Amazon Adventure

Amazon Adventure

As many of you know, our latest adventure took us through the Caribbean to the mouth of the Amazon and up the river as far as Manaus, Brazil. That’s as far as you can go in anything resembling relative comfort, but if you are up for a journey spanning about a week, sleeping in a hammock on open decks, you can sail all the way up to Iquitos, Peru, getting ever closer the Amazon’s source high in the Peruvian Andes. Needless to say, we are not that adventurous but within the bounds of what we were able to do, all while swaddled in luxury, we had a fantastic time in one of the most exotic, talked about, and still somewhat unspoiled parts of the world.

Where to Start the Journey

My parents, Steve and Valene, were joining us on this adventure. About a year ago, when we were in the Baltic Sea on another cruise, we found the Amazon voyage and while we were making our deposit we decided to make a deposit for them as an unexpected surprise. Deposits are completely refundable, or transferable to a different cruise, so in the unlikely event that they decided they didn’t want to go, nothing was lost. Clearly, they opted to go as I suspected they would. As the cruise departed from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, this represented a first for them in that they had never been to Florida before despite having been quite close at times and despite having been to most every other, if not every other, state at some point or another over the last 50 or so years of marriage. I realize it can be hard to believe, for Easterners, that anyone could never have been to Florida, but when you live in California the appeal is rather minimal. There are already beaches, and if those aren’t good enough Hawaii is no farther or expensive by air that Florida is, and of course California has the original Disneyland! Oh yeah, and they grow way better oranges and other citrus in California anyway (Florida grows juice oranges, California grows the ones you actually want to eat fresh as well as juicers), so what’s the point? Given that they had never been to Florida, they had of course never seen the Florida Keys, but had read about them in multiple different books or articles. Since we had to fly to Fort Lauderdale anyway, why not make it an open-jaws type ticket by flying into Key West, renting a car to drive the Keys back to Fort Lauderdale, and then fly home to our respective cities from Fort Lauderdale on return? Why not indeed. There are no drop-off fees for rental cars in Florida so renting at one airport and returning at a different one posed no financial penalty and while the drive from Key West to Fort Lauderdale is in the neighborhood of about four hours, that is about the same time my folks routinely drive from their main house to their coastal house, so it wasn’t a deterrent. The distances between points in the West are considerably greater than what many in the East are used to, so it seemed very normal.

Southernmost Point?

Tim and I have been to Key West twice before, once on a cruise, and once, coincidentally given our destination on this cruise, while waiting for Brazilian visas to be processed (we have obtained Brazilian visas twice now and have been in Brazil a total of four times and will go again since we now have 10 year visas that I don’t intend to waste!). But I was happy to go to Key West again so that Mom and Dad could see it, drive the Keys and snap a photo of the southernmost point in the continental United States. For hardcore fact geeks like me, the ACTUAL southernmost point in the United States proper is on the big island of Hawaii, but if you include territorial claims, it would be in American Samoa, and if you count places that don’t technically “belong” to the United States because by treaty no country can claim actual land, then it would be the Amundsen-Scott station at the South Pole. The only other features that stand out, aside from being the self-proclaimed “Conch Republic,” are the large AIDS memorial monument (Key West is a very popular gay male resort town and consequently suffered a disproportionate number of AIDS deaths) and the free roaming and legally protected against any harm chickens that you will see just about everywhere. The town is fairly small, has pockets of great picturesque charm and then on the outskirts the trappings of Anytown, USA.

Coming From LAX

Mom and Dad flew in from Los Angeles on a Delta red-eye, the same flight that Tim and I routinely take when returning from Palm Springs. It leaves at 10:45pm and arrives just a few minutes before 6:00am, just as Hartsfield-Jackson is waking up, so it is a great flight for making practically any ongoing connecting flight. We planned to meet up in the Delta SkyClub nearest to our departure point once we knew what that was. Text ability on phones allowed us to coordinate. Just one potential glitch in all of this was that Dad had broken his leg a few weeks prior while visiting Kota Kinabalu, in Malaysian Borneo, where my Mom was attending a professional conference and Dad was “dead-heading,” so to speak. The break was of a type that he could still travel by wearing an immobilization boot but he did need a wheelchair to navigate the airport and ramps. Delta Reservations, in part because Mom is a Platinum Medallion, made all the arrangements and everything went perfectly smoothly. However, unlike when Tim and I fly this flight, Mom and Dad were in Coach, having been denied the luxury of the full flatbed seats up front due to the flight being, as usual, jam packed. And with a broken leg, you can’t even have the emergency exit rows since it seems pretty certain that you won’t be much good in the event of an emergency! But they survived the trip and we would meet up at the Centerpoint SkyClub on Concourse A, arguably the largest and best of all 9 SkyClubs at Hartsfield-Jackson.

Checking In

Our drive down was completely uneventful at the early hour of the morning we left and we were just able to park in Daily parking instead of having to schlep baggage from long-term economy parking since we were just squeaking under the wire of the 30 day maximum limit on parking in Daily. I agreed to pay Tim the $120 difference, in cash, to have the luxury of being closer to the terminal with a total of 5 bags to check and covered in the event of rain, or even snow, on our return. I had tried to check-in on the iPhone mobile app, but was only able to check one bag each, which made no sense because as Diamond Medallions, the highest level that there is, we are each allowed three bags, up to 70 pounds each, for free. I guessed that the app was misbehaving for some unknown reason and figured we would resolve it at the counter. At the SkyTeam Elite check-in counter, the agent tried to check our bags and yet her computer wouldn’t allow it either. A quick check with a senior agent revealed the issue. No one, regardless of status or how much you are willing to pay, can check more than ONE checked bag for any flight into EYW, Key West International. The runway is so short that strict weight limits are in effect, especially on larger jets like our 737 (small compared to many jets these days, but certainly not a commuter jet either). So, there we are, headed on a 28 day cruise with formal wear and other bulky needs for a long trip (included one suitcase of nothing but medications!) and we simply don’t know what to do. Perhaps we can change to Fort Lauderdale, but we can’t change Mom and Dad’s reservations because they have checked bags in Los Angeles and can’t change flights. It makes no sense for half our party to be at one airport, with no car reservation in their name to boot, while we are at another. At the agent’s suggestion, we decided to carry our roll-aboards instead of checking them for convenience, and declare that we had, therefore, no more than the two items allowed for carry-on plus one medical device that should, theoretically, be exempt from the count. That, coupled with our Diamond status, should save the day. The counter agent assured us that it would be no problem, but she wouldn’t have to deal with us if there was an issue out at the gate, so what else would she say! Oddly, Tim, who is usually Mister Optimist, was very skeptical that this would work, while I was totally Zen about it, figuring it would all work out one way or another and that all of us, plus bags, would arrive in Key West without issue. Normally I would freak out and panic, but in this case, it was total weird role reversal. Turns out, I was right, it was no issue and all went smoothly and we landed at Key West, after a warning from the pilot that the braking process might be quite hard and we should expect to feel it but shouldn’t be alarmed, with everything and everyone in tow. By the way, I didn’t feel anything unusual despite the warning. The pilot did have a remarkable sense of humor overall throughout the flight, he was a former Navy guy, and I found his announcement thoughtful if ultimately perhaps unnecessary.

Driving the Keys

The next challenge was getting everyone and their bags into a rental vehicle. I don’t know how my parents do it, but they really are the wizards at packing light. They had what seemed an absurdly small amount of luggage for 28 days, and that had to include my mother’s formal wear! But, she travels for business to Asia for up to 3 weeks with nothing but a carry on so clearly she has it all taped out! Anyway, we had a nice big Hyundai Santa Fe SUV, which can carry up to 7, so we had enough room to travel in comfort, even with a broken leg.

We tooled about Key West a bit so that Mom could get a sense of the residential areas as well as Duval Street, the main drag, but we didn’t make any stops since we weren’t ready for lunch yet and there wasn’t any local color that we really wanted to see. Mom and Dad were more interested in the drive over the Keys, I think, than they were specifically interested in Key West itself. The 189 mile drive, of which roughly 98 miles is on the Keys themselves, gave them plenty of time to get a sense of the area. There are lots of ocean vistas and some small towns on some of the Keys, but most of it is pretty much unpopulated. When Mom and Dad think of coastal islands, they think of what they are familiar with in California, with islands like Catalina and the other Channel Islands, now a National Park, which are mountainous, rough, and craggy, as well as devoid of any water aside from rare rainfall. They were surprised to find that the Keys are just coralline stands that rise above the water, are very flat therefore, support abundant greenery both terrestrial as well as mangroves in the water, and consequently are like nothing to be found in California or elsewhere in their experience. We had a great lunch enroute at the Galley Grill, similar name to my folk’s favorite California restaurant, on Sutherland Key. Overall, this pre-excursion proved to be a great experience for them, to see something so unexpected and different from their imaginings, that I didn’t mind the additional four hours driving added on to what otherwise would have been mere minutes from the Fort Lauderdale airport to Port Everglades from which the cruise lines depart.

