Tuesday - 8th Jan 2019 - Santa Marta Columbia

We both woke up stiff and sore. We only thing we could think of was the stone house with its stairs of all sizes and maybe the walkways which were sometimes uneven or maybe transferring across boats? We did not know which activity it was but we could hardly walk up or down stairs. 

We stretched out our right legs as it seemed to be only our right legs that were affected. Odd. We went down to the Grand Pacific restaurant but it was closed so we decided to go to O’Sheehans for breakfast. I had Oatmeal, a small fruit plate and toast,  Margie had corned beef hash and 2 eggs with toast, coffee and me, tea of course.

 Our tour 'Highlights of Santa Marta', was off at 9:25 and we were on bus number 6 with Sandy. Sandy was a retired teacher and spoke fairly good English. He told us lots of the history of Santa Marta, Columbia,  the amazon  the Orinoco, and a little bit about Cartegena, his home town. 

The bus took us through town and outside of the city to a park, the Cinque do something where Simon Bolivar had a house and gardens. Now it is a botanical garden and museum with a special building dedicated to Simon Bolivar, the first president of Columbia, even though he was from Venezuela. 

 The gardens were lovely and the trees were magnificent. There were butterflies everywhere, white , bright yellow, orange, black and white. Almost all large and fast. The house was interesting too. It had each room how Simon Bolivar would have had it. His chapel with his saint, his bedroom with the clock set at the time that he died, his dining room, his sitting room , his courtyard, kitchen and bakery. It was nice and my favourite was the courtyard. 

I think I could do that in my yard. The bougainvillaea were lovely. Then over to the sugar cane press and the washrooms at the next buildings over. Only one for men and one for women. Margie required the washroom for awhile as she had a touch of the runs, possibly from our malaria pill that we had taken the night before. Everything worked out alright and she did not miss a beat in our tour. 

We continued on through the garden to the 300 year old tree that go hit by lightning but was still alive.

Then off to the building that was monument to Simon Bolivar and next to it was a gift shop /cafe where I purchased a lovely t-shirt and some water. When I went outside there was a pond with some vultures sunning themselves and got a nice photo of them. odd looking birds but cool to see.

From there we proceeded to a resort where we were seated in the shade, given beers and water and some lovely entertainment by some very colourful and energetic young dancers. It was all very nice and warm.the young dancers put on quite a show with their live band playing loudly by the side of the dance area. 

It was fun. I could not help wondering how the quests the resort felt about the show as we were seated right in the middle of the area used to get to the beach from the hotel. Oh well they were entertained daily I am sure as part of the package deal they got. 

 Our tour continued with Sandy and we proceeded back to the bus where we saw a large iguana in a tree though we tried to get some photos, we were not too successful. Back into town and dropped off with a short walk to the gold Museum. 

An interesting collection of artifacts from all the time periods in Columbia. Pottery, stone, and gold. Lots of gold worked beautifully into an assortment of things: crowns, clasps, bats and beads. There were these little seal thins made from clay that were so cool. they would press a design into clay pottery I guess on ink onto fabric, I am not sure which.  Interesting but again we had to use the washrooms sob the time we found Sandy again we had missed some of Sandy’s talk. 

From the gold museum we walked about three blocks to an old square surrounded by old buildings. Colonial, Republican and the white washed cathedral of Santa Marta. 

The cathedral was lovely with lots of statues and some stained glass windows. I did put some money in the take of this cathedral box but could not find any candles to light so just said some prayers anyway. Margie told me later she found out that there were candles at the front of the church for purchase. Oh well. We then went back to the bus, trying to purchase some earrings on the way but the vendor did not have change so, sadly,  we could not get them. 

Back on the bus and it was so hot outside that the air-conditioning felt like heaven.

After a shortish drive back through what was the messiest section of town I think ( there was a lot of plastic bags and garbage laying around along the road sides) we arrived at the ship to be  greeted with cool wash cloths and drinks to rehydrate us while we waited to get onto the ship through security. A wonderful way to be greeted on a very hot day.

I went to sprinkle mom and dad over the ships bow and the breeze caught the Kleenex and blew it onto the deck below. when I went to the deck below to get my Kleenex I found it was closed due to cleaning and maintenance. What?! Where were Mom and Dad? Well I hope that they are happy somewhere in Santa Marta bay. 

 

Our room had lovely air-conditioning and so we did not go out again for awhile. I had a lovely nap ( beer in the afternoon always makes me sleepy) and Margie worked on her payroll stuff. She woke me up for supper.

We had dinner at Magenta’s with Soren  who was from Denmark and was in shipping and transportation, Rasmus from Denmark who was a retired  electrician who owned laundromats and tanning salons, Jeff from Oregon who had lost his wife for the evening, who was a robotics engineer, and Larry from LA and New York. Larry was an actor and entrepreneur selling old tv shows and movies on DVD and Blue-ray on Ebates.

 The dinner was very good as always and afterward we just came back to our room and went to sleep early. Bye bye Santa Marta.

 Towel animal - Koala Bear

Monday the 7th Jan 2019 - Orangestad, Aruba

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I woke up at 533 and turned on the tv to find out where we were. Margie woke up right away too and so we decided not to go back to sleep as we had to meet our tour at 810 in the stardust theatre and wanted to have showers and breakfast before that. 

After a lovely shower got dressed and headed for the garden cafe on deck 12. They have lots of fruit and pastries out early and open the main breakfast buffet at 640ish the only problem that we had was that we could not reach the back tray where the cups were for our tea and coffee but a nice gentleman of asian descent helped us out. 

