March 20 - Fort-de-France, Martinique

Here we are in France.  Yes, Martinique is an official overseas territory and department of France.  The currency is the Euro and everyone speaks French, the official language, and some Martinican Creole.  The island has been under French ownership since 1635. Columbus had charted the island during his first voyage, but for whatever reason the Spanish weren’t interested in it. Like most of the other islands in the Caribbean at various times other countries would attack and control the place for a while before being run off by someone else.  The French ultimately maintained control and there is a very different flavor here from what we experienced yesterday in Barbados, which is very British.

This was the second port we visited on our first cruise in 1983 and we took a tour of the island then.  I’ve come back a couple of other times so today I decided not to go on the tour I’d booked and sleep later (Yay!!).  There are a few things about the island that I find interesting so I’ll tell you about them.  First, there is a volcano on the northern end, Mt.Pelée, which is still active.  In 1902 it erupted and destroyed the nearby town of Saint-Pierre.  The story I was told on my first visit was that the only survivor of that event was a man who was locked up in a basement jail cell in Saint-Pierre.  It was his lucky day, I guess.  The other thing I found interesting is that a very famous woman came from here.  Empress Josephine, Napoleon’s first wife, was the daughter of a wealthy French planter on Martinique.  I know it’s not a historically important piece of trivia, but I’ve always been intrigued by that era and have thought of Josephine as a sort of tragic figure.

Back to the present.  One of my friends and I went ashore in the late morning and walked into the city which is quite picturesque.  It reminds me of some of the towns you can see along the coast in the Mediterranean.  We found a pedestrian street that we walked on away from the waterfront and eventually came to a square with cafés at every corner so we decided to stop and have lunch.  It was one of those places where you go in and order and they give you a beeper to tell you when it’s ready.  The menu was in French and I used my high school French (that was a long time ago!) and sign language to order. We each had a fish filet sandwich and a local beer.  As we ate, a shower came along with a substantial breeze so we shifted to be more undercover, but it passed quickly.  Across the square a couple of musicians were playing guitars and singing so it was very pleasant.  It was a nice little interlude.

Fort-de-France from the ship

Nice little square

The blue and white sign on the left is for the Carrefours market (the large French grocery chain) just around the corner

The old French fort near our dock

After lunch we decided to head back to the ship since neither of us really needed to do any shopping.  On the other side of our pier was a new P&O ship which looked like a monster next to us.  I asked a couple who were walking back to that ship how many passengers it carried. They told me there were 4600 aboard, but its capacity was a little over 6000 plus 3000 crew!  One of their lifeboats could hold slightly more people than the Quest’s maximum passenger load.

Sort of a David and Goliath kind of photo

We had a sailaway party on deck and the band played all ABBA songs.  There was dancing of course.  I missed that because I was taking care of some business and talking to some people I’d met.  I’m sorry I did because evidently the passengers on the P&O ship began dancing on their verandas and open deck, and one man there who must have had an awful lot of rum punch decided to moon everyone. Classy move, n’est-ce pas.  I'm very glad I'm on this ship not that one. Tomorrow we'll be in Antigua.  Au revoir for now.

March 19 - Bridgetown, Barbados

We’re in the Caribbean and only one week from the end of this journey.  Today in port there are three other ships, one Royal Caribbean, a Tui (don’t know that line), and the new Ritz-Carlton ship.  Despite the fact that there are so many ships and passengers here, I was told all the stores in the downtown were closed because it’s Sunday.  That seems a little strange to me because Barbados’ principal industry is tourism.

I won’t tell you much about its history except to say that it was a British colony for hundreds of years.  In 2021 it became a republic within the British Commonwealth.

Here’s a tidbit about my cruising history.  Al and I began our very first cruise aboard the Sun Viking here in Barbados in October, 1983. Boy, has cruising changed since then.  Ships had no balconies. There was fixed dining with assigned seating.  If you didn’t like your tablemates, it was too bad; you just had to deal with it.  