Fort Lauderdale and Last Minute Panic

We stayed in the Hilton Fort Lauderdale Marina property which was very close the Port. It was a nice, but aging, full service facility with sail in and park spaces for some quite nice and large yachts from around the world. While I find these ships lovely, I am not confident that I would brave an open ocean crossing in anything smaller than the smaller of the standard cruise ships. I am not a confident swimmer and I don’t wish to drown any more than the next guy, so when out on the seas, I like the comfort of something that will take a good bit of time to go down if the worst happens. I don’t actively think about it, of course, but small boats and I, I suspect, wouldn’t really get along. Anyway, we were all so exhausted, that while I had looked up some reportedly excellent German restaurants in Fort Lauderdale (it seems impossible to find good German food in the United States, although what we had in Vermont, of all places, was excellent), as well as a Brazilian churrascaria, to get us in the mood so to speak, we opted to eat in the hotel’s quite excellent Asian fusion restaurant. Dad had by far the best food with a type of short ribs that were out of this world! I didn’t get a good night’s sleep since a mysterious email arrived reportedly following up on a conversation I had supposedly had with a law firm in San Diego about getting a tax-ID number for a trust of some sort. I was quite certain I had done no such thing, and things like this always completely paralyze me with fear since I have been a victim of identity theft once before, and I have a credit score now of almost 800, or near perfect, and I dread having to go through the process of getting out from the total chaotic mess that identity theft can create before you know it. The full burden of fixing the mess falls totally on the victim, there is essentially no help from anyone, everyone doubts your story, and it can take years to fully clean it up. I was lucky in my experience and I know it could have been a lot worse, although it was bad enough as it was, and I simply can’t bear the thought of going through it again! I suspected a tax refund scam, which even the Federal government admits they can’t control and which is costing them billions a year, but perhaps it was simply some sort of phishing scam since I can’t find any ready evidence of malfeasance, but it wasn’t the way I most wanted to start 28 days away from home, and out of the country to boot!

Embarking the Ship

The next morning it was a very short cab ride to the Port. Porters take your tagged bags, you print the tags before you leave home, from you on arrival so you only have to contend with whatever limited luggage you think you need for the next few hours. About three weeks before departure we were given the opportunity to upgrade to the Neptune Suites, which we have sailed in before but which Mom and Dad had not experienced, and leapt at the chance. Unlike airline upgrades however, these are not free, although they are reduced cost compared to the full fare. We paid about $4,500 each to upgrade, and believe it or not, that represents considerable savings compared to buying it at booking. We would sail on the Holland America Line (HAL) MS Prinsendam, which is by far the smallest of HAL’s ships. It commands a premium and the Neptune Suites cost, generally, about 100% higher cost than the next closest cabin class. The reasons you might opt for this include: a two room suite of a cabin complete with real walk-in closet, two entrances to the bathroom including a separate toilet stall so two people can theoretically use the bathroom at one time, a dedicated lounge for Suite guests only that provides dedicated Concierge service for any need you might have (for example, Mom wanted to buy the ship’s napkins for home use and they arranged this as well as currency exchange, reservations, flowers, etc) as well as gourmet snacks throughout the day, expresso and cappuccino maker, library, balcony and television in a lounge area, as well as special dinners with pre-dinner cocktails hosted by the Captain, in his quarters (!), exclusive access to the specialty restaurant Pinnacle Grill for breakfast, free unlimited laundry and pressing, and priority access to everything from port disembarkations, tender access for tender ports, and priority embarkation and disembarkation at the end. Is it worth the cost? I guess that depends on you, but for us and in our experience, it is an incredibly spoiling experience, and Mom and Dad agreed, saying it would be hard to go back to the lower class cabins. We were readily identifiable to all crew since our key cards, the way you access everything on board, were gold instead of everyone else’s blue, and even Dad found himself, much to his dismay, sort of looking down on those who “only had blue cards, who do they think they are…” It happens! But, the extra space, the extra attention, the excellent coffee, it all adds up to an extra layer of luxury on what is supposed to already be a luxury in your life. And, spoiler alert, when we booked our next two cruises while on board, yes, we booked into the Neptune Suites, as did Mom and Dad on the voyage they will be joining us on again. If you don’t believe this effect would happen to you, I DARE you to book First or Business Class on an airline, if you’ve never done it before, or a high-end cabin on a cruise ship, and then tell me you don’t miss it the next time you don’t have it. I’d stake money that practically no one wouldn’t feel and appreciate the difference and even sort of turn you into a snob, despite your belief, and maybe even desire, that it wouldn’t. Go ahead, try me!

As noted, because of our cabin class, we had a separate check-in line at the cruise terminal, as well as a dedicated upstairs waiting area. We would embark first, in part because Dad was still in a wheelchair, with only one other couple, Dr. and Mrs. So and So, who were in the one Penthouse cabin (read about $100,000 or so for fare) and who also had amassed, we would discover, over 1,500 cruise days with HAL. Go ahead, do the math. That is about 4 years plus a month or so on HAL ships. Not consecutively of course, but still, those are dedicated and loyal, to say nothing of wealthy, passengers! Tim and I have over 200 nights, but we are mere guppies compared to passengers like those. Now, I have been in some nice cabins on board HAL ships before, but even I was floored with the size of our digs. Literally, two rooms, two televisions, one a 45 inch flat panel, surround sound in the living room, fresh flowers, and the closet was amazing. In the end, we had storage space we didn’t even use, and on a cruise ship, that is saying something. And when I went into the Neptune Lounge for the first time, Tess and Arnold, the concierge staff, knew my name without asking, most likely because they had studied the passenger photos taken at check-in prior to our arrival exactly so they would know us without asking. It would turn out that many crew members would know who we were, or would quickly remember us, because of the cabins we were in. This made service very personalized as they learned your likes for everything from drinks, to cookies, to desert in the Dining Room. And yes, we enjoyed that attention and personalization, just as I think anyone would if they experienced it. We were scheduled to leave at 4:00pm but because they had to take on so many supplies, having been in Europe all summer and freight costs for things like furniture and slot machines being prohibitive, we were delayed until 7:08pm exactly at which point we sailed away. If you wonder why I know that so exactly, it isn’t because I noticed at the time, but instead because you are given a detailed Cruise Log at the end of the voyage that tells you things like that.

Getting Settled on Board

We quickly established our routine of drinks in the Ocean Bar at 7:15pm before our established dining time of 8:00pm. Within the first night, we met our preferred barman, Jay Jiz De Ortega, who would provide wonderful service throughout. Mom established a connection because of her frequent travel, to, and subsequent familiarity with, his homeland of the Philippines, and especially of Manila as a city. I suspect many passengers don’t care about the lives of the crew, or even if they do, they likely don’t know a great deal about the Philippines or Indonesia, the homes of most of the service staff, while the officers were primarily British or Dutch. But Jay was quite willing to fill us in on a lot of details normally hidden from passengers about things like contracts, how they are compensated, selected, and such. It was quite informative and yes, the system is exploitative of desperate people in desperate places, but probably much less so than life as servants in the Persian Gulf states, and it is, presumably, a way of life they have freely chosen as a path to a better future for their children and themselves, even if I wouldn’t want to do it. Contract employees, like Jay for example, have no guarantee of future employment since it is all contracted though agencies in the home country, and there is no retirement plan either. But, it provides access to financial rewards and means well beyond those of most of the residents of the Philippines even if it doesn’t look like much to us. Everything really is, in the end, relative. Our dining stewards, Randy and Ahmad, were delightful and dedicated and served us very well over the course of the cruise. They are Indonesian, and consequently are direct employees of HAL, having been selected and trained at the HAL owned school in Jakarta. They do have retirement plans as direct instead of contracted employees, but they still work 10 months at a time for at least 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, so it isn’t luxury. Mom was, again, able to establish a connection since she travels for business to Jakarta as well as Denpasar on Bali, and is returning to Jakarta in March of 2015 as well as a stop at a Hong Kong international school. Not surprisingly, she has tentative plans to meet up with Randy, who will be on his two month vacation during that time, for a personalized tour of Jakarta. Leave it to Mom to know more about people she meets by the time she leaves than they know about themselves! It is a gift that I will never have.

Sailing Away

Thankfully, we had two days at sea before our first port. Sea days are my favorite days on a cruise since there are absolutely no deadlines, no time you have to be anywhere or do anything if you don’t wish to, and that suits me, as well as Tim, quite well. Mom finds them a bit more tedious and wouldn’t be a big fan of cruises like the trans-Atlantic crossings that we like so much exactly because they have so many sea days. I mean, look at a map of the Atlantic. Where do you think you could land if you wanted to? On our upcoming trans-Atlantic cruise in March, we have 8 glorious sea days back to back, which Mom would want nothing to do with, even if she wasn’t already booked to be in Hong Kong and Indonesia during that time anyway. We relaxed and explored the ship, I read books and slept in. Tim fiddled with business now and then, slept in, read magazines, and exercised, mostly things he doesn’t have a lot of time for at home.

