Cruisin' the Caribbean!

On Saturday, Sept.29th, Tom got off work a little early and we headed east toward Louisiana.  That much needed rain that we've been needing arrived while Tom was driving east; at times it rained so hard, we could barely see the roadway!  We switched drivers at the Tex./La. state line, and thankfully the rain began to let up a little after I began driving south on I-49 toward Baton Rouge, La. where we had hotel reservations and were to meet Tim and Kathy, Tom's brother and his wife.

What a sleepless night we all had at the Holiday Inn South/Baton Rouge!  We were in a ground floor room, and around 2:00 a.m. we heard loud voices outside our room, that did not go away!  Where is the hotel's security personnel??  Just before 4:00 a.m., there was a gal standing just outside our door talking loudly on her cell phone!  Tom opened our door and told her we were trying to sleep and to go away!  Well, we were all awake and just a little giddy about leaving on our cruise on Sunday morning, so Tom and I got up, and each showered and dressed.  Tom and Tim went to the hotel's gym to work out, and I went to the front desk to get more coffee packets for our room, and to report the late-night activity that awakened us.  There was a  female security person there who told me we should have called the front desk at 2:00a.m. when it all started.  I told her she should have been patrolling around the hotel and not allowed this kind of disturbance in the middle of the night!  We will never stay there again!  For $150 per night, I expect a litlle more!

By 6:00 a.m., we were at Cracker Barrel having a wonderful breakfast, excitedly looking forward to getting on the ship and sailing!  The weather was warm and muggy, with some sunshine in between the intermittent rain showers.  However nothing could dampen our spirits, and by afternoon we were all feeling a little "punchy" from the long drive the day before, lack of sleep the night before, and  just happy to be on vacation!

As we sailed out of the Port of New Orleans, going down to the mouth of the Mississippi River where it flows into the Gulf of Mexico, which by the way, took an amazing 6 hours to reach, Tom took many photos, and reminisced about the neighborhood of Algiers, where he grew up, and which sits on the west bank of the Mississippi River across from New Orleans.  The Mississippi River is bustling with sea traffic, with many cargo ships and barges plying its waters throughout the day and night.

                            Tim & Kathy on board our ship w/the Mississippi River bridge behind.

                                          Sailing away from the city of New Orleans!

   The suburb of Algiers, which Tom says looks much different from the 1970's, when he lived there!

One of the many ships we went by on our way down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico.

As you can see, we enjoyed a lazy day at sea on Monday, with lots of sunshine streaming through the windows, playing cards, reading a book, joining in the different trivia contests offered throughout the day on the ship.  There is always something to do, or we could do nothing and nap!  We enjoyed two days at sea before we reached our first port of call,  Roatan's Mahogany Bay, Honduras.

We did not get any photos of Maya Key, where Tom and I went to on our excursion.  We had been getting up every morning, going up to the walking/jogging track on top of the ship, doing our 3-mile walk,  and watching the awesome sunrises.  Since we would be docking at Roatan this morning, we took our camera with us to the walking track so we could get some nice shots of the Island of Roatan, which lies a few miles off the coast of Honduras.  However, it began to rain shortly after we began to walk, but neither Tom nor I even thought to open the camera case and slip the camera into its ziploc bag!  Needless to say, it got very wet, as we continued to walk in the rain for an hour!  Nothing to do but open it up, remove the SD Card and camera batteries and leave it on the window sill in our cabin for the day, and hope for the sun to come out and stream thru our window and dry it out!

We were taken to Maya Key by boat, probably 100 guests on board, where we were dropped off to spend a few hours.  Tom snorkeled at a reef just off the end of the pier, while I relaxed on the beach with my book and enjoyed a short swim.  Lunch was served to us and there was also a nice big swimming pool there; also a replica of a Mayan temple which housed a Mayan museum.  Maya Key is also a sancuary for an assortment of wild animals, including a mangrove covered island which is home to several monkeys that the guides will bring out to allow guests to pet, or hold them for photo ops.  We declined!

What a surprise and a huge relief when we returned to the ship in the afternoon, to find the sun had come out and shined brightly through our cabin's window and dried out our camera!  Tom put the batteries and SD Card back in it, turned it on, and Voila!, it worked!  Yippee!!  This is our older Canon camera which I took on my A.T.Hike, and miraculously kept it dry thru many wet days on the Trail (poor thing lived in its ziploc bag most days on the Trail!), and if you'll remember I lost this same camera momentarily in Ireland when I left it in the restroom of a cafe, on the very first day in Dublin, and luckily for me, it was found and turned in!  We think we are "camera challenged"!