Today I decided at the last minute to take a submarine cruise.  It was okay.  The waters here are not known for great snorkeling or diving.  We took a sub tender out to the sub and boarded through two hatches.  There were two rows of seats looking out multiple portholes.  I’m guessing there were about 40 of us.  We went as deep as 140 feet and passed an old shipwreck. It wasn’t an old as in colonial era wreck, but rather a steel ship like maybe an island trader. Fish like to hang around wrecks so there were some there but they weren't especially colorful.

We continued over some coral reefs and there were more fish there, but again the colors were muted.  I’m not sure if it was because the water wasn’t especially clear or because we kicked up some sand with the motors or because the windows distorted things.  There were quite a few little neon blue fish and a few black and white striped fish called sergeant majors.  There were larger gray fish which the sub driver called trash fish which swam right up to the windows because they seemed nosy.  

 I’ll put a few photos I took from the sub, but honestly they aren’t very good.                                                                                                   

If you look really hard you can see some neon blue specks around.  Exciting, right?

 

After about 45 minutes of puttering around we surfaced back by the tender and that was it.  We were taken back to the shore and then via a van back to the cruise terminal.  There we spoke to some folks who had gone into town and who told us everything was closed so we headed back to the ship.

I spent the rest of the day doing not much of anything.  A couple I met the other day invited me to dine with them and then I went to the show which starred a singer who played Aladdin in the West End in London for several years.  After the show it was time for dancing in the club.

Not a very exciting day I know, but the party is drawing to a close very soon so I need to get used to less jam-packed days.   Bye for now.

March 17 - The infamous Devil’s Island, French Guiana

Today we spent a day anchored off one of the three islands, the Îles du Salut, which formed the French Devil’s Island prison complex from 1852 to 1952.  Ironically the name Îles du Salut means salvation islands which these most certainly were not.  Nowadays the islands look like lush tropical paradises. In fact I could easily picture them as locales in a movie about the South Pacific.  Back when they were in operation the trees had been cut down so that there were no hiding places for prisoners and the conditions were brutal.

Beautiful now, not so much in the past

There was a zodiac tour to look at the local wildlife and one walking tour which involved walking up a steep path to the top of a hill.  I opted not to do either and instead walked around a path on the shoreline.

I’ll tell you a little about what it was supposed to be like here.  There was a movie called Papillon starring Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffmann (there’s since been a remake but I won’t count that) as two convicts who escape from the penal colony.  Probably the most famous inmate was a French army officer named Alfred Dreyfus who was accused of treason and sent here.  The real reason for his trial and conviction was anti-semitism and his cause was taken up by the author Émile Zola. Public pressure about the scandal finally resulted in the French president granting Dreyfus a pardon after having spent several years at what must have been hell on Earth.

There were different categories of prisoners and “accommodations” for them. Île Royale, which was the island to which we tendered was the reception center and the island where some prisoners were allowed moderate freedom.  As a side note, there was little chance of escape because the shoreline is rocky and the waters are shark-infested. This latter condition was enhanced when the prison was in use because the bodies of dead inmates were simply tossed into the surrounding sea to be food for the sharks.  A second island, Saint Joseph Island, was for inmates who were to be kept in solitary confinement.  They were housed in cement cells with no windows or ventilation and into which light only came for a few minutes a day.  Bear in mind that this place is only a few degrees north of the Equator so the heat and humidity had to be unbearable in what were literally cement ovens.  The third island was Devil’s Island which was reserved for political prisoners like Lt. Dreyfus.  The inmates there were kept in cement cells with iron bars for roofs so that guards could walk above them to keep watch.  Thus, these prisoners were subject to all the elements, both torrential rain and unrelenting sun.

The ruins of what was probably an administration building

Of the approximately 80,000 prisoners sent to the complex only a small percentage survived and returned to France.  It was reported that some of the survivors told such terrible tales of their treatment that would-be criminals decided to change their lives.  The French stopped sending prisoners there in 1938 and closed it down completely by 1963.

