Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

As Dave Letterman would ask his studio audience, "How many here have heard of Guatemala?"  Don't be afraid to admit you have.  Guatemala is Central America's Cinderella.  A less well-off Cinderella.  She doesn't even have one shoe, but she's beautiful.  We cruised Lake Atitlan, which sits between the volcanoes and has spectacular views. 

Unlike being at the shore, the temps were cool, the humidity was low and we had to walk up steep hills to visit spots like the women's cooperative where they spin and die cotton by hand.  We also rode in the bed of a pickup truck to see Maximon (pronounced Mashimon) the AWESOME demi--god of one of the villages we stopped in.  Basically, this "Jesus" is a department store mannequin who they treat like Buddha.  People win the right to take care of him for the year; they put him away at night, take him out in the morning and visitors pay homage by plying him with cigarettes and liquor.  Yes, they tip Maximon back and poor booze down his plastic throat.  How religious is that?!

Also, last night marked the passenger talent show.  If you you watch Letterman, you know he has a spot called "Is It Anything?"  An act comes on and he and Paul guess if it's anything (i.e. a real act or not.)  Ours was a good old fashioned talent show.  Everything from an eight-year old reciting Shakespeare to an 80 year-old doing stand up to a couple of chicks doing a pathetic gymnastics routine.  It was something.


  

Holy smokes!

The volcano spewing ash in Nicaragua was a highlight for many on the MV Explorer (certainly not so for the farmers who live within a few miles of San Cristobal and were being "strongly encouraged" by local authorities to leave the vicinity).

In addition to watching the active volcano, we wandered the local fishing village were we found horses roaming free and pigs and baby racoons on leashes. After leaving the menagerie, we managed to find a restaurant with good seafood, $1 beers and a view of the fishermen bringing in the catch of the day.

The volcano isn't the only thing that has been blowing up these days.  In many ways, life on the ship parallels college life.  During breakfast the dining hall is a buzz with reports on the shenanigans of the prior night.  Recent highlights include a fight on Christmas eve, which was ended by ship security and shutting down the piano bar.  Reports on sightings of the overall "favorite" (aka freak) passenger and strategies to avoid the guy you just can't shake (I'm starting to think he must have planted a tracking device on us).  The biggest news - DJ Dave, likely the most hated person on the voyage, was canned on Christmas Day.  As a result, last night the disco was hopping!

Feliz Navidad, Gringos

As Indy gets dumped on with snow, we are sailing away from Puntarenas, Costa Rica.  The national motto here is “Pura Vida”—Pure Life.  We’ll toast to that.

We do hope Santa was good to you and yours.  As a warm up to the big event, we spent Christmas Eve in Ecuador.  First, we took this bus in town to the market.

What should have been a twenty-minute ride took 45 because there was a musical band of 10-year old boys on the top, who played two songs over and over. We took a cab home.

Then we went to a school for low-income kids, where we watched their Christmas pageant and handed out little gifts.  Not sure who had more fun.

 

Eventually, we made it to CR Christmas Day.  If you’re looking for a new holiday tradition, we suggest ziplining in the pouring rain (with thunder booming in the background) through a rainforest. Seriously.

Pura Vida!

Keepin' it real

We were at sea today, which means that in your downtime, you tend to pay more attention to your fellow shipmates.  It goes without saying that you make judgements.  That is, some folks appear to be knocking it out of the park, while others are just happy to be standing in the bratwurst line.  For example, this morning a little boy, age 7 or 8, was at the coffee station doctoring up his joe.  A woman asked him if he was really drinking coffee, and he said that he was.  She told him that he should be careful as coffee would stunt his growth.  His reply?  "It's decaf."  Outstanding.

Because we don't know their names, we've assigned monikers to some of the passengers.  The guy who manages to put sunscreen everywhere but his torched face--"Dumbass."  The cute guy who lifts weights on the deck for 20 minutes between a litany of drinks--"Our Hero."  The guy who stares holes in your head and can't form a sentence.--"Lithium Dude."  The cute chick in the bikini who's surrounded by Dumbass, Our Hero and Lithium Dude--"Bitch."

