DRY LAND AT LAST! or Maybe I'm Not The Best Sailor

I know there are people who love being at sea for multiple days on a cruise ship, but it just doesn't work well for me. What exactly happened yesterday? What did we actually *do*? I mean besides eat.

I think there were a couple of lectures in there - one about the canal (which was a bit confusing, because there had been a differet guy on Monday talking about the canal who never definitively answered the question - why Panama and not Nicaragua?), and another about plate tectonics. It was way more interesting than it sounds.

We had an even bigger crowd for the 2nd night of Hanukkah - at least 50 people! 50 Jews out of 2000 people on the ship - what is that, .0001 percent of the boat population?

And we had yet another great dinner conversation (steered away from politics AND football).

Yesterday's challenge was staying upright and walking in a straight line. The ship left port on Saturday over 3 hours late (some strange BS sounding story as to why). We all got the impression the captain was making up for that time by putting the pedal to the medal, resulting in an entertaining game of human pinball and nobody was spared. I, for one, was leveraging my hiking stick as a third leg to keep me from flopping over completely. Didn't work 100% of the time, but better than nothing.

The running joke all over the ship was - if you see somebody walking in a straight line, they are obviously drunk.

The evening entertainment was Lesco James - not that I've heard of him before, but he was excellent.

So it was really nice to wake up this morning (to the auto-email from AT&T reminding me that I DO NOT HAVE A DATA PACKAGE IN THIS LOCATION) to the sensation of not rocking. And walking to breakfast without bumping into a wall or table or chair.

Today was our first excursion - The Best Of Cartagena as opposed to A Taste Of Cartagena (which I think was about coffee).

Highlights - Fort San Felipe:

Which withstood many a foreign attack, including one from the British and Vernon Washington (half brother to our more familiar Father of Our Country, George). Did you know Mt Vernon was named for Vernon Washington? I did not. Nothing like a little American history while in South America.

Oh our guide did warn us that we would be chanting "No, gracias" more times than we could count to beat back all the street vendors, and he was right.

This guy Don Blas de Lezo, a Colombian hero (defeated the aforementioned Vernon Washington) while missing assorted body parts:

We then ventured into the old city of Cartagena. 

We toured the museum of the Inquisition (yep, that Inquisition) with assorted versions of how many people were actually killed. Turns out, depends on who you ask.

You know there's always a bathroom related story when we're traveling - luckily, today was pretty easy. Except of course that I had to ask when the bathroom break would be, because tour guides almost never think to mention it. Mind you, our cohort consists entirely of people over 60. 

But fortunately, the Inquisitors managed to install a bathroom, I guess. The yellow sign (posted on the remaining original walls of the building) points the way, and those two people are coming through the bathroom door. Can you get any more exciting than that?

Next was the convent for San Pedro Claver - the tower at the end of the street in this photo.

There is also the very pretty Iglesia de San Pedro Claver.

And finally, San Pedro Claver:

Yep, that's him. I guess "in the flesh" doesn't really apply here. He was a champion for African slaves and the poor.

We did do a little bit of shopping, but it was a major national/religious holiday of sorts and most of the shops were closed. I did score the first elephant of the trip.

I haven't mentioned up to this point that it was about 85 degrees and a zillion percent humidity, but it was indeed a bit toasty. Apparently we just missed a heat wave. The Colombian "summer" is the drier and cooler season of the year (as opposed to even hotter and constant rain).

The best part of the shopping (main items offered for sale - emeralds and coffee, and we weren't interested in either) was the random few minutes in air conditioning.

The tour ended with a drive through modern Cartagena, with tall and expensive apartment buildings.

Unfortunately no opportunity to sample local cuisine - which we were warned away from (DON'T EAT STUFF FROM STREET VENDORS!!!) in the usual subtle manner. And then I saw people from a different bus (always kinda hard to "blend in" when you have the silly "BUS #6" sticker on your shirt) buy some coconut milk from a street vendor. Good luck with that.

We were back at the ship by 1:00. Followed by lunch, hanging out and blogging.

Soon to come - more food and tonight's entertainment. Must say, evening shows have been great. Just wish there was a piano bar.

Ah yes, tomorrow - yesterday we received a voice mail and a letter telling us that our "Panama Canal Tour" scheduled for Wednesday (is that tomorrow?) was canceled due to low turn out. So this morning we stopped by the excursion desk and booked the "Panoramic Panama" tour instead. Not exactly sure what that entails or even how much it costs, but the excursion guy says it most closely approximates our original plan of going through the canal in a ferry boat. Which would have been way, way, way cool. Putting on my optimistic hat, I'm sure the 6 hour Panoramic Panama tour will be great. As long as the bathroom breaks are well planned.

Hasta manana! 

(ok you have to imagine the ~ over first "n", because iPad)