The islands are now part of the CNES, the French National Study for Space Studies.  Most of the remaining buildings are in ruins but they can be visited by tourists.  As I said, I walked on a path along the perimeter of the island.  There was no beach below; it was covered with big black boulders with waves crashing on them.  Along the path there were lots of coconut husks which had fallen from the many palms around.  There were bougainvillea bushes and hibiscus plants growing wild along the way.  It was an almost idyllic place which was ironic given the things that went on here only 75 years ago. There are monkeys in the trees, peacocks strutting around and agoutis (the largest species of rodent, foraging.  I came upon a bench on a shady point and sat for a while just listening to the sounds of the waves and enjoying the breeze before returning to the ship.  I know it sounds boring but it was a nice interlude and it was actually nice to be alone for a little while.  I love the socializing I’ve been doing with my new friends, but sometimes a little solitude is good too.

An agouti looking for lunch

What a pretty boy!

A white faced monkey

on the move

Since it was St. Patrick’s Day we of course had to have a fitting celebration.  Before dinner there was a St. Patrick’s Day- Jailbreak (get the connection?)  Party in the club.  There was a crazy mixture of songs from Molly Malone and Danny Boy to Jailhouse Rock and lots of green drinks served.  There was another show after dinner with a talented pianist playing.  Dinner was also wonderful.  I sat next to the magician and after we’d finished eating he did some card tricks.  Even sitting next to him and watching intently, I can’t for the life of me figure out how he did any of them.  In one trick he even managed to stick a folded card that I had picked from a deck under my Apple watch on my wrist and I never felt a thing.  It must be magic!

That’s all for now.  Another sea day tomorrow.

March 16 - Back in blue water

Around 4 AM we exited the Amazon River and by this morning when I woke up we were back in blue water.  It’s nice to see water that looks that way again.

After Parintins where we saw the Boi-Bumbá show we spent the next day anchored a little further down river at a place called Alter do Chão.  There didn’t appear to be much there and the only excursions offered were more zodiac ones to see birds and fish, so I spent the day onboard. In the afternoon there was a movie called River of Doubt which I went to see.  It’s the story of Teddy Roosevelt’s expedition to map a river in the Amazon rainforest in 1914.  It was fascinating and taught me a lot of history I didn’t know.

Now that we’ve left the Amazon I have some thoughts about that part of the trip.  I’m glad that I’ve seen it.  There were interesting things to see and I learned quite a bit about a part of the world of which I had only vague ideas.  Having said that, I would not book a cruise specifically to go back there.  If something I really like came along and the Amazon was part of it, I’d go but not for the river part of it.  Perhaps if I were a biologist or birdwatcher or something like that I’d feel differently.  As it is, the oppressive and constant heat combined with incredible humidity just made me feel tired and listless.  I’m happy that we’re out in the Atlantic again and there’s a fresh breeze and NO BUGS.  That’s the other thing I didn’t like at all.  During our days on the Amazon we always seemed to be batting away flies and bees and moths and…

Today we’re only 10 days away from Miami and the end of this odyssey.  It’s hard to believe because it seems like only yesterday I was flying to Santiago.  The cruise staff has all kinds of activities going on today to keep us busy.   There were two lectures in the morning about coffee and Sir Francis Drake. Next came trivia and then the Galley Market Lunch.

Have I told you about the Galley Market Lunch?  I can’t remember. If I have and you’ve read it before, skip this.  When they have this event, it’s held in the main galley.  We guests walk through the whole kitchen which has stations set up with various foods for us to take.  It’s a dangerous proposition, because it’s inevitable that you wind up with too much food on your plate because you just want to sample a little of this and a little of that.  Today there were crab legs, lobster tails, and jumbo shrimp at one station,  Sushi and sashimi at another, roast turkey and roast suckling pig, salads, veggies, grilled beef and chicken. Pastas, boeuf bourguignon, etc.  One side of the galley had nothing but cold cuts, cheeses, breads and fruits.  And then there were the desserts! Try making a choice between cherries jubilee, baked Alaska, tiramisu, and about eight different cakes and pies, plus platters of cookies. It’s overwhelming and all so good.  Here are a few photos of some of the food and the decorations along the way.

Isn't this sugar flamingo wading in marsh grass something?