Along the lines of characters like those above, today's keynote speaker was Jonathan Murray of reality TV fame.   For you fellow oldsters, you might remember seeing his name in the credits for producing Real World and Road Rules.  Now-a-days, he produces (among other things) all the Kardashian shows and Project Runway.  As it turns out, his good taste and genius can be chalked up to the fact that he's a Mizzou grad.  He was also in our group to Macchu Picchu and is a really nice guy.  From coffee drinkers to reality TV producers, it's never wise to judge a book by it's cover.  

Nice to Picchu

Machu Picchu es fantastico.

If you've been, then you know.  If you're looking for something to do, skip the mall and go to the real ruins.

Throw grandma from the train

Planes, trains and automobiles.  Aycarumba!  Today was the first of our special three-day excursion to Machu Picchu, and it was a long one.  We left the ship around 9 a.m. to go to the airport to catch a flight to Cusco, which for you topograpy-philes is over the 11,000 foot mark.  From there, we took a bus to a llama and alpaca farm, another bus to an ancient Incan temple, a train to our hotel in Aguas Calientes and finally, a walk to dinner around 10 p.m.

Our particular little tour-group for the day was comprised of just 20 people--two of whom were William Webster, the former director of the CIA and FBI, and the aforementioned Sandra Day O'Connor.  One was old, surley and demanding; the other was old, kind and grabbed his wife's butt when he didn't know people were looking.  Leave it to the investigative/enforcement types to be the fun ones in the group.

Keeping it cool

You'll be relieved to hear we survived the Posidon Adventure that is the Panama Canal.  Okay, that's a slight mischaracterization.  Actually, you know the opening scene in the movie Office Space, where the guy is stuck in traffic on his way to work and the old man with the walker out on the sidewalk is making faster progress than the guy?  If that old man were walking the PC, he would have beat us out of there.

Fortunately, we took it up a notch yesterday by passing over the equator.  To mark the occasion, the ship has a tradition called the King Neptune party.








The King and his court gather poolside, and passengers who are game (nuts?) jump in the pool, kiss a fish and the king's ring then shave their heads.  Yes, about 30 people did it.  Given that we are neither Colts cheerleaders nor former Miss Indianas, we stayed out of the fray.

The other interesting thing about passing the equator is that while it was one of the rare sunny days we've had on this trip, it was also the coolest.  As in jeans and sweatshirts.  Go figure.

Where do you recommend buying a Panama hat?

Today's stop was Colon, Panama.  The best part about this city is it's the entrance to the Panama Canal (a.k.a adios, Colon).  For those who didn't know (because neither did we), the Panama Canal is actually a series of three locks, which takes ships between the Atlantic and the Pacific.

Well, you knew the ocean-to-ocean sequence, but did you know that REAL Panama hats are sold Ecuador?  For ships/travelers headed P to A, you buy your hat in E.  To purchase it in Panama is just embarrassing for everybody.

So we enter the locks at 06:45 tomorrow.  The weird thing is that our ship was docked about six miles from the holding pen of vessels waiting to go through the Canal.  Most of us passengers were looking forward to a calm dinner-cruise of an evening (perfect conditions for the Latin dance party in the discoteque!); however, much to our surprise, we're jetting though the open seas...somewhere.  We're thinking it's intern night at the captain's wheel. After all,  it's an educational voyage, and the kids gotta practice.

Watch out fer mud in yer hoo-ha

When it comes to tourist traps, it’s the wild west down here in Cartagena, Colombia.   We signed up for an excursion that promised trekking to a mud volcano, followed by a mud bath and swimming in spring waters.  What we got was a bus ride to a “volcano” that looked like it was built by the locals a couple of years ago, a “trek” up a few stairs to the opening, a dip in the mud pool orgy that was so full of people it would embarrass the ancient Romans and a “cleansing” in the polluted river down the road by women who manhandled people to get them clean.  Fun! 

