I am always amazed at the quantity of nice cars in Grand Cayman. Most places in the Caribbean you often have a mix of old, rusted and “bumper missing” cars.
Not the case in Grand Cayman! Off the top of my head, we have Porsche, Mercedes, Audi & BMW dealers for luxury cars. You have to admit, for +-52,000 people, thats quite impressive.
The love affair with cars goes even further, as this sign is a witness to:
So what’s this sign you ask? I saw this in the parking lot of A.L. Thompson, our local equivalent of Home Depot. Strange don’t you think? It turns out that locals LOVE to wash their cars. I have often seen people washing (and doing maintenance on) their cars in random parking lots and even over lunch breaks. There are also quite a few car wash facilities scattered around the island. There are also many “mobile” car washing services. Essentially two guys in a van with a reservoir of water and cleaning products. They will wash your car in the parking lot of your office (for example) and when you finish work you arrive to a nice & clean car.
Speaking of cars and hot days as I have in recent posts, some kitty cat was looking for a cool place to rest a few days ago. This is what I saw as I was walking back towards my CRV a few days back ; a kitty cat fast asleep in the shade. It was only when I got really close did s/he see me and ran away.
If you have ever driven along South Church street in South Sound, you probably have noticed this oddity! I certainly have but never really wondered what it was until now (I am also wondering why I had not stopped before … I’m usually curious about quirks like these ; anyway!)
So here it is below!. The story of this tree runs something along these lines.
After Hurricane Ivan in 2004, a couple noticed that on some remote beaches, there was trash. Often, that trash was shoes/flipflops/etc. So they collected a few hundred at various locations (remember, Ivan was a nasty storm, so lots of debris went out to sea and is coming back to shore) and then one night, to make a statement, nailed them to a large dead tree on South Church street, where many motorists pass every day. Since then, people have been adding shoes and it has become a bit of a tourist photo op.
There is even a Facebook site for this tree. Also, there was an article about the tree (and how I got the story I explained above) at the following link if you are curious.
http://www.uncommoncaribbean.com/2011/04/05/uncommon-attraction-the-dirty-story-behind-the-cayman-shoe-tree/ or just search for “cayman shoe tree” on Facebook.
So after checking out the tree and working up an appetite, I headed to one of my favorite restaurants : Chicken-Chicken. I am often asked by readers for good places to eat, so here is one. Its close to 7-Mile beach and town, quick service and reasonable prices. +-10$CI for a full meal and drink. (I always have the bottled root beer or cream soda ; so good!) Below is the spot. +-1:30opm on a Saturday and there were quite a few clients inside. For Canadian folk, this place compares to Swiss Chalet (or Chalet Suisse for the Quebecois).
Preparing the chicken right in front of you.
The product with corn bread ; very yummy! A good friend of mine, with whom I have been to this restaurant many times (you know who you are!), his wife once told me that if he could chose whichever restaurant in the world to go to on his birthday, he would still go to Chicken-Chicken! 🙂