This also gives time for scoping out the fellow passengers as you move about the ship. Very quickly we concluded that this ship was the home of the halt and the lame. There were walkers, wheelchairs, and electric scooters everywhere you looked, and of those that weren’t using one of these devices, you could easily think that perhaps they should. I personally lost count of how many falls we witnessed, and at least two times medical staff came barreling through public spaces with hair flying and bags in tow. We have NEVER seen that before. Simply said, the age group on the MS Prinsendam is considerably older than other ships we have been on, and on those we were still among the youngest passengers. At first, I found myself thinking that perhaps some of these folks really should have stayed home, for their own safety and on occasion for the safety of others as well, especially as they try to move in and out of tenders, potentially endangering not only themselves, but also the crew trying to move them as well as the other passengers they are likely to fall on top of when they go over. But over time, I found myself shifting my thoughts to more admiration that despite the physical problems and limitations, these were people who were doing something, they were living life to the fullest they could in spite of limitations and restrictions. Instead of sitting home bemoaning what they CAN’T do, they were focused on what they CAN do, and then DOING it! I had to admire that. I really wish that everyone with physical limitation could see these folks and realize that even in wheelchairs, on walkers, scooters, or with other assistance needs, a great deal of exploration of the world is still possible if you are willing to make a bit of an effort. And a cruise is a great option because your hotel and restaurant move with you and everything moves as slowly as you want it to depending on what you choose to do or not do. Perhaps no other form of vacation is so tailor made to those who need accommodations of ANY type. As a person who sometimes has limits myself, I really found myself admiring these “halt and lame” folks for their spirit and willingness to try, to not let mobility and other impairments stop them in their tracks. They went for it and were having a grand time doing it, even if falls were a possibility, or even reality, they didn’t choose to limit themselves with fear. You can fall at home, and most falls occur exactly there, just as easily as you can on a cruise ship, and on a ship, unlike at home, help is certain to never be more than a few minutes away. So, I say to all those with limitations, stop making excuses and get out there, give it a try. If some of those on this cruise with us can do it, I guarantee you can to!

St. Thomas

We were headed to St. Thomas in the United States Virgin Islands, and I, at least, was in no great rush. We have been to St. Thomas before and stayed for several days. I wasn’t impressed, was largely bored, found everything to be either grossly overpriced or simply not available, and even higher end lodging was a bit dodgy around the edges. I will confess that I am simply not a big fan of Caribbean islands. I don’t shop for jewelry and I don’t lie about on beaches as I am white and intend to stay that way and free of skin cancer to boot! Beyond those activities, sadly, there is often not a great deal more to do on many of the islands. There might be a few historic sites here and there, but the business of these places is to take as much money as they can from day trippers on cruise ships as they can, and as you will find out if you stay on some of the islands for several days, many stores and attractions won’t even be open unless a ship is in port. Of course, as we were on a ship everything was open, including the mall you have to walk through to get anywhere near anything else. These malls are quite intentional, designed to trap cruise passenger dollars within easy reach and sight of the ship, easing fears of nervous travelers when confronted with many non-white faces. And many of these folks won’t dare miss a meal on board under the principle that they’ve already paid for it, they might as well eat it, even though most of them really should miss about a week or so of feeding.

In the interest of something to do, we walked ashore, even Dad was able to do this despite his broken leg and found, predictably, lots of t-shirt shops, junk imported from China with St. Thomas stickers affixed, as well as jewelry stores of the predictable [fill in the gemstone] International, often in more than one location. Personally, jewelry shopping ranks up there with a root canal since I don’t wear any, and I don’t want or need more junk from China, but at least we were off the ship for a bit. I had looked up some local restaurants because, unlike many people, I don’t find the food on cruise ships to be the highlight of my day. Some people seem to revel in “all you can eat” no matter what the slop is, but we just don’t feel that way. We cook most all our meals at home, and Tim much more than I even, is extremely particular about what he will, and will not, eat. We carefully control this at home, eating only local organically raised beef, pork and eggs, and often local and organic vegetables when we can. Over time, your digestive tract gets used to this quality of food and when confronted with the crap that most Americans eat, it can rebel quite vigorously. I find, anymore, than when forced to eat mass produced American food, I get ill. I recently tried to eat fast food when in a pinch of hunger while traveling and I couldn’t finish it because the taste was so horrid and then I lived with the consequences for days after. Tim recently discovered that Chili’s adulterates even their steaks with starches on the surface to make the illusion of grill marks more apparent. Steak is something you would like to think it would be safe to order when out, but you can’t count on even that anymore. Fortunately, the quality of the food on this small ship was higher than that encountered on other HAL ships, and most of that has been pretty decent as long as you avoid the shorter cruises where food quality is questionable. Nonetheless, I like the chance to eat local when I can and we opted for Glady’s Café which came highly recommended. It featured fresh local seafood and was quite tasty with homemade hot sauces that were beyond my capability but which Tim and my folks quite enjoyed. If not for fear of breakage, I am confident some would have returned home with them and us. Mom braved the experience of eating a Caribbean staple food, reminiscent of the days of slavery, called by various names on different islands, but in the end it is all a type of cornmeal mush with different additives, usually okra as in this case. On St. Thomas it is called fungi (foon-gee) but the spelling being what it is and my feelings about corn meal and okra being less than favorable, I would just think of it fungi (fun-jy) and be done with it. You can see a picture of it in the photoset if you wish. We returned to the ship via a local vendor marketplace where Mom found a necklace she fancied made with some local stone she recognized and Tim might have found something for someone special, but I don’t want to spoil the surprise and she will know who she is and what he found for her when she gets it in January. Bigger spoiler alert, get ready Lucille, I think you will like it!

Terre-de-Haute

The following morning would have us anchored near the very small island of Terre-de-Haute, offshore of the much larger French island of Guadeloupe. While Guadeloupe started out as a colony of France, over the years, it along with other former French colonies scattered across the Pacific and the Caribbean, are now considered and act as departments, something like US states, and have full representation and participation in governance. In essence, these places are something like Hawaii in that while not physically connected they are politically equal to the mainland. At any rate, Terre-de-Haute is very small and it is a virtue of the small size of the MS Prinsendam that we were able to stop at such places that couldn’t possibly accommodate a mega-ship with 5,000 or more passengers. The MS Prinsendam only carries about 800 as a point of comparison. A mega-ship would swamp Terre-de-Haute since it only has about 1,800 residents. The highlight of the island is a large fort up a steep hill which looks out to a sister fort on a neighboring small island. We hiked it, even though we knew the fort had closed, just for the views, which were quite stunning. The place is so small as to be quite idyllic, perhaps more what many people imagine the Caribbean to be instead of the megaresort reality that is now so common. The island never sustained plantations so the slave, and therefore the Afro-Caribbean, population was never large. Most of the islanders are expats from France or locals of mixed heritage of different sorts. It is a very slow paced and stereotypically “sleepy” little island with not a lot to do but soak up an odd Gallic culture that seems more “French” than anything I have experienced in several trips to France itself. Tim and my Mom found some quite nice locally dyed fabrics to buy and Tim would wear his several times on board the ship. Naturally, being a French island, the clothes are made for slender people who eat right, people like Tim, and as you might guess, I didn’t find a thing I thought I could safely wear! We obtained some Euro from an ATM at the Post Office, shopped a bit and Mom, of course, found more things to buy, and finally Mom had a beer, Tim a Perrier, and I had fruit juice, at a small seaside café where you could hear and watch the small waves lap against the rocks. If all the Caribbean was like this, I might change my opinions. No malls, no jewelry stores, no crap from China, it was truly incredible and unlike anything I expected.

What Island Is It?

I once knew a corporate travel agent, and since I was interested in the entire world without limitation, I thought to ask him one time about travel in the Caribbean. He said that it didn’t matter which island you chose, they were all the same anyway, and if you didn’t intend to laze about on beaches, there was no point in going anyway. I believed this on some level for quite a long time, but now having been to eleven different islands in the Caribbean, about 36% of the total of 30 political units in the Caribbean Sea itself [13 completely independent, 5 British possessions, 6 Dutch associated, 4 French departments, and 2 United States territories of different statuses, (not counting Guantanamo Bay which has no civilian population nor uninhabited claims such as Navassa Island)], I realize that he wasn’t quite right. First of all, not every island even has usable beaches. Islands like Saba, for example, simply have cliffs dropping to the sea with little, if any, beach to be found. But granted, most of the islands do have some beach property available, and Saba is, admittedly, quite obscure and little visited due to its isolation. However, there are MANY differences beyond just the presence of beaches or not, and I found myself pondering, how would you know which island you might be on if you hadn’t been told?

The first thing you would realize is that these islands are not like anything you have seen or experienced elsewhere in the United States. No, they don’t look, sound, or feel anything like Florida or even Hawaii, so jettison that idea immediately. The first thing you might notice is the landscape. Some islands, say Jamaica for example, are quite mountainous, while others, such as all of the Bahamas, the Caymans, or Turks and Caicos, are extremely flat with nary a small hill to be found. The very soil itself can be quite different. Some islands are the peaks of otherwise submerged mountain chains, such as Cuba. Others are volcanic in origin, and in some cases such as Montserrat, very actively so, while others, such as St. Lucia or St. Vincent show their volcanic origins clearly in the rich soil in which bananas grow, but also in the stunning peaks of the volcanoes themselves that are readily visible and identifiable. Some islands are limestone uplift such as Barbados, while others are coral abutments, such as the Bahamas again. And consider that not all islands are lush rain forested climates. Some islands are quite dry with very little, if any, surface water, like the Turks Islands, while others like St. Lucia are covered everywhere in rainforest and well watered peaks. You will also notice, as soon as you meet anyone who lives there, what language they speak. You will easily encounter English, French, Dutch, and Spanish, as well as local patois languages that have evolved from a mixture of European and African languages over the years of slavery and beyond. You might also note how many islands make up the nation or other political unit you are visiting. Some are single island nations such as Barbados, some have two islands such as Antigua and Barbuda (Redonda is uninhabited so I don’t count it) or St. Kitts and Nevis. Some have many islands such as the Bahamas or St. Vincent and Grenadines. Even something as prosaic as which side of the road the cars drive on can give you a clue, but don’t be certain about it since the Virgin Islands drive on the left for reasons unclear to me since they have been American possessions since before cars were a common item and before that were Danish, and the Danes drive on the right. Curious. Anyway, the point is that the islands vary quite widely in all sorts of ways and on many, if not most, islands, there are activities beyond beach lazing, although that exists to be sure.

