First impressions

Writing this at least a couple of days into my stay. The passport control people nearly didn’t let me in the country as they seem to pretend they didn’t know about Carriacou animal hospital and to top it off the donated medical supplies got seized by customs. With the great effort from Penny in Grenada we managed to get them back the following day which meant I missed the morning ferry to Carriacou .

The initial problem was that I only had a vague idea of where I was staying the first night before I was to go to Carriacou. I knew an american lady with blond hair was to wait for me and I knew her first name. That was it. After looking through my emails all tired I saw something that potentially could be an address which it turns out it was. However not before I got escorted out by the security guard to point out the person who was going to pick me up. I did explain I never met the lady or even saw a photo of her so didn’t understand how that was to work. Turns out she wasn’t even there waiting for me. There waa a late change of plan meaning a friend of her from (who happens to be from Manchester) was there instead of her. Brilliant.

Anyway that was that bit, then when I came through customs I hit another snag. They were highly suspicious of all my luggage that was in sealed boxes to protect them during travel. They definitely did not look like normal luggage you would take on your Caribbean holiday. I even had the letter from the CVO (Chief Veterinary Officer) stating that I will be bringing in medical supplied as a donation. The customs guys were unphased. They waved their hands and said that was a different ministry (Agriculture) and they come under Finance. FFS!! It took a lot of negotiations and a payment of a fee (that was originally going to be much higher) for them to release the items the following day.