As we sailed away from Roatan, we were able to get some photos (with our now-dry camera) of a nice Carnival-owned, private beach area, which is free to all Carnival Cruise Ship passengers, and can be accessed from the ship's pier, via a nature path and footbridge, or a chairlift which runs continually back and forth while the ship is in port.

The following day, we were in Belize.  Due to the world's second largest reef, which lies just off the coast of Belize, our ship anchored about five miles off the coast, and we were boarded onto "tenders", which took us to the mainland for our Cavetubing excursion.  The tender we were on was a doubledecker one which probably held 250 passengers; it was a 25 minute ride to the pier at Belize City, where we boarded an older model tour bus for the 1 1/2 hour ride into the countryside to the caves and underground river.  Belize is pretty much like a third world country where poverty abounds!  We actually had a police van escort to the Caves!  In Belize City, we observed banks with guards armed with AK47's!  Some schools looked like abandoned buildings rather than classrooms!  Wow! How blessed we are to live in America!

 

This is pretty typical of housing in Belize City.

 

"New construction" next door to pawn shop?

 

Notice the wall studs are small tree limbs, not 2by4's!!

 

We passed this orange grove just before the caves.

 

Here we are with our guide, Vida, just as we exited the first cave which was about a mile and a half long, and just before we entered the second part of our cavetubing adventure, floating on the underground river thru the second cave which was about 3/4 mile long!  What an incredible experience!  Vida, our guide for the day, is of predominantly Mayan ancestry and was very knowledgeable about the medicinal qualities of all the plants and trees that lined our jungle path, along our 25-minute walk, carrying our tubes, to the mouth of the first cave we floated thru.  We placed our feet under the arms of the person in front, thereby creating an 8-person "float train", with each of us wearing life vests, and helmets w/headlamps, that we could turn on if we wished while in side the caves.  Most of us left our headlamps off, since only one or two lit it enough to see, plus, Vida pointed his very bright spotlight periodcally to show and tell us about different features inside the caves.  Once, he had us all to turn off our headlamps to experience some total darkness within the cave.  Eeire!!  Our guide, Vida, really made this excursion memorable for us!  After floating on the underground river in the caves, we were served lunch at an ourdoor pavilion right there in the jungle!  My personal favorite (yesterday and today) was the coconut black bean rice!  (Yesterday's lunch on Maya Key also had fried sea bass and fried banana chips which were excellent!)

 

The older model tour bus which brought us to the caves, would not fit on the primitive, narrow, dirt/rock track, for the final quarter-mile up and over a very steep hill (with rock walls jutting straight up each side), so we were herded off of it and onto a smaller, very old school bus, with a lot of our group standing in the aisle, for the final quarter mile up and over that very steep hill!  The school bus almost raked against the rock walls on the side, the road was so narrow!  I'm telling you, the ride to and from the caves was quite the adventure!  I would not recommend anyone I know to venture out on your own in Belize!  We would probably never hear from you again!!  However, I am so glad we had this oppportunity, and today of all days, since today is the one year anniversary of climbing Mt. Katahdin in Maine and completing my thru-hike!  Tom, Tim, and I really enjoyed being able to have this adventure together, one year after the three of us climbed Katahdin!  Kathy treated herself to a spa-day on the ship today while we were out Cavetubing.

 

Nice bus, huh!

 

This was one of the nicest places we saw in Belize, and you'll notice the wall protecting it, which was pretty typical.  Lots of walls, lots of iron bars on windows.

 

Ahh, there's our ship!  A welcome sight!

 

The next day, we were in Cozumel, such a beautiful sight, following Belize!  All four of us took a powered catamaran to Passion Island, which is located on the northern peninsula of Cozumel, for a relaxing day on a gorgeous beach! 

 

 

I love going on Cruises!  I love being spoiled a little, having someone clean my room, not just once daily, but twice!  Once in the morning while we are out and about, then again in the evening while we are at dinner, always leaving us chocolate candy, and a different "towel animal" each night.  BooBoo loved the towel animals!!  I loved walking each morning, watching the awesome sunrises; and I absolutely loved the food!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brotherly love!

 

Monkeys everywhere!