Are you hungry yet?

As we entered the restaurant they were handing out Harvey Wallbangers, a drink I remember from decades ago when it was a fad drink.  I think we all need a siesta now.  In 10 days it will be time for bread and water. Speaking of which, tomorrow we’ll be at Devil’s Island, French Guyana.  I don’t think there’s much there but the former French prison so it will be another lazy day. Thank goodness! This vacationing is hard work.

March 13 - Expanding my dancing repertoire

Today we were in Parintins, a city in the far east of the state of Amazonas about 230 miles from Manaus.  The city is located on an island in the Amazon River.  The city is small in comparison to the other two places we’ve stopped on our river journey but it’s very famous for a festival held here in late June every year, the Festival do Boi-Bumbá.  That festival is second only to the Carnival celebrations in Rio and Salvador.

Boi Bumbá is a dance festival in which two teams, red and blue, attempt to outdo each other in the retelling of the legend of a resurrected bull using very flamboyant dancing, singing and floats.  The competition is staged in a stadium called the Bombódromo which can seat 35,000 spectators.  Since it isn’t June, the city has an air-conditioned auditorium where they stage a smaller production to give us tourists a taste of the festival.  At least half of the passengers went ashore to watch the show.

I didn’t know what to expect, but all I can say now is WOW!  We saw a show which at times had as many as 40 or 50 people dancing at once in a series of fantastic costumes at a frenetic pace, non-stop, for more than an hour. There were floats that were moved on and off the dance floor and singing as well.  There were no pauses even for applause.  I didn’t try taking a video, but I did get a lot of pictures and I’m going to upload a bunch of them just so you can see the wonderful imaginative costumes and maybe get a little sense of the motion.  I’m also putting a link to a youtube video about the festival so you can get a better explanation than I’ve given.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1G3Xd5mgQ0

Here are some photos which I hope give you an idea of what a production this show was.

As the show drew to an end, the dancers pulled people from the audience to dance with them, so I made my debut as a Boi-Bumbá dancer.

March 11 and 12 - Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil

We’re anchored off the floating port of Manaus, the largest city of the north region of Brazil with a population of over 2.2 million people.  Once again I find it incredible that in the middle of the world’s largest rainforest such a metropolis would spring up, but I’ll explain the reason in a moment. The city actually lies on the Rio Negro near its confluence with the Amazon (the Brazilians call the upper part of the Amazon west of here the Solimões).  The Rio Negro is the world’s largest blackwater river. Because of the vegetation and tannins that leach into the water it resembles black tea. For nearly 4 miles the sandy colored Amazon and the Rio Negro run side by side at a place called the Meeting of the Waters, before they finally mix on their way down to the ocean.

I didn't take this, but I thought you'd like to see what it looks like.

Manaus was founded in 1669 with the building of a fort by the Portuguese. In the 1830’s it was deemed a city with the name Manaus which is an alternate spelling of the name of the local indigenous people. In the latter half of the 19th century rubber became an important commodity and the rainforest around here had the largest concentration of rubber trees in the world.  Wealthy entrepreneurs from Europe and America came here and built opulent homes in attempts to outdo one another. Manaus was a major port from which rubber was shipped.  The city was one of the first in the world to be electrified. In 1885 construction began on the Amazon Theatre, the magnificent opera house, which was inaugurated on December 31, 1896.

The boom came to a rather abrupt end though. An Englishman allegedly smuggled 70,000 seeds out of Brazil which was strictly controlling the plants at the time.  He brought them to England and the English proceeded to plant them in Sri Lanka and Malaysia and the Brazilian dominance came to an end. Manaus’ star faded and many of the entrepreneurs went bust. One of the most famous people to lose a great deal of money here was Henry Ford.  He invested $20 million  purchasing 2.5 million acres of rainforest to supply his company with rubber.  His project collapsed and in 1945 the land was sold back to the Brazilian government for a pittance.

