Finally! South America

There’s something very clever that they do on this ship that initially seems silly.. In every elevator somewhere in the middle of the night, elves come in and change all of the carpets to a new one that clearly states in large letters -the day of the week.

I thought it was amusing but more than once Ive gotten into the elevator and thought, “what, it’s Saturday?” Or Wednesday..Very clever these Dutch.

Our second week started with a shopping spree at a mega mall in Panama City that was festooned with Black Friday or better yet Black Weekend sale signs. Isn’t it charming what we export from the US (she said sarcastically) since we have been to Panama City a few times we didn’t go on any city tours and just indulged in an American style mall.

In the evening we went to the a magician’s show onboard which is not my usual cup of tea, but his mixture of nerdy comedy and magic was quire good. AND I was the one who picked the card, any card. How exciting is that? It was the two of hearts and he produced from a locked box no less. Amazing!

On Saturday, according to the elevator rug, we had our first full day of sailing on the Pacific Ocean. Which by the way bears a striking resemblance to the Carabean Sea. Days at sea are chock full of things to do. I now know everything about Simon Bolivia, his mistress Manuela and the equator. How’s that for a variety of knowledge?

 Although we never felt the bump when we crossed the equator, we have an authentic certificate from the Captain and we attended  the hokey ceremony that King Neptune demands that Holland American cruise ships must perform which involved pirate prisoners being doused with paint/food coloring and dumped into the pool. Oh that wiley King Neptune! Fun fact - we went from Fall to Spring in one second when we crossed the equator.

One thing I’m known for, as Svend would tell you, is I’m always saying something along the lines of “ I really want to go to…. pick  a place - Arctic circle,  Madagascar, the Faroe Islands, Tera del Fuego,  etc etc. And Svend says “It would be shorter if you said where you don’t want to go.”funnily enough I never considered Peru. But since the ship was stopping there for three days, it seemed like the thing to do. Three days is a long time for a stop on a cruise ship for sure. The reason for the long visit was that some crazy people were going on a side trip to Machu Picchu. Yes I really want to go to Machu Picchu but not enough to take a plane, a bus, and a long train ride for a day and a half for $3500 per person! Besides, I went to the interesting lecture and now I know everything there is to know about Machu Picchu and I’m definitely going to watch some YouTube videos about it. 

So the great majority of Oosterdamers were transported on buses to the great city of Lima Peru. My knowledge of Peru was sketchy at best and isn’t great still,  but they have a long and rocky history that has resulted in the not unusual combination of opulence and poverty that one often encounters when traveling. The Inca people were constructing pyramids at roughly the same time frame as the ancient Egyptians, which is an extraordinary fact. Somewhere between then and now came the Conquistdors, colonization, earthquakes, tsunamis, communism, coups, dictators, a Japanese president who helped turn around the economy and is now in jail; all this AND Machu Picchu!

In Lima we visited the Cathedral where lie  the bone of Francesco Pizzaro, the infamous Spaniard conquistador  who invaded Peru, captured the Inca ruler, sent a lot of gold back to Spain and founded Lima. So far in our travels we’ve encountered various  sides of team Pizzaro. They liked at the cathedral btw.

Not far from the cathedral was the Dominican monastery of Dan Miquel where lie the bones of St Rose of Lima and Saint Martin de Pores, two important figures in the Catholic world of which I have been a part.Many a second grader

 

 at Reverend Brown and St. Joes could be found parading around as St. Rose of Lima on November first. (When the Saints went marching in) And Saint Martin de Pores is the name of combined parishes of  St Ann/St Brendan in Dorchester. Who knew these two important saints would be found in one place in Lima. I liked it.  

In the small port town next to Lima, It became official, I’m a crazy person. The evidence of that statement lies in the fact that I jumped off a boat into the cold Pacific Ocean. And why? To swim with seals off the coast of a small guano-smelly island off Callao To say it was a thrilling 15 minutes would be an understatement. There were literally thousands of seals and sea lions on the small rocky islands and the noise of the crowded colony was amazing. It sounded like cries of No, no no. 

One set of sea lions on the shore actually did that territorial bashing into each other that we have all seen on some nature show. Right there! I actually rubbed a seals belly when he (or maybe she) turned on his /her back. Mostly they just wanted to come up to your feet or legs for a quick touch. SO MUCH FUN! Don’t ask if it was easy to get back into the boat. Pretty sure there’s no photos that survived that event.

Hasta luego y’all…