My recommendation, if you are inclined to visit the Caribbean and if you are, you by all means should regardless of what I think of most of it, choose your island based on what you want to get out of your vacation, and choose carefully after researching it. Some islands have massive resorts that come at reasonable prices, while some islands in the Grenadines of St. Vincent charge about $45,000 a week for a villa. Some islands are great for diving, some not so much. Some are steeped in history and on some most all that has been paved over by shopping malls.

Caution, Danger Dead Ahead, Maybe

Another thing for some people, myself included, to consider is the prevailing attitude, and in some cases legal barriers, about being gay or lesbian. Homophobia, institutionalized and otherwise, is quite rampant and even violently aggressive on many islands, especially, for reasons not clear to me, on those of British heritage. Homosexual behavior may be criminal on these islands, and even if it isn’t, hostility and violence has and can occur, up to and including the point of physical assault. Some properties may refuse to rent hotel rooms or other properties to same-sex couples unless there are two beds, or they may just refuse period, and restaurants may refuse to seat or serve you. These issues are not common or legally allowed on the French or Dutch islands in particular, but local attitudes may be at variance with the law. Sadly, these hostilities almost always have their roots in religious belief and practice and thus are not likely to change anytime soon. If you are not heterosexual, and especially if you are travelling with a same-sex companion, research your intended destination very carefully before traveling, and if you have your heart set on a potentially hostile location, such as Jamaica which has a history of anti-gay violence, including at least two mob murders, and supporting legislation against gays, exercise extreme caution and expect the worst while hopefully experiencing the best.

Everyone should also be conscious of the fact that poverty, even extreme poverty, is a fact of life for many of the people on many of the islands, especially the independent ones. I think most everyone realizes that this is an issue of concern on Haiti and Jamaica, but it is also sadly prevalent on other islands as well. Large groups of unemployed and idle young men not infrequently spells trouble and you will find this common on many islands. Also, due to the poverty and the physical proximity to South America, some islands are way stations in the drug trade which is infamously prone to violence including murder. Again, do your research, know you destination, exercise reasonable caution without being paralyzed with fear which is unwarranted and stay out of areas you are advised to stay out of. That said, literally hundreds of thousands of Americans travel to the Caribbean every year with nothing worse to show for it than a sunburn, but I do think that forewarned is forearmed and that no matter where you travel, even in the United States, caution in new and unfamiliar surroundings is warranted. Think of places like Oakland, California or Detroit, Michigan, to name just two known trouble spots recently highlighted by Forbes, if you doubt that these concerns can exist right here in the United States as well.

Obviously, there is a lot of choice amongst the various islands, and far more than the 30 political units, await your exploration. Just make sure you get out and away from the port, the airport area, or your resort, because those locations can be very plastic and intentionally similar, but out beyond those limited areas, you will often find a remarkable number of differences between the different islands and groups and most likely will have a fantastic time!

St. Lucia

Our next port of call was St. Lucia. I had been slightly fascinated with St. Lucia since I was quite young because a very brief scene in the original Superman movie was shot there. It portrayed a tropical wonderland of waterfalls and exotic flowers and it appealed to my young mind. I was not to be disappointed for St. Lucia is remarkably lush and green, with what we would consider in the United States to be houseplants running literally riot over the hillsides alongside banana plantations. I was especially taken with the hanging bright red and yellow Heliconia, most likely rostrata species, flowers and the flowering ginger bushes in multiple different colors that were so prevalent. I was also charmed by the pastel colored houses on the hillsides. But I think my favorite sighting were the hummingbirds which had most likely bravely made the migration across trackless ocean, as small as those birds are, from the North American mainland.

On St. Lucia we went on our first of a select few shore excursions offered by the ship. We tend to be very selective in our choices because experience has taught us that while the marketing of every excursion offering suggests something fabulous, reality is oftentimes not so grand, at least not for us. I grow weary of bus tours and being shepherded around quite quickly so in most places we go the “do it yourself” route. If you choose that, just remember that unlike when on a ship organized tour, the ship will not wait for you if you are late, so mind the all aboard time but otherwise explore and have a grand time. We will choose a ship sponsored activity if it seems unlikely that we could duplicate it ourselves in the allotted time however and provided it is an activity we really want to engage it. The aerial tramway in St. Lucia, which would transport us up into the canopy of the rainforest, seemed like it fit the bill and we signed up long before we even left the States.

We had done something similar in Australia and it was quite nice although once the tramway started up I questioned what I was doing and was I sane for doing it. See, I quite dislike heights and this thing had us in open steel pipe gondolas dangling hundreds of feet above the forest floor! And, it would stop and swing precariously, in my mind at least, every time a gondola was being loaded or unloaded. I had nightmares of the damn thing not starting up again and wondering how in the world they would get us out of those baskets. And I had to wonder about the safety standards of a small and not very prosperous island. What was the local version of OSHA and when did it last inspect this thing that was built by the US, for reasons I still don’t understand, decades ago. It was nerve wracking enough and then the guide starts talking about the snakes of the island, and the only thing I hate worse than heights is a snake. Great, my two greatest fears compounded! But you know what, I survived and the views were magnificent even if I was terrified sometimes. Maybe, just maybe, we need to confront our fears sometimes, within reason of course, to better understand and enrich our lives. Snakes, however, are still firmly off limits!

On the sad and unfortunate side, the drive to and from the tram revealed a great deal of what appears to be pretty dire poverty in an otherwise beautiful land. The number one source of export dollars is still bananas but competition from much lower priced production in Central America and Africa drives profits down and agricultural work is rarely a path to wealth for anyone except the owners, who are probably not local to begin with. We saw poor housing and otherwise unoccupied and unemployed groups of young men, which is never a good sign. There is work in the tourism industry and St. Lucia plays host to an airport large enough for frequent and direct flights from the United States, including from Atlanta on Delta Airlines, as well as large and lavish resorts such as Sandals. But all-inclusive resorts such as that don’t encourage guests to spend money locally since everything is provided for and pre-paid, and the corporations that own those properties, and get the profits, are certainly not St. Lucian, leaving only taxes for the government to collect and very low wage cleaning and other service jobs for locals as management is usually imported from the United States or Europe. This economic malaise is typical of most of the Caribbean islands if they don’t have wealthy European sponsors such as the French or Dutch, the English are less generous, or unless they have oil wealth like Trinidad and Tobago. Tourism isn’t a path to wealth for most locals any more than agriculture is and the other options for small tropical islands with no mineral wealth are limited. Some find success with different degrees of dodgy financial institutions and transactions, the Cayman Islands are fairly infamous for that, but such doesn’t play for every island and that only works if the local government making the cash reinvests it locally, and that can’t be guaranteed. When you travel in the Caribbean try to be mindful to some degree that the luxury you may experience is world’s away from the reality of those who serve you, and for some, that might in itself be a reason to stay away, while others can reason that some job, even as a resort maid, is better than the nothing if tourists stay away. I don’t know exactly where I stand on that continuum, but I went so I can’t be totally opposed, and I think each person will have to work out the ethics of their own situation on their own.

Barbados

We arrived the next day on Barbados. This arrival cemented my growing recognition that not all Caribbean islands are identical in feature. Barbados is a limestone uplift, is therefore comparatively flat, and it is not as well watered as islands such as St. Lucia or St. Vincent, being outside of the usual hurricane zone, therefore its vegetation, while still greening the island, is more scrubby and not at all the tropical rain forest profusion of more heavily watered islands. But, speaking of water, because the island is limestone, which is porous enough for water to filter through it, the island water is safe to drink without treatment since the limestone pores provide natural filtration and purification. Barbados occupies an unusual geographic position in relation to the other islands. A quick glance at a map of the area will show this. Most all of the so-called Lesser Antilles, the Greater Antilles being the big islands of Cuba, Cayman Islands, Hispaniola (Haiti and Dominican Republic), Puerto Rico, and Jamaica, or also sometimes called the Leeward Islands, run in an almost perfect arch from the northwest out to the east and south. This makes sense because most of these islands are volcanic and therefore follow an undersea volcanic ridge line. Barbados, however, lies quite far out to the east into the Atlantic ocean, and its windward, or eastern facing side, has extremely rough surf and high waves since there is no natural break coming in from the wilds of the central Atlantic, whereas the leeward side faces the much more calm Caribbean Sea and that is where you will find the resorts, on the calm western side. We had the opportunity to view the sea on both sides and the difference is stark. There are videos of the pounding eastern side surf in the photo set.