We had a lovely breakfast and went back to our room to watch the ship dock, to get our money and passports and get ready (use the washroom) to leave the ship.  We went to the stardust theatre to meet with our tour group,  the  “Sea and See Aruba” 

 Check out went smoothly through the security and we were on our bus number 70 with Gwen, our tour guide, and Ignatius the Driver. Our first stop was the house rock, or the rock house. A geological formation on the island that they have put stairs onto so that tourists can climb to the top and get great views of the island.

 It is a small park and actually very fun, I could see my grandchildren really enjoying themselves there.

Aruba is very rocky and lots of cactus  and prickly trees like acacia all over the place. There are lots of houses with small courtyards to hold back the cacti and acacia with some lovely imported palms and flowers like bougenvallia but overall it is pretty dry and barren.

The beaches though are lovely.

Our next stop was on the north side of the island with is very rugged and no one swims there.  We passed lots of little washout areas  on the beach and one of them had a goat. I guess there are wild goats in Aruba. The road was very bad and bumpy and we went pretty slowly so had a good look at the fields of coral limestone, basalt,  cactus and Quihee trees. 

We went to see “the Bridge”, a natural rock arch on the beach worn away by water and wind,. There used to be two, a large one and a small one but the large one finally collapsed and that left only the little one. We only had 15 minutes there and Gwen told us that if we needed to use the washrooms this would be a good place as our next stop was twenty feet underwater. So we took some quick photos and used the washroom with was very clean and only cost a dollar. I bought a bottle of water from the canteen and hopped back on to the bus. 

Gwen kept a running history of the island and all aspects of life here. Politics, schools, incomes, birds and pests. Boa’s are of concern as someone brought one onto the island illegally. It got loose and had babies and they are now all over the tiny island. Aruba is not that big. I was wondering what they would eat. Birds and eggs and iguanas I suppose.

Our third stop was our under the sea tour of the wreck of the Antilles ship just off the coast in Aruba. We had a pleasant walk down a long pathway road in-between two big hotels to a beautiful beach with a dock in the middle. Then we got onto a boat and were told to hang onto anything that you did not want to loose “Ladies Hang on to your husbands” ha ha… 

We rode along the coast for about 15 minutes to an area with about 10 different boats on it and transferred to one that was very skinny and very long. We went below deck and each took a one of the blue fold down seats on each side of the ship, each by a window looking out into the water. The captain of the ship maneuvered us to above the wreck of the Antilles and we saw through mostly cloudy water the wreck covered in corals and things. It was interesting more interesting were the fish which sometimes were there and sometimes were not. 

There were scuba divers in the water as well as the boats, probably from the boats that were around us and so we had to wait sometimes for the snorkelers and scuba divers to move off so we could get back to the wreck. Our boat, being long and skinny would maneuver so that either one side or the other was able to see the wreck. There was a tour lady below deck with us telling us some rather bad jokes and directing us to look on other side for different things as the ride went along. She passed back a picture of the original boat before it broke in half due to the boilers exploding. It had been there for many years. 

After our tour finished we went back upstairs onto the deck where our other boat was waiting for us and transferred back to it for the return journey. I sat at what I thought was the front and casually dropped Mom and Dad into the water. They are now swimming with the fishes at the wreck of the Antilles in Aruba. I hung onto my hat which is big enough to shade most of me from the sun and we headed back to the beach.

When we got back to the beach we used the washrooms which cost one dollar US, honour system, and were not that clean. Margie ran down to the waters edge and dipped her hand in the water so she could say she was in the Caribbean Sea. Of course a small wave got her foot to so as she walked off the beach she got sand in her shoes and had sand in them for the rest of the day.

Just before we got back onto our buses I spotted a lizard on a wall. Aruba Wildlife. I got a great shot of the little guy and will look up what kind he is when I get home to Comox.

from there we continued on to the light house that we had seen from the boat on our way out to the wreck and back. it was a lovely spot in a desolate area that I would not want to go hiking in. the thorns on the bushes were used as sewing needles in the old days. rather scary.

They drove us back to the ship and Margie and I headed into the shopping area which was right there. We were on a mission to get our free charms, necklaces and whatever they could give us for our grandchildren back home. The shopping area in Oranjestad is very touristy which is to be expected as tourism is their number one industry.

We found all the shops we wanted plus a few more. Margie found a shirt for her son. There were some people on the street handing out flyers for free trinkets at different shops the one fellow told us that he gets paid for all the coupons that get handed in so just by  bringing the coupons into the store we were helping him out. We also found dice which we now realize had been at almost every port but they are sold in small boxes with the name of the port on them and we had just thought that they were boxes. 

On the way back to the ship after security but still out on the dock area there is more shopping and we picked up a few more trinkets from local artists. Bracelets and keychains. In the building right in front of the ship they had set up quite a few stores with those last minute deals for real cheap. I got two 5 dollar t shirts, one for me and one for my grandson, John. 

Back onto the ship and our rooms and it was lovely to sit on the balcony and watch oranjestad. Some people were late and there were lots of people on their balconies and we all clapped as the late people went up the gangplank. For dinner we went to the grand pacific and did not sit with anyone just had a nice dinner and talked about our day and the next in Santa Marta, Columbia. An early time to bed as we were exhausted from all the fresh air, sunshine and good times.

Towel animal - Cat