Land Ho

Well the first thing that I now realize that I forgot in the last post was that we are traveling with Greg and Dee Russo. They have been friends of ours since I first got in the National Guard back in ’72. One of the most interesting things about this cruise is that we are some of the youngest people on board!!!!

Yesterday we were in Aruba. Not a long stop, only half a day, but that did not keep the girls from shopping. We walked around the port city and Greg and burned out on the t-shirt shops rather early in the process. Tally at the end of the day, some new shirts and a beach wrap of some short for Jude.

If you can imagine, Greg and I have become rather friendly with one set of bar tenders here on board. I guess when you close the bar down two nights in a row they have a tendency to remember you! This ship, the Coral Princess, spends the summers up in Alaska. It is one of the ships that Jude and I load passengers onto. Given that fact, we discovered there are still a few bottles of good Alaskan beer on board. That means that we have found their stash of Alaskan Amber and Alaskan Summer. Here we are down off the coast of Colombia and are drinking good old Alaskan beer. Who’d a thunk it!

Today we were in Cartagena, Colombia. The ship arrived about 9 am. The four of us negotiated a taxi to cart the four of us around to see the sights of the city and the shopping areas. Twenty bucks a head for a four hour guided ride. Okay, maybe we could have done better but that seemed to be the going rate. The traffic is everything one would expect in a city like this. It was about a 20 minute ride to our first stop, the old Spanish fort. We wandered around there for a while. Boy was I glad that I have been getting more exercise this past year because it seems like it was all uphill. Of course, forts are built on the high ground!

From there we jammed ourselves back in the taxi. We were just about at our next destination when the taxi broke, stalled, stopped running right in the middle of traffic. The hood went up and the next thing we know there are 2,3,4, now 5 people looking under the hood. We sit in the car, sweating more and more every minute. Next thing we know the driver gets back in and the other guys start to push start the taxi. It doesn’t work, but at least we are a little further out of the way. Greg says let’s give him another 5 minutes or we will find another taxi. Well it does not take that long. They give up on that taxi and just take someone else’s cab. Our driver and us get in the new taxi and head to the shopping market. We are there for about an hour. When we are done, our driver has gotten his car back and it is running again.

Everybody gets in the car and on to the old city. We park and now our driver gets out and starts to give us a guided tour. Sort of the typical things one would expect, the 200 year old churches, the old plazas, and of course his nephew’s jewelry store! Greg and I stayed outside. He did better than me because Dee did not buy anything, but I did not fare as well. However, Jude did get a very nice Christmas gift for herself. So in many ways, it gets me off the hook, and I know she likes it! I have no idea what else she has bought, I can’t keep track. Me, let’s see, two t-shirts on the ship, one “Hawaiian” type shirt yesterday in Aruba, one Cartagena t-shirt for $5, and a Panama hat. I think I look rather stylish in it. Pictures to follow when I have a real internet connection rather than the slow one here on board the ship.

Tomorrow is the Panama Canal! That should be interesting, although the locking procedure is VERY familiar to us after our trip down the rivers two years ago!! That’s all for now. Rob