The west coast resorts are the latest in opulence, charging up to $2,500 a night without blinking an eye, and many famous names also have homes in this area including Cliff Richard, Oprah Winfrey and other luminaries that most are sure to have heard of. Apparently the most famous Bajan, native of Barbados, is Rihanna, who I am guessing is a singer of some sort, but although I once vowed in my teens to never lose touch with popular music and become “old” and “out of it,” alas, that time has apparently come and I have no real idea who this woman is, but everyone on Barbados knows and is extremely proud of the girl that made it big from the lower strata of the capital of Bridgetown. Oh yeah, she has a massive west coast property too. But, to the credit of the Bajans, similar to the situation in Brazil, no matter how glamourous the property, all beaches in Barbados are public and access cannot be restricted, a very different situation from that on islands, or nations, such as Jamaica or Haiti, where access to entire portions of the country are off limits to non-tourists or resort employees with proper identification. Again, each traveler has to assess their own ethical feelings about such restrictions on freedom of movement and access to natural resources.

In terms of natural resources, like many islands, Barbados needs tourist dollars to survive, but Barbados is more an island for those with fairly deep pockets as opposed to more budget friendly islands like St. Maarten, Jamaica, or many of the Bahamas islands, although certainly not all. That isn’t to say that you can’t find high-end properties on most any island, for you can, but some islands are more famous for exclusivity than others. Mustique, an island the St. Vincent Grenadines, a chain of islands partial shared with southern neighbor Grenada, of US invasion fame, is completely private and only accessible to quests who pay literally tens of thousands per stay so that they can avoid the little people. Saint-Barthélemy, a small French island, is also well known for hosting the ultra-rich and famous, not necessarily the same group. But in addition to tourists, Barbados also grows cotton and sugar cane, one of the only islands still in the sugar business which has moved almost entirely to Brazil, or has been replaced by cheaper beet sources which grow in non-tropical places, like the American Midwest. And an odd source of revenue for a Caribbean island, at least I thought, was the raising of champion race horses. Who’d have thought it? Whatever the reason, it seemed that Barbados was more affluent in general than St. Lucia and that was reflected in the living conditions, and the availability of public transit throughout the island, out in the rural areas of the western and northern coastal areas.

You might wonder what we were doing out in the wild areas of the north and west, very far from the resorts and the crazy traffic clogged and massively developed city of Bridgetown and its immediate environs. We were way out in the beyond because we had risked booking another ship organized excursion, which only had space for six people total, to ride X2 Segways! When I saw this offering I knew I really wanted to try it so I booked very early and a good thing it was given the strict limits on participants, which was rather unusual since most shore activities accommodate many many people. Anyway, we were driven by van far out into the rural areas, in part I suppose so that we couldn’t really hurt ourselves. We had a bit of a wait since passengers from another ship were running late on their excursion, but since this was a ship sponsored activity, it wasn’t a worry. A British expat came to Barbados with the idea of operating a Segway adventure tour and from what I could see was making a great go of it with several employees, a fair number of expensive Segways, which he estimated costing in the several thousands each including import duties, shipping and taxes, and a van. I priced a new X2 Segway at just under $7,000 from Segway of Los Angeles, which is a fair bit more than he claimed to have paid, so perhaps he received a bulk discount! I really wanted one for home once I was done with the tour, but now I am rethinking that.

Before we could get underway, we had to don protective gear, which I really think was overkill since you never go too terribly fast and the ground isn’t far, but no doubt his insurance required it. We had helmets, elbow and knee pads. Problem was, they were shared with the group that had just returned and they were nasty wet and sweaty. Yuck! But that was quickly forgotten. We were each given a brief tutorial and some of us, like Tim, myself, and Dad, caught on right away as riding a Segway is incredibly easy, even with a broken leg like Dad. However, Mom had a very hard time with it. I think she just couldn’t relax and enjoy it, kept tensing up and fighting the experience. Towards the end of the tour she was getting better but only with extensive one-on-one coaching. For me, it was intuitive. You just slightly lean or tilt your body the direction you want to go and the machine follows you seamlessly. It was much easier than any bicycle I have ever ridden, even though a Segway only has two wheels, and I could turn a tight circle or run freely across the meadow with ease. It was exhilarating, and I highly recommend anyone try it if you have a chance. By riding the Segways we were able to see the pounding surf of the western coast and even ride through a small village on the way to another coastal vista. It truly was one of the highlights of the entire cruise.

Devil’s Island, French Guiana

We had a day at sea before our next port, which I was highly anticipating, Devil’s Island off the coast of, and part of, French Guiana on the South American mainland. If you’ve never heard of French Guiana, you are not alone as it is a rather obscure outpost of France, most famous in modern times as the launch site for the European Space Agency. But, in times past, it was much more infamous as a prison colony where one wasn’t expected to live through the heat and tropical diseases even if your sentence wasn’t for life, it might well end up that way. Many inmates, if they survived their sentence, were forced to remain on the mainland as exiles for the rest of their natural lives, denied return to the mainland of France, sometimes even for crimes as minor as petty theft. French Guiana’s airport is difficult to get to despite being no more than about 5 hours flight time from Miami. The easiest way is to first fly to Paris and then catch the daily Air France flight. Alternatively, you can fly via Guyana and Suriname on Suriname Airways, but that process due to schedules and connections will take at least two days in both directions. Another option is to go from Miami via both Guadeloupe and Martinique islands also on Air France. More likely, unless you have an absolutely compelling reason to go, you just don’t. This stop was one of the key attractions of this cruise for me since I am fascinated by such oddball outposts and holdovers from the colonial era.

While our itinerary said we would land on Devil’s Island, we actually didn’t. The entire prison system, which spanned three islands as well as some mainland facilities was referred to collectively as Devil’s Island, but there is a small island actually named that as well from which the entire system takes its name. We anchored offshore and used tenders, known as lifeboats in an emergency, to sail in to the pier which was actually on Île Royale which was the reception center for the general population of the penal colony; they were housed in moderate freedom due to the difficulty of escape from the island. Île Saint-Joseph was the Reclusion, where inmates were sent to be punished by solitary confinement in silence and darkness for escapes or offences committed in the penal colony. Île du Diable, Devil’s Island itself, very slightly to the northeast of Île Royale, was for political prisoners. The prison system stretched over several locations, on the mainland and in the off-shore Îles du Salut group, an ironic name for prison islands since it translates from the French as “the islands of health.” In addition to the prisons on each of the three islands in the Salut island group, the French constructed three related prison facilities on the South American mainland, just across the straits at Kourou; 30 miles east in Cayenne, which later became the capital of French Guiana; and a hundred miles west at St. Laurent.

I couldn’t imagine the suffering of the men sent here. The heat and humidity were punishing even if you didn’t move, and this was a hard labor prison. It is physically beautiful with palm trees and ocean vistas, but I can easily believe it was hell on Earth. I was literally soaked through with sweat within minutes of just walking. It was almost tolerable as long as you were outside and the breeze was moving, but inmates were housed in stone cell blocks, in small individual cells, and chained by the wrists and feet to their beds, preventing any movement or change of position during the entire night in heat that even today, with missing walls, windows and roofs, is literally stifling in minutes. If you didn’t die of dehydration, physical exhaustion, or disease, I think you would have had to lose your mind due to the conditions. Perhaps that was the point. What shocked me most was that this prison system didn’t cease operation until the 1950s. I think most of us think of Europe as a more enlightened place, in many respects more so than the United States tends to be depending on the issue and your perspective, but if this is true, and I think it is, it is a recent development in the lifetimes of many still living. I am thrilled to have visited the place, even though it isn’t maintained very well as if the French don’t really want to encourage visitation and knowledge about what they did, but I was even more thrilled to be able to get away from the island back to the air conditioned luxury of the ship.

Entering the Amazon River

After another day at sea we approached the mouth of the Amazon River. The Amazon is huge beyond your imagination. The discharge from the river is so massive that for many miles out to sea the heavily silted brown water continues to be easily distinguished from the blue ocean. The lighter fresh water floats above the salty ocean water stubbornly refusing to mix easily. You will see the Amazon, therefore, long before you are actually on it. You can’t see from one side of the mouth of the River to the other with your naked eyes, and the River breaks up into multiple channels, as most major rivers do, as it approaches the ocean. One effect we would notice once we were on the River was that the ship couldn’t use the river water to make ship water for drinking, laundry, or any other purpose, as they normally do with sea water. The water is so heavily silted that it would clog and destroy the filters, meaning at each port we had to load fresh water from the shore, which also meant that water use was restricted, self-service laundry turned off for example, and all passengers requested to reuse towels and conserve wherever possible. This restriction never inconvenienced those of us in the Neptune Suites of course, although we did try to limit our usage as much as we could.

To give you some idea of how massive the Amazon River is consider the following: the Amazon River is the largest river by discharge of water in the world, averaging a discharge of about 7,381,000 cubic feet per second, greater than the next seven largest independent rivers combined. The Amazon basin is the largest drainage basin in the world, about 2,720,000 square miles, and accounts for approximately one-fifth of the world’s total river flow and TOTAL FRESH WATER ON THE PLANET! The portion of the river’s drainage basin in Brazil alone is larger than any other river’s basin. The Amazon enters Brazil with only one-fifth of the flow it finally discharges into the Atlantic Ocean, yet already has a greater flow at this point than the discharge of any other river.

The width of the Amazon is between 1.0 and 6.2 mi at low stage but expands during the wet season to 30 mi or more. The river enters the Atlantic Ocean in a broad estuary about 150 mi wide. The mouth of the main stem is 50 miles. We entered the Amazon during the end of the dry season so it was as low as it would be, but as you can imagine from the dimensions above, it was still massive.

