Island Princess May 4-5, 2014, Sun and Mon

Aruba and Cartagena

My least favorite part of cruising: looking out the window and seeing land, the rocking of the boat nonexistent. This means I have to do something besides relax. It means I have to be a tourist. If it were just that, I wouldn’t mind, but there is very little time to do what I would normally do as a tourist, which is find the educational stuff, the museums, the natural wonders for a long hike. You don’t want to miss the boat. So one has to either sign up (extra $$$ of course) for a land excursion through the cruise ship or decide to venture out on your own, which we tend to do, grabbing a taxi and making plans in advance, as when we made our own whale watching reservations in Alaska. The independent tour guides understand the limitations and will often greet you at the ship and make sure you get back in plenty of time. Without question, it also involves resisting all kinds of souvenir hawkers along the way. After purging my life of 30 years of crap when we moved to southern California, I vowed to not ever buy souvenirs again.

So Aruba day we took a city bus to a nearby beach at about 8 a.m. It is indeed windy on Aruba and as far as I can figure it must have been windier than normal, otherwise why would anyone ever go there? We hung on the beautiful beach for about two hours, the water was like bathwater and the quintessential Caribbean aqua waters did not disappoint. But it was crazy windy and didn’t take long to tire of that. We started to pack up and go when a guy came up and told us he was collecting for the chair rental at $10 a piece. I asked him who he was and he showed me his credentials, from the hotel across the street. Normally I don’t argue about stuff like this, but we were leaving and there was no one else on the beach, so we just kind of looked at him, and then I said “you know, we haven’t been here long and we’re just leaving.” “Oh ok, that’s all right…” he replied. Then he asked how we got to the beach and we told him, he said you should take the white bus – it’s cheaper. (We did wonder why the city bus was more expensive than we’d been led to believe.) I asked him where we catch that bus and he walked us over to the road. Then he hung out with us. He told Al to go across the street and use the hotel foot shower, which Al did. He was questioning me about where we were from, what the weather was like, whether the beaches were the same, what kind of wildlife California has, etc. When Al returned we both started to pull cash out and Al handed him a tip, which he refused. He adamantly refused. “No! No! I just like talking to you!”  

In just about every other situation, you are pulling dollars out of your pocket to tip people 24/7, and that’s ok, but it was indeed shocking and somewhat refreshing to have this man just want to hang with us. I thought about it later – here he is on a windswept Caribbean Island and probably dreams of leaving someday. If there was ever a man who needed to escape his life circumstances, he was that man. I wanted to stow him away and take him to California.

Well, we said goodbye and thank you as we got on the bus and headed back to the main tourist area just off the pier. There is a charming shopping district there with everything from Pizza Hut to Cartier, all in architecture reminiscent of the history of the island as a Dutch colony. There are also two flea markets which upon closer inspection are just like Fisherman’s Wharf or any city’s tourist shopping area – the same junk for sale in each one. We did go in search of one booth that had been recommended that had local arts and crafts (rather than stuff that looks Caribbean but is made in China). We finally found it at the very end of the flea market and there was Trudy, painting as she sat there. I bought an ornament for my Christmas tree. Al left the flea market area with two tropical shirts and I left with a beach coverup. Back to the ship.

As an aside, about this time it became apparent to us that the average age of our fellow travelers is 85 and many of them, bless their hearts, are on walkers and in wheelchairs or scooters. There are about 4 children on the boat and much like it is delightful to see children in an assisted living building visiting grandma it is nice to see them here. This is not our usual cruise deal. When we went to Alaska we specifically booked on what was touted as the “family” cruise because we like the diversity of age. It’s ok, it’s just not the usual fun party atmosphere of a cruise and I miss that. No teens coming out of the under 18 club, no twenty somethings headed for their venue all dressed up for each other. There are a lot of people sitting around listening to the musicians waiting for food. I don’t begrudge any of this, it’s just a different atmosphere and one I kind of hang out in as a therapist and would have preferred to not have been on the geriatric tour. If I hear one more Neil Diamond or Jim Croce song I’m going to lose it.

Last night we did watch movies under the stars on the lido deck – Captain Phillips. Great movie to watch while you’re on a ship at sea. Nevertheless it was fabulous. A few years back I read a book Dangerous Waters, don’t remember the author. It was non-fiction about the pirate situation off the African coast and it was a daunting read. This movie really brought it alive for me. I recommend both, book definitely.

This morning found us pulling into Cartagena, Colombia. I realize that nothing has changed since I struggled with geography and everything that went along with it in grade school. I never in a million years would have expected the skyline to look like it does – white shining high rises jutting out of what appears to be jungle. Our tourist destination however, it the old walled city of Cartegena. We grabbed a taxi with another couple (on a cruise, everyone becomes your travel partner to save $$) It is HOT and MUGGY. Walking through the town we are immediately accosted by hawkers of all kinds of crap we don’t need. “No, gracias, no gracias, no gracias” – I learned well in Italy how to avoid making eye contact and just ignore it all, but it’s annoying anyway. I was forced to buy a folding fan due to the heat, always practical. So we wandered aimlessly.

Turned a corner and there was the church Santa Catalina, which had been partially demolished by Sir Francis Drake, that jolly old marauder. I can’t resist walking into Catholic churches wherever I may be. This one had people inside praying the rosary, I assume. When someone came out to light a candle I realized we were going to be attending Mass, which I also find irresistible when I’m travelling, especially when it’s in another language. It’s all the same, including that a ten a.m. weekday Mass is a “quickie” in Colombia just like in the US! I just love when it is time for the sign of peace, it is universal. Of course here it was “paz.” Cartegena has an Inquisition Museum and I can live without seeing what I’ve read about, but despite that sordid history the people in the church with me at Mass found a way past how they came to be Catholic and know it’s about paz.

As I waited for Mass to start a woman came up to me. She was asking for money. She had, believe it or not, a prescription from a medical clinic for physical therapy. She said she needed money for surgery for her back. I did donate to her cause whether it was valid or not, but we had a nice conversation about her knee pain and what kind of therapy she had been through so far. It is amazing to me how my Spanish comes flying out of my mouth when I get in a Spanish speaking setting. It’s all in there. It got me thinking how it was always a dream of mine to go be a therapist in a foreign country for a year on a mission.  I think it would have to be Alaska now, though, I couldn’t take the heat in Colombia, that’s for sure.

After Mass we wandered some more. I was getting hot which meant I was getting grouchy. The marriage was about to dissolve in the heat when up walked Maurizio, 70 years old who offered to guide us through the town. For an extremely reasonable price he walked us 12 km and told us all the trivia we could handle and more about the city. Where Julio Iglesia lived. Where Bill Clinton stayed. This building used to be a hospital and is now a school. This building used to be a jail and is now a hotel. Everything was approx. 500 years old within the walled city (they’d had enough of the like of Sir Francis Drake). The walls are made of coral stone. The fort, the park, Simon Bolivar, on and on and on. Tiny narrow streets with balconies overflowing with flowering vines.   Without Maurizio I would have just walked and bitched and poor Al, Missouri boy who doesn’t mind the muggy heat, would have had a miserable time. We paid Maurizio more than he quoted for sure! Once we get real internet access he made us promise to look for his name in the movie Romancing the Stone as he apparently had something to do with Michael Douglas. He mentioned his friend Michael Douglas many times so we’ll have to check it out.

Arrived back on ship, managed to eat lunch and drag myself to the pool for a dunk and then tried to read but fell asleep almost immediately. Back on the road/sea again. Panama Canal tomorrow.