Black Sand and The White Rabbit

The otherwise as close to perfect shipboard service has been marred by the Tour Desk staff. The two assistants—two nice on the eyes young ladies, one each from Russia and Switzerland–add up to the IQ of paint but make up for that by being completely ignorant of the ports and also a bit arrogant. But the Tour Desk Manager, a 7 foot tall guy from Brazil who works out a lot, responds to all questions by immediately looking at his watch, grabbing a random clipboard, and running away into his office and abruptly closing the door in the questioners’ faces. So help me, I believe I hear him mumbling each time, “I’m late, I’m late, for a very important date” as he descends into this rabbit hole. From what I could tell, all three of them said to some guests that the port town in Guatemala was dangerous and for “no interest” but secretly cancelled the only tour that I was interested in, an exploration of a number of sights on the Pacific side of the country including the colonial town of Antigua, the 16^th Century “capital of the New World.” Last evening I chatted with at least a half dozen people who would have taken that tour had we known it was in jeopardy. No big deal, I guess, since I have almost a month to go on this odyssey and have booked many hundreds of dollars of tours. (They are not cheap.)

We arrived at Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala early yesterday, the largest Pacific port in the country but oddly enough surrounded by thick forest with volcanoes towering the skyline. Despite the multi-accented warnings of the tour staff, what I did end up doing yesterday was hiring a van, driver, and guide at the pier with another guest and visit the nearby town of San Jose, the town for which we were warned. Poo, poo’ing, is one thing, but we took no watches and had only a few bills along rather than billfolds. The town turned out to be clean, safe, and seemingly quite prosperous. Shops on the main (but unpaved) street abounded, many restaurants were being set up, and the local fish and produce market was huge, clean, and really fun to wonder in. The guide, Carlos, spoke perfect American English. A single parent of an 8 and 7 year old and fisherman at night, he had spent his single days in Washington Heights in New York City where he sold real estate part time in the evenings but worked full time from 4 in the mornings in a bagel bakery. (I told him he didn’t look Jewish. He looked at me and uncharacteristically didn’t say anything.) San Jose had an endless black sand beach. We (the other guest, me, and Carlos) wandered quite a distance as we watched women with fruit on their heads provide snacks to the early beach goers as the many beach side restaurants were not quite set up for the day’s business.

As yesterday’s was the last port day for the 1^st segment of the cruise, many of the guests will be leaving tomorrow in Costa Rica. This usually brings out the openness of expression among those leaving that includes my finding folks who haven’t said even “hi” beginning to chat amicably with me. One guy was sitting at the early “coffee corner” in the Observation Lounge yesterday at 6:15 am (we had switched to Central Standard from CDT overnight—so I am not back on the same time as Boulder for the next few days). This guy invited me to sit with him to enjoy my lactose free chocolate croissant and fruit Danishes. I asked him how he was doing. This was a serious mistake as he said he was miserable with a bad cold and was about to write the US Government about how the ship gave it to him by not sanitizing itself (!) since there was an epidemic onboard. I told him that he was only the 2^nd guests I had met in 10 days who wasn’t feeling good (well, except for the elderly gentleman who had a heart attack and passed away in front of La Terrazza on the 2^nd sea day on the cruise, but that’s another story). The other guest with a cold, a former executive with the parent company of the Henderson Mine that I had done so much work for and with whom I had a pleasant conversation about Haulage in the hallway, had been clearly exposed before he got onboard. So I mentioned to the guy at coffee that perhaps he should blame instead the person who probably sneezed on time on the plane to LA. He stormed away, saying that he was going to leave the ship “at the next port”. The coffee attendant and others in the lounge all made a sigh of relief. Later in the day I met a couple who told me that had chatted with a “guy who is going to sue the captain for making him sick but was ‘leaving the ship’”. I hope he really is leaving.

My other fun conversation yesterday was with a somewhat older (than me) couple who I had not talked to before. They asked me if I had been to Guatemala before. When I said I had—but only to the Mayan ruins at Tikal in the NE of the country—they asked if I travel a lot. I said I had been to 116 countries so far. The woman said, “We have been to 41, but that’s enough.” I asked how she knew that the potential 42^nd might not be even better than any so far. Her spouse started to attempt to say something, but she cut him off. So, the cruise continues….

I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s visit to Costa Rica. I’ve booked the “in-transit” tour (that is, for those of us who are continuing to the next cruise) to the rain forest where a gondola ride above the canopy and “a Costa Rican buffet lunch” are included. The latter should be nice as an alternative to the super but now quite familiar shipboard dining, and the former is a welcome alternative to the now popular rain forest cable slide. I don’t do cable slides, and some of you know an occasional misgiving regarding even gondolas and possibly local buffets, but it should be fun to see Costa Rica. All the ports (and countries) from now on on this cruise are new for me.

By the way, all the guests who took the $600 day trip via “single engine charted planes” to Honduras yesterday (to see the Copan ruins) came back ok, albeit a little green from the convection. When I asked them how were the ruins, the answer was to a person, “The flight was very bumpy.”

Regards from off the coasts of San Salvador and Nicaragua, 12 43N, 18 14W.