Macapá

Macapá was our first port of call in Brazil. It is the capital of the state of Amapá. But the true claim to fame of the city of Macapá is that it lies astraddle the Equator and it is possible to stand with one foot in the Northern Hemisphere and the other foot in the Southern. This is similar to visiting Greenwich outside of London where you can stand astride the Prime Meridian, with one foot in the Western and the other in the Eastern Hemisphere. Naturally, this feature would appeal to Mom and we had to find our way there. The ship offered a bus to transport us from the heavily industrial port area, there are no cruise ship ports on the Amazon like there are on the Caribbean islands as this is a working river, not primarily a tourist attraction, to some riverside restaurants and craft center. From there we negotiated a taxi to take us back to the Equator monument we had passed while on the bus. Why they couldn’t arrange for it to stop was beyond my understanding, but such it was. The monument isn’t in the greatest of repair but it is a unique opportunity and we took advantage of it. Otherwise I didn’t think Macapá had a great deal to recommend it and it seemed fairly typical of a Brazilian city.

The port was engaged in loading Japanese freighters with wood chips for paper making back in Japan. Sadly, the Amazon forest is rapidly being destroyed for the production of commodities such as soybeans and paper, as well as tropical hardwoods for flooring and other decorative purposes. The smell of wood fires would be pervasive throughout our time on the Amazon River, in part because wild fires started by lightning are allowed to burn without any attempt to put them out as this is a natural part of the ecological process in the rainforest, but also due to slash and burn agricultural techniques being widely employed. The Amazon is one of the largest remaining rainforests on the planet and is of inestimable ecological importance, including being the source of 20% of all the breathable oxygen on the planet, but I am not sure that the developed world has the right to tell Brazil, and its people, that they must ignore resources that can improve their standard of living, and even approach our life styles, to preserve a wilderness, in part because we have already destroyed our environments in order, in part, to become wealthy. Again, I really think travel exposes many ethical conundrums if you are willing to think a bit and observe through different lenses.

Santarém

Santarém, a city in Pará State, was our next stop. The city is significant because the Tapajós River joins the Amazon River at this site. The Tapajós River, unlike the muddy Amazon, is remarkably clear and nearby freshwater beaches are a popular tourist draw. Our time in Santarém was occupied with our third, of four, ship sponsored activities during which we rode a bus, without air conditioning, into the countryside. The bus had it but the tour company was not allowed to use it because some of the other buses being used didn’t have air conditioning and it wouldn’t have been fair to those passengers of such buses if we had use of the amenity. I thought it weird, but OK, whatever, you go with the flow, and with the windows open it was quite tolerable. Our destination was a rainforest preserve where we would embark on a guided hike through the forest. Dad had to sit this one out due to the leg situation but Mom made the journey with us. We were able to see rubber trees and how they were tapped for latex. A little known fact is that Henry Ford bought a great deal of Amazonian forest land and attempted to build a settlement known as Fordlandia for the purpose of harvesting rubber latex to make automobile tires. The endeavor failed rather spectacularly although the ruins of the place can still be visited. It is rather beyond the scope of this narrative to get into the details but several books have been written about it as well as numerous Internet information sources if you are interested in this bit of American history.

Aside from rubber tree tapping, we also saw giant and elaborate termite nests, birds, massive and unique trees, small plants that curl up when touched (there is video of this phenomenon in the photo set), and even how to extract fresh water from rainforest roots. It was wonderfully informative with a fantastic local guide accompanied by a woman who lives adjacent to the reserve and it was well worth the heat, bugs, and humidity.

Boca da Valeria

Our next port was the village of Boca da Valeria, an extremely small settlement on the banks of the Amazon populated by native people who exploit the forest to some degree for survival. This stop was one that we ethically simply couldn’t take part in. The villagers would come out to the boat in canoes to sell photo opportunities with them in, supposedly, native costumes or with children holding sloths or tropical birds. This port seemed grossly exploitative to Tim and I, as though the “Great White Man” will visit with the simple natives. It reminded us of a similar stop in the San Blas Islands of Panama that we also opted to not participate in. Part of the problem with this type of visit is that although it is illegal to collect and domesticate rainforest animals because it is destructive and potentially cruel, as long as tourists will pay to have photos of this type taken then local people will continue the practice unhindered, claiming perhaps that the animals were “orphaned,” which they might have been after the parents were killed for meat or simply to justify the collection of the infants. For multiple reasons, the stop didn’t meet with our feelings about ethical travel and we stayed away from the experience with no regrets. I don’t judge those who chose to participate but for our own reasons we didn’t.

But on the positive side of things, we did by chance observe the pink dolphins of the Amazon while docked here! Pink dolphins are not the same dolphins that you would see in the ocean; they have special adaptations to their habitat. In fact, river dolphins are only distantly related to sea dolphins. Among the five species of river dolphins, Amazon pink dolphins are considered the most intelligent of them, with a brain capacity 40% larger than that of humans. Pink dolphins inhabit the Amazon River, but they can also be found in the Orinoco basins and the upper Madeira River as well. While they are mostly pink, these dolphins have various colored skins, which can be light gray, pink, or brown. The Amazon River pink dolphins constitute the largest population of river dolphins in existence as the other four species are functionally extinct or close to extinction. The river dolphins are among the most endangered species of all the world’s cetaceans. Pink dolphins have been listed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as a “vulnerable species-threatened” and recently were moved to “endangered species-threatened.” These friendly and social creatures have been living for centuries in the Amazon and its tributaries, but the accelerated destruction of the Amazon basin have put them in a more dangerous situation.

They foiled all attempts at photography, only appearing on the surface very briefly, but it was a wonderful opportunity to see them.

Manaus

At last we reached Manaus, the capital of Amazonas State and by far the largest city in the entire Amazon basin. To provide a sense of scale, Manaus is over 900 miles inland from the mouth of the Amazon and yet it is an ocean going port with container freighters from around the world delivering and collecting goods for trade. It is very much a working city and a center of transport through both its international airport as well as the boat docks that line the river front. This is the place that people from around the region come to do major shopping, interactions with government, and transit on their way to other places. The river is literally a highway in the region since it can be difficult to construct roads when water levels can vary by up to a hundred feet between seasons. Due to this, traffic that in the United States might move via an Interstate in this part of the world moves by boat or ship. To give a sense of comparison, if a person wanted to travel upriver to the city of Leticia, in Columbia, there are two choices, air travel or river boat. The river boat trip, albeit aboard an open boat with only a hammock to sleep in, takes five days to transit the distance and costs about $150. Or, you can fly in probably less than 2 hours, if you have over $1,500 for the airfare and limited cargo capacity at that. Price alone makes it obvious that the river is the default choice, and to accommodate this level of boat traffic, many gas stations in Manaus are actually floating in the river!

We spent two full days in Manaus with an onboard overnight included. Our first day we embarked on our last ship sponsored activity which took us by small boat out to the “meeting of the waters.” One of the claims to fame of the Manaus area is that the Rio Solimões and the Rio Negro rivers meet in Manaus and join to form the Amazon River (using the Brazilian definition of the river; elsewhere, Solimões is considered the upper part of the Amazon, and once across the border into Peru the name Amazon is used once again). The Rio Solimões is very silt laden and therefore brown. The Rio Negro, on the other hand, is dark but clear with no silt. Its coloration comes from massive amounts of rotting vegetation that leach tannic acid into the water, turning it dark brown or black, much like the appearance of dark tea or coffee, both of which also contain large amounts of tannin, which is the parent group containing the acid, but it isn’t identical. The river is so acidic that no bacteria or viruses can survive, making the river water safe to drink untreated. The confluence of these two rivers is dramatic and obvious due the differing coloration and densities. It is quite a sight to see the two streams fighting each other as they resisted mixing for miles, one floating atop the other. Tim captured some excellent photos of this phenomenon in the photo set.

From the meeting of the waters we moved on up the Rio Negro and changed to canoes for a more intimate look at the river and its banks. We had excellent bird sightings and even a glimpse of a caiman, a crocodile relative. The heat and humidity were incredible but it gave Mom the opportunity to trail her fingers in the waters of the Amazon and that was important to her. We had a chance for shopping afterwards, a very brief chance however, and although I knew it was silly, I had to buy a blow pipe with cocktail skewer darts to satisfy the kid in me. I thought they would make brilliant gifts for teenage and preteen nephews, what boy doesn’t want a blowpipe, but I was overruled by Uncle Scrooge…

The next day was free for us and we elected to walk into the city to see some sights. Dad’s leg was hurting and street hiking wasn’t on the menu, so Mom and Dad had a day of rest while watching the intense activity of the port with everything imaginable, including toilets, soda, beer, and everything else in between, being moved from shore to boats for trips to upstream communities.

Our first destination was the famous Manaus Opera House, properly known as the Amazonas Theatre, built between 1885 and 1896. The Amazonas Theatre was built during the Belle Époque at a time when fortunes were made in the rubber boom. Construction of the Amazon Theatre was first proposed in 1881. In 1882, the State legislature approved some limited financing, but this was considered insufficient. Later that year, the president of the Province approved a larger budget and initiated a competition for the presentation of plans. The chosen project was made by the Gabinete Português de Engenharia e Arquitectura, an engineering and architecture office from Lisbon.

