we passed a pretty lake (with fish!) on our way up. It was also pretty muddy at a couple of points, but not too bad over all. Unfortunately we didn't see any monkeys :( but I guess that is really good incentive to come back and do it again! We also saw a lot of beautiful trees and flowers the whole trip too.

After we finished the hike, we got back on the buses and drove to the waterfall. We learned a lot about the surrounding area during our ride which was really neat. The waterfall was very pretty and if we had had more time, I totally would have gone for a swim! There is an organization called the Annandale Jumpers Association and it is a group of men who jump off the waterfall from crazy heights to make money for their families. They literally do it all day every day and visitors leave a couple dollar (US or EC) donation for watching the spectacle! We had a great time but unfortunately had to rush back for orientation sessions.

On our way back to campus, we drove through St. George, the capital city. The driving here is crazy! The roads are really narrow, not in great shape, and the people drive like nutcases! In addition, they honk at each other to say hi. It's very refreshing to know that a horn is being used for something other than yelling at people. When we finally made it back to campus, we were a little late for our first orientation session-oops! Oh well, it was exhausting and torturous, I don't think we missed much! 

Food here has been a bit of an issue so far. It tastes great, but the availability is extremely limited! We are very limited in the amount of time we have during the day (an hour at most between sessions, but often much less) and have no food in our room yet :( I am also beginning to think that the next available time to go grocery shopping is going to be Sunday if we're lucky but most likely not until Monday or Tuesday after class. Ugh. At least there are a couple of shops to buy food from on campus, otherwise we'd likely starve to death!

I promise to upload more pictures to Facebook soon, but I am absolutely exhausted and time is very limited currently. I'll leave you with a picture of part of campus from atop the hill! Good night!