On our first day here I took a tour entitled the “Best of Rio.”  I figured I’m probably not going to pass this way again.  It was an overcast day which was a blessing. Had the sun been out with the usual high humidity it would have been especially uncomfortable.  Our bus took us first to the Military Zoo. The zoo is part of the Brazilian military’s jungle war-fare training program.  Most of the animals are ones that have been rescued from smugglers; some were injured and can’t be returned to the wild.  I’m not crazy about zoos where you have to look at animals in cages, but I suppose some of these are better off here than their fate would otherwise have been.

Believe it or not, I saw an anaconda and a boa and didn’t freak out.  The anaconda was in the water and barely peaked his head out and the boa was wrapped around a tree so I could pretend he wasn’t there. There were large turtles, lots of tropical birds, jungle cats, including jaguars and pumas, plenty of monkeys including tamarins which are endangered.

That black squiggly thing in the water is a 15 to 18 foot anaconda

This fellow decided to moon me when I tried to take his photo

Two jaguar cubs

This guy was taking a nice nap belly up

An amazonian caiman

On the way out I had a close encounter with a jaguar

We next went to an institute that studies and works to preserve the freshwater manatees and river otters found in the waters around here.  They are evidently endangered species and this place works to study them and repopulate them.  It was Saturday so the laboratory was closed and we could just walk by the enclosures where some of the species were kept. The manatees were hard to see because they didn’t come up often but the otters were very active and curious.  They were also much bigger than the ones I’ve seen closer to home.

You can just make out the manatee in the pool

I really like otters

From the institute we went for lunch at a Brazilian churrascaria (steakhouse). The food was okay except for the dessert which was a delicious flan. After lunch we went to our last stop, the Theatre Amazon, the famous Manaus opera house which I mentioned earlier. To set the stage a little let me say that in the last few cities we’ve been in here in equatorial Brazil, many buildings are covered in black mold due to the constant humidity. And then there’s the Theatre Amazon.

The building sits on an elevated spot overlooking a plaza whose pavement resembles the wave pavement seen in Lisbon’s Rossio plaza, except here the black and white waves represent the two rivers meeting here.  The building is in the Renaissance Revival style and constructed with steel walls and columns covered in cement painted to look like marble or actual marble. The building is rose colored with all white trim, and not a speck of mold.  I asked our guide about this and he said there is continuous cleaning to keep it mold free. The building is topped by a large dome covered with 36,000 tiles painted in the colors of the Brazilian flag.

The plaza with the wave tiles in front of the opera house

The beautifully tiled dome

The inside is spectacular! The theater seats 700 people and is in rich red and gold in the style of Louis XV. There are nearly 200 chandeliers made of brass and  some with Murano glass.  The curtain at the stage was painted in France and represents the meeting of the waters. The ceiling of the theater is painted so that when you look up you think you’re looking at the base of the Eiffel Tower.  It’s a magnificent building and unexpected in this place.  This evening there was to be a jazz concert  and next month there is an annual opera festival when opera companies from all over the world come to perform.

Can you see the base of the Eiffel Tower up there?

The painted curtain

The ballroom of the theater

The beautifully painted ceiling in the ballroom

While we were in the opera house a huge thunderstorm rumbled through and the skies opened up.  We were lucky it didn’t happen sooner and we were able to wait out the storm in the building.  Then it was time to board the bus for our return tot the tender and ship.

Last night we had a local indigenous musical group who performed.  They were so good. Except for guitars, their instruments were mainly made of things found in the forest.  They had wooden boxes which when shaken sounded like frogs in the trees and leaves and seeds strung on lines that when moved sounded like rain falling in the jungle and crickets clicking.  I thoroughly enjoyed their performance.

Today, our last day here, has been  rainy  and so I haven’t done much of anything.  I saw a few friends who are leaving today and wished them safe travels. Tonight we’ll have a sailaway party on deck if the weather cooperates and then for a show they are airing the Academy Awards show.  There wasn’t a great deal of enthusiasm expressed for that when the cruise director announced it.  I suspect most of the passengers are like me and haven’t seen most or any of the movies nominated.  There’s dancing in the club and I think that will be crowded for a change.

That’s all for now.  I think I’ve probably written too much, but as I said it has been a rainy day.