By 1884, construction was ready to begin under the Italian architect Celestial Sacardim. Work proceeded slowly over the following fifteen years with some stops and restarts from 1885 to 1892. By 1895, when the masonry work and exterior were completed, the decoration of the interior and the installation of electric lighting could begin more rapidly. The theatre was inaugurated on December 31, 1896, with the first performance occurring on January 7, 1897, with the Italian opera, La Gioconda, by Amilcare Ponchielli.

The theatre’s architectural style is considered typically Renaissance. The roofing tiles were imported from Alsace, the steel walls from Glasgow, Scotland and the Carrara marble for the stairs, statues and columns, from Italy. The dome is covered with 36,000 decorated ceramic tiles painted in the colors of the national flag of Brazil. The interior furnishing came from France in the Louis Quinze style. Italian artist Domenico de Angelis the Younger painted the panels that decorate the ceilings of the auditorium and of the audience chamber. The curtain, with its painting “Meeting of the Waters”, was originally created in Paris by Crispim do Amaral. The theatre’s 198 chandeliers were imported from Italy, including 32 of Murano glass.

The Theatre is a stunning and rather unexpected sight in the midst of the Amazon basin and if you are ever in Manaus you must visit if you do nothing else. We were lucky enough to be the only participants in an English language tour and met another tour guide, with impeccable English, which made sense because he had lived in an Atlanta suburb for years before returning to Brazil. But our ultimate fortune was that the full orchestra was practicing for the Christmas season performances and we were able to hear, for free, a mini-concert proving the amazing acoustics as well as the sheer beauty of the surroundings. There is, again, video of this in the photo set.

The night before the ship sponsored a night at the Opera at the Theatre where they had arranged a special performance. The cost was pretty steep and we weren’t particularly interested in opera per se, so we didn’t go. But Captain Tim Roberts, the Master of the MS Prinsendam, was quite thrilled since on his many occasions to be in Manaus as a Captain, he had never had the time off to go to a performance. Apparently, he was charmed. Captain Roberts is a Brit with a home in Scotland when he isn’t sailing, which he has been doing since he was 17. He was an incredibly charming and engaging man with a wonderfully dry and quintessential British sense of humor, which he engaged the entire ship with during his daily afternoon announcements from the bridge. He was a delight, especially compared to the usually dour Dutch captains that we have encountered on all other sailings. Captain Tim was frequently in the Neptune Lounge grabbing coffee (it is right behind the bridge on the Prinsendam but not on any other ship) and we had two cocktail parties in his cabin, so we encountered him in both formal and informal settings with some regularity. He was a total delight at all times and he helped make the journey particularly special. He is so popular that some fans of the ship, and of Captain Tim, will only book passage when he is onboard!

From the Theatre, we went to do a bit of shopping at some highly recommended stores, one of which was far superior to the other which featured lots of Made in China garbage while the best one had actual locally made handicrafts, which not surprisingly, command a much greater price than the Chinese knock-offs. At our third store I was finally successful in convincing Uncle Tim to buy something to take home to the nephews and niece although it wasn’t easy for some reason. I had already found some, what I think were pretty nifty items, to appeal to teens and preteens who all have some basic knowledge of the Amazon, in the form of mounted piranhas, a fish with a fearsome reputation probably well beyond its real abilities, but I think certain to appeal to the age group in question. Heck, even I have one for myself! I don’t know which of the over 20 species of piranha they are but I don’t think I will encounter any questions about that detail anyway. I certainly hope they appeal to the young ones when I deliver them in January. So, if you are reading this ahead of time and have access to the ones in question, don’t spoil the surprise!

Our final destination was a local churrascaria, Churrascaria Búfalo, a Brazilian specialty restaurant that serves freshly grilled local beef. You can find them around the world, of varying quality, but this one was highly rated and in Brazil so it had to be good. It was. In this case, at least for lunch, they don’t carry the meats around on skewers and slice it tableside (a vegetarian’s ultimate nightmare I suspect). Instead, you go to the counter, indicate which cuts you want, which might include chicken hearts, but not for me, and then pay by the kilo. There is a separate price per kilo for higher end cuts and a lower price for items from the extensive salad and hot food bar. If you leave hungry it is strictly your own fault and we found it delicious to eat our lunch along with local business men on their break.

Our route back to the ship took us through what seemed to be the beverage district with stores full of nothing other than cases of soda and beer. From there we moved into the hardware area and finally the fishing gear portion of the city with nets, floats, and everything else needed for river fishing. Manaus is the supply house for people all along the river and these stores close to the docks fill every need for those who have traveled potentially quite far for supplies and resources. We were pleasantly full, hot, very sweaty, but had experienced a fantastic day.

Parintins

Our first stop after Manaus was the city of Parintins. This is a fairly standard riverside city but its claim to fame is the Bumba-meu-boi (Boi Bumba is an alternate spelling) festival held in June every year. The ship arranged a replica performance for those who were interested and willing to pay, but we opted to just use the post office to mail postcards to a great-aunt in Missouri, a grandmother in Kentucky, and some dear friends in Porterville, California that I have known since high school, in fact, they were teachers of mine. I have to wonder if those cards ever made it. The man at the post office didn’t seem too confident about how to post them. Other than that, there was a small market with the usual stuff that we had seen in most every other town, so that wasn’t much interest, although true to form, Mom found something she couldn’t live without, probably gifts for a seemingly huge list of people.

OK, if you really want to know, this is the gist of the Bumba-meu-boi phenomenon. Bumba-meu-boi, translates from the Portuguese as hit-my-bull, is a Brazilian folk theatrical tradition. The tale is told through the music, the costumes and drumming involving a bull, which dies and is brought back to life. Versions of the tale vary regionally, but the most important central characters include the Bull, a player in an elaborate costume, Catirina, an ugly pregnant girl, usually played by a man in drag, a cowboy who is in charge of the Bull and who causes the Bull to die, the priest, the rich and powerful owner of the Bull, and the music which magically drums the Bull back to life.

Alter do Chão

Alter do Chão was our next stop, and also our last stop in Brazil along the Amazon even though we would continue sailing the Amazon the following day as well without stopping. Alter do Chão is quite close to Santarém, on the Tapajós River, which is quite clear and features lovely white sand beaches. Alter do Chão, therefore is a popular small tourist town built around several such beaches and it appears that not only do many Brazilians, as well as foreigners in the know, enjoy vacation here, it is also a popular spot for second homes in the form of condominiums that line the beachfront. In this sense, it is similar to many such locations around the world, but in this case, the water is fresh instead of the more usual sea. We strolled a bit and found a few little items that I wanted to take back to Tim’s folks and Grandmother in Kentucky, but other than that, our time here was quick as we didn’t have a need to go back into Santarém by bus nor were we interested in beach time. It is a cute town to be sure but aside from the beaches you won’t find a great deal to do or to occupy your time.

Scarborough, Tobago,Trinidad and Tobago

Over the course of the next three days, one on the river and two more at sea once again, meaning our water supply returned to normal with the availability of seawater for reverse osmosis treatment onboard, we meandered toward the two island nation of Trinidad and Tobago, very near the Venezuelan coast. Because of the proximity to Venezuela and the petroleum resources it is famous for, Trinidad and Tobago is one of the more prosperous of the Caribbean island nations. The island of Trinidad, by far the larger of the two, is home to oil wells and refineries, and because of this focus on petro business, it doesn’t go out of its way to court tourist traffic. Tourists are welcome of course, but you are not going to find the same focus on serving tourist interests and needs on this island as you will on most all the others. Tobago, however, doesn’t have any petro resources and it does court tourists more aggressively even if it is far less known than many of the other popular resort islands. Tobago’s charms are better known in Europe, from which there are direct flights from London.

While I don’t dispute that Tobago is likely a very lovely island, I didn’t like it one bit. The taxi and tour touts immediately off the pier were the most aggressive and obnoxious of any of the islands that we visited up to that point, and they would remain the worst as the trip progressed back through the Caribbean towards Florida. They didn’t seem to appreciate even a polite “no thank you” and one of them proceeded into a several minute lecture, only because Mom made the fatal mistake of engaging him instead of just saying no and moving on, about how we shouldn’t just spend an hour on the island etc etc etc. And, in principle, I don’t disagree with him, but his approach, and the approach of his brethren, turned me off completely. Maybe they were frustrated by a lot of negative responses from earlier disembarking passengers, maybe they were frustrated that so many potential money making opportunities were getting on ship sponsored buses and vans. Whatever it was, I didn’t enjoy or appreciate it. Much beyond the port itself there was little to see other than a much over-hyped botanic garden that didn’t much rival your average city park in the United States, featuring an empty orchid house, which was the thing I wanted to see being a huge fan of orchids, three of which I am successfully growing at home. The stores were very much geared toward local needs with mostly sheets and other linens on sale, and that is entirely appropriate that the needs of the local population should be catered to, don’t get me wrong, but it doesn’t hold a lot of appeal for foot traffic passengers from ships. It appeared that a new batch of small huts or kiosks was opening soon to appeal to foot traffic from ships, but it wasn’t open yet, or at least not for a ship of our size. I don’t think the megaships can dock in Tobago and I don’t believe that cruise passengers are a major source of revenue for the island either. Whatever the case, I didn’t enjoy Tobago at all, and was all too happy to return aboard and sail away.