Actually, kudos to those women.  The mud really was everywhere.

 At the end of the day, things were a lot worse for the passenger who tried to bring a bunch of cocaine on the ship, got caught, and will be saying Bon Voyage to the rest of us tomorrow.  Bet he or she wishes they kept it clean at the mud baths, instead.

When the boat’s a rockin’, hold on to your w(h)ine

Bit of a rough day at sea.  According to Voyage Director Roy, the swells were around 10 feet, which wasn’t terrible but enough to make a couple of gals hold on to their drinks for dear life.  As they held down the beds in the cabin.  Because they didn’t feel good.  However, we were doing much better than Pukey Peg, who left the Union Room lecture with this morning’s breakfast in her hands and on her shirt as she sauntered to the bathroom.  Seriously?  Thank you, Peg, for setting off everyone’s trigger.

In other stormy news, today’s big event was the keynote lecture by former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Conner.  As a reminder, Justice O’Connor was the first female in the SC; she was nominated by Reagan and confirmed in 1981.  She spoke about her upbringing (the Lazy B ranch in Arizona—she grew up thinking her destiny was to run the ranch) to some of her big decisions (she had the deciding vote on what to do about the Gore/Bush election debacle).  One would be hard pressed to describe Your Honor as either warm or fuzzy, but that’s probably behavior better utilized by folks at the Lazy B.  In the Q & A, one shmuck made the mistake of saying he had a two-part question.  She responded, “Let’s keep it to one.” 

Here’s to keeping your questions short, barf bag empty, and glass upright.

"Max, why didn’t you tell me to bring my harmonica?”

Lectures and entertainment are plentiful here on the MV Explorer, which is a testament to the “talented” staff and passengers.  Some classes are good, others Megan claims she could teach better.   The ship’s pianist is great, and some of the enthusiastic guests who like to accompany him are really good (e.g. guy who brought his trumpet and plays jazz) and others, not so much (e.g. guy with buzz cut and braid in back who sings numbers from Cats.)  Much like the bitchy Baroness Schroeder from The Sound of Music, who, after hearing Georg and the children sing a sweet rendition of The Hills Are Alive, offered her brilliant yet snarky comment about the harmonica, we have developed a secret rating system for the ship’s professionals and amateurs.  That system shall remain between us and the Baroness.

On another front, we had our first dress-up/formal dinner last night.  For those who have cruised, you know that means sitting with folks who you haven’t previously met.  Clearly, it’s a dicey experience.  When we walked up and saw it was a table of young people, we thought, “Thank God.”  Then it occurred to us that when we walked up and they saw us, they thought, “Shoot me.”  So, I bought shots.  It was all good.

Managing Expectations 101

At the hotel prior to boarding the ship, we met "Barb" and "Bob", who were also going on the trip and had been last year.  [Note:  I use air quotes for their names because I don't know if those are Vegas/ship names (i.e. what happens on the ship stays on the ship).]  Despite this being a repeat MV Explorer experience, "Barb" described last year's trip as "quirky" and "unorganized."  That forshadowed comment led to a two-hour wait in line to get on board, followed by a muster-station safety drill that was long, hot and served only to highlight that if our captain gets a little careless at the helm, we're going down like Leo and Kate.  Well, there's always cocktails and the pool...which turned out to be slightly smaller than the standard backyard version.

On the upside, this is an educational enrichment voyage, and being good students, we learned that the drinks are cheap and there's nothing like an emergency trip to the bar for attitude adjustments.  Day two can only get better!  

The Adventure is About to Begin

In about two weeks our bags will be packed and we will be off for a month long adventure in South and Central America. The MV Explorer, usually home to a gaggle of college students who are studying abroad through Semester at Sea, will be our home. Part relaxation, part learning, we hope that the Institute for Shipboard Education's Educational Enrichment Voyage will be a trip of a lifetime.

We intend to make updates to this blog as a way to remember our trip but also share highlights with friends and family. Check out where we are headed!

Origins and Empires, December 2012 Enrichment Voyage