Kingstown, St. Vincent and the Grenadines

Things didn’t get any better in the next port of call, Kingstown, the capital city of the multi-island nation of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. I will say that St. Vincent is a gorgeous island, verdant beyond belief with green jungle and banana plantations to rival St. Lucia. There were even some astounding clifftop mansion estates visible from the ship, but the reality on the street level was completely different. The poverty was quite clear on this island, which receives only a small number of tourists, and of those most are only passing through to catch the ferries to the very popular, and extremely expensive, resorts on the Grenadine islands such as Bequia and Mustique. The streets were not well maintained and there was no shopping to speak of aside from a large and very expensive grocery store where a head of romaine lettuce would set you back around $7 US. I can’t imagine what people can afford to eat with most food being imported at great cost. There were frequently groups of idle young men in dreadlocks that didn’t inspire confidence and I knew that, sadly, because of the poverty the island is a popular transshipment point for South American narcotics.

Poverty like this always saddens me and I regret that people have to endure lives of privation and want when others among us have so much more than we could ever need. But at the same time, I don’t let my regret blind me to the fact that violence and crime all too frequently go hand in hand with poverty. I realize that poor people are not inherently bad people, but they disproportionately do bad things for whatever reasons. I can’t view poverty as an excuse for committing criminal acts and not respecting the lives and property of others.  My not-so-distant ancestors were about as poor as they came and yet they never resorted to criminal activity as a means of livelihood.  Excuses often are simply cheap and easy thinking meant to justify acting like animals and then protesting when you are treated according to your actions.

I think this can be hard to wrap your head around if you have always lived in safe white suburbs and it can be easy to feel badly for people who are poor and desperate, but I suspect attitudes would change if you had to live in those areas and struggle to defend anything and everything you own against damage or theft on a daily basis, to say nothing of being concerned about physical violence. In my idealistic youth, I allowed myself to live in poor neighborhoods, but after your car windows are smashed one too many times, or your apartment broken into and looted, while you yourself are struggling to make ends meet, you start to lose empathy and patience. Perhaps it shouldn’t be that way, but I would love to see the champions of the poor, in speech, actually attempt to put their feet where their mouths are and go live a month among those they extol and claim to want to help. I’d bet money a great many tunes would change with the experience, but I doubt anyone I know who fits this mold will ever take my challenge to find out.

I find it a sad irony that a nation that is clearly not prosperous, but which is rich in natural beauty, should be the home to some of the most astoundingly expensive resort properties in the entire Caribbean region, if not the world. One of the hundred or so villas for rent on the private island of Mustique START at $45,000 or so a week with a minimum week stay. These are sums beyond the comprehension of most people and approximately 4 times the per capita income of the islanders of St. Vincent. If that isn’t irony, I simply don’t know what is. But by all means, if you have the pockets and want to hang out with the ultra-rich and royalty, by all means contact the Mustique Island Company and enquire!

Bonaire

The name Bonaire translates to something akin to good air, and I have to agree that the island is correctly named. Bonaire would be the absolute hands down highlight of sailing through the Caribbean for me. I appreciate that there are direct flights from Atlanta to Bonaire on Delta, because one day I might just have to return. Bonaire is mostly known as a dive destination and you can see why right on the pier because the water is that wonderful clear blue that tourist brochures champion when selling you a Caribbean vacation. Bonaire is a Dutch island which has chosen to remain in closer association with the Netherlands that other Dutch islands like Aruba or St. Marrten. The island was delightfully free of any high pressure tactics to sell you tours or taxis. Certainly they were on offer but a polite no thanks was respected and you could move on easily, completely unlike Tobago and no sign of the dire poverty and desperation of St. Vincent, and even more refreshing no endless jewelry stores and malls such as those that exist on St. Thomas, or even worse, I would discover, on Aruba. There was a small local crafts market in the square where I found absolutely beautiful locally made dichroic glass cufflinks. Dichroic glass is brightly colored through the use of metal oxides conferring brilliant blues, greens, and yellows. I’d never seen anything like it. The highlight of the square for the crew was an Indonesian barbeque stall that was doing a booming business and the report that night was that the food was excellent! I wish I had tried it. Farther into town were clean and well-maintained streets, charming low pressure small shops and restaurants. My favorite, of course, was a shop dedicated to local sea salt, once a major cash commodity on the island and it is still harvested from the sea in evaporation ponds and formed into delicious mountains of salt.

The overall atmosphere of Bonaire was a delight, especially in comparison to many of the other islands we had visited. Perhaps it is the influence of being so closely associated with the Netherlands, perhaps it is the mostly expat population, I don’t know exactly what contributed to the magical mix that was Bonaire, but whatever it was, I would be happy to experience more and that is not something I would have ever predicted I would say about any Caribbean island.

Curaçao

Curaçao is another Dutch island, one of the so-called ABC Islands (Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao) but it would be a mistake to think they are all alike and interchangeable for they certainly are not. Curaçao has opted for a greater level of autonomy from the Netherlands than Bonaire but it doesn’t want complete independence either. Curaçao, like Bonaire, is largely a desert island, so don’t come here looking for lush greenery as you simply won’t find it. It also isn’t an island focused on tourism or tourist interests; instead it makes its living from refining and processing massive amounts of crude oil from Venezuela. I’m not sure why Venezuela isn’t doing their own refining, but there it is. Curaçao doesn’t reject tourists of course but you won’t be catered to like you will on other islands that are more tourist focused. It was a Sunday when we docked and most of the town was closed up tight, and that would never happen on a cruise ship focused island like St. Thomas regardless of what day of the week it happened to be. The most charming feature of the town was the pedestrian bridge, especially after dark because it features hundreds of small lights. All of our pictures of it were sadly blurred but it was lovely. We wandered the town, closed though it was, except for the floating produce market composed of small boats that make the roughly 70 miles journey over from Venezuela to provide fresh food to the island of a daily basis. I managed to find a clothing store that was open and bought a very wildly patterned shirt that I greatly enjoy, but we didn’t continue to wander any further in that direction because Mom and Dad were a bit uncomfortable with some of the people we were starting to run into in the otherwise deserted streets, so we moved back the way we had come. No one was overtly threatening, it was just a sense that one gets. Anyway, nothing bad happened, clearly, and the return to the ship was uneventful as was the visit overall because of the day of the week it happened to be.

Aruba

Aruba was our final stop on the cruise before returning over the course of two days to Florida. As I mentioned before, Aruba is yet another of the Dutch islands in the Caribbean and has opted for a significant degree of autonomy in its relationship with the Netherlands but has stopped short of opting for full independence, which the Dutch have certainly offered. Completely unlike Bonaire or Curaçao, Aruba lives and breathes tourism and tourist dollars. The shores are covered with resorts both small and high-rise providing very cheap package vacations to hordes of Americans every year. The main town appears to be nothing other than a giant shopping mall with all the predictable brands and jewelry outlets that one would expect from a Caribbean tourist trap hellhole. It reminded me slightly of Las Vegas, especially the tourists on the streets, but a great deal more humid. As you can guess, I didn’t like it and I wouldn’t in a month of Sundays return, but I did buy something there, but I can’t reveal any more about it since the person for whom it is intended is quite likely to read this before I can gift it to them. Suffice it to say, I think it is lovely and I hope they do too despite where it came from. Time will tell.

I’m sure Aruba appeals to lots of people, obviously it does given the volume of visitors who go, but it just wasn’t our cup of tea. We enjoyed quieter islands without the mass consumption mentality and without the crowds of Americans milling about with their squalling children in tow. I wish I had something nice and charming to say about our last stop, but clearly, I just don’t.

Headed Home

We had two days at sea before landing once again where we started in Fort Lauderdale. We had never done a cruise that started and ended in the same port before, except the Alaska cruise I believe, and it sure saved on airfare. Flights to and from Fort Lauderdale and Atlanta are literally hourly and very reasonable. Because of this we hoped to change our reservations at the airport to have us landing in Atlanta at the same time we were originally scheduled to leave Florida. There is nothing to be gained by delaying departure from the ship since you will constantly be harassed by one crew or another seeking to turn your cabin for the next guest. So, we took advantage of the benefit of priority disembarkation to be among the first off the ship. In fact, I was the first one through Customs and Immigration as everyone ahead of me was a citizen of a different non-US country and therefore they went through a different line. It was a breeze and no one spotted my contraband, just kidding, and we had no trouble getting essentially across the street, although getting out of the port and into the airport still requires a taxi, to the airport. Our flights were changed easily enough and we were in the air far earlier than expected. We parted ways with Mom and Dad after getting them safely to the Centerpoint SkyClub, convenient for their connecting flight some hours later back to Los Angeles.

7,069 nautical miles, (8,130 statute miles or 13,078 kilometers) we were ready to be home and were delighted to make it home so many hours earlier than we had originally planned. Our doggie children were delighted to see us and are hesitant to leave our sides even yet for fear that we will leave them again. They don’t know it, but we will. We sail again on a trans-Atlantic crossing of 15 days in March, headed for Rome once again, but this time visiting the islands of Madeira which will be new to us along with Cartegena, Spain, a new city in a familiar nation. One oddity is that we will have visited both island groups of the nation of Portugal with this trip and have yet to visit the mainland of Portugal itself. Perhaps someday, who can say, as we continue our wonderful journey about the planet, which will get even more exotic and interesting come October when we spend 28 days sailing from Venice to Singapore via Dubrovnik, the Suez Canal, Oman, and India, among other stops on what promises to be a major adventure as we literally circle the globe via plane and ship. Wish us well and thanks for reading!