Miami and the Everglades

Day 15   Friday, February 16, 2018    Miami, Florida

Part of our all-day Miami tour was Little Havana, with its many decorated chickens. We saw Miami Beach, "Graffiti City", Little Havana, and took a fan-propelled boat ("airboat") tour in the Everglades. Great day before flying home at 7 pm.

We departed our ship by about 8 am and took a taxi to a hotel in Miami Beach, where our tour was going to pick up. Once on our bus, we toured the area a bit before getting off for a walking-tour portion. Janet is in front of one of many art-deco mansions along the waterfront.

It's a wide beach at the Atlantic Ocean.

The famous Breakwater Hotel.

Renewed high-octane housing on the right, then the greenway and the vast beach on the left. Our guide said that about 30 yrs ago, this area was completely run down and crime-ridden, but there's been a revival and it's all fancy dancy again.

On display was this 57 Thunderbird.

We then bused eastward across the bridges of Biscayne Bay, past our cruise ship, through Miami, and north to the suburb of Wynwood. It is now famous as an art district, and home to Wynwood Walls. Magnificent murals and graffiti were everywhere.

Not too many years ago, this barrio was called Little San Juan, and the graffiti was typical for a poor section of town. But then some entrepreneur developers turned it into a mecca for the already-present graffiti and it is now a formal Arts District.

Incredible wall art was all over the place on any old street.

There's Bob Marley.

We then entered a formal art garden called Wynwood Walls. Behind Janet is a huge colorful mosaic cat on the airplane.

This set of panels, in the letters of "RESIST", was anti-Trump, and we loved it.

There's a wider view of "Resist".

Across the street was an antique auto museum, so we popped in there for a few minutes. This one's a 1958 Mercedes 220S Convertible.

When we returned to Wynwood Walls, we saw this sign for it, so we took the picture as we were leaving.

We then bused westward to Little Havana, crossing over the Miami River.

Here is our lunch stop in Little Havana, with one of the decorated chickens out front. We just HAD to have Cuban Cuisine somewhere on our tour! It was great food, as I recall.

After lunch we headed back eastward down Calle Ocho, the main boulevard through Little Havana. We stopped and wandered around to the various shops, but everyone got ice cream at Azucar's, after our guide hyped it up for quite a while! (Calle Ocho earned an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records when 119,986 people formed the world's longest conga line on March 13, 1988.)

Inside of Azucar's,once our crowd had left. I popped back in for a photo to show all those flavors written on the blackboard. It was good, but I don't remember any details.

So Little Havana has its own Walk of Fame!

That's a live woman in the skimpies! (Even though it looks like a mannequin.) This was a bar only a few doors down from the ice cream shop, and they actually had that woman to attract customers. I thought that kind of thing was Gone With The Wind.

Also at this location was an outdoor hang-out mainly for older Cubans, the Domino Club, which is now an official Florida Heritage.

The Cuban men were mostly playing checkers and chess, and just hanging out.

There appeared equestrian policemen!

More of Little Havana's decorated pollos. I can see "Calle Ocho" on him in two places, a round keyboard, bongo drums, a map showing Cuba and the Gulf of Mexico, and of course "Little Havana."

Our bus returned to drop of those not continuing to the Everglades, and then we headed west again. I noted as we drove over the Miami River that a sail boat with its tall mast had caused the bridge to lift (and back up traffic). Interestingly, our route to the Everglades was on Calle Ocho, except that once you're west of Little Havana, it's called the Tamiami Trail, Hwy 41.

We arrived at our Everglades location to take our airboat ride. Native American stereotype? 5-cent Coke? What IS this place?

Getting ready.

And an alligator swims by!

I'm glad we saw this one, because we never did see another out there!

The water in the Everglades is a wide, slow-moving river flowing southward to the ocean. We moved along slowly at first, then got farther out and he sped the boat for quite a ways Then he stopped and shut off the loud V8 engine for a while so the guide could tell us all about the Everglades and the wildlife there. Then he sped back in, and finally crept along for the final few hundred yards back to the dock.

We then sat on little bleachers to watch an alligator show.

But he also had a little crocodile as well- the one on the right. He pointed out that alligators are nice and calm compared to a croc, who have bad tempers and lash out to bite as much as they can.

This is the croc, with its narrower snout and sharper teeth.

He then dragged in a large alligator to play with.

He could get it to snap at him if he touched its nose. He said he NEVER would be able to do this with a crocodile.

He's checking us out.

That's all I have. Our bus dropped us off partway back to Miami, at a hotel near the airport. There, we pretended to be hotel guests and got their free shuttle to the airport. While waiting for our plane, we saw on the news the terrible news stories about the Parkland High School mass shooting that occurred two days earlier.

Wonderful trip together!

Rough sea days in the Caribbean

Days 13 and 14  Wed and Thurs, February 14 and 15, 2018   At Sea

Is this what Cuba's shoreline would have looked like? We could see Cuba off in the distance on our final day at sea, but I did not take any photos, so I stuck in this shot from Puntarenas, Costa Rica. to remind me to say that we could see Cuba.

It was a very shaky night on the ship. We were being tossed around all night long, and we did not sleep too well. Our hangovers didn't help! Luckily we were down on level 5, as opposed to level 14. As we began our morning, the captain announced that we had sailed through 60-knot winds and 18-foot seas!

I finally ventured out of the room at 9 am, once we'd fully awakened, to get coffee for us, but then we remained in our room with the Do Not Disturb sign up for a couple more hours. We shared the Valentine's cards we'd both brought along for each other. Actually, we stayed in the room most of the day! We ate lunch in the large Versailles Dining Room, and dinner in the Aqua Dining Room, but it was a different kind of cruise day for us. Very little alcohol, due, again, to the rough seas and our hangovers. They had to postpone the stage show with the dancers due to the rough seas, so they replaced them with a comedian.

I did, however, find time to do my cycling machine in the Fitness Room. But I had to stand there and wait 20 minutes while the two cycles were in use by one woman gently pedaling on resistance level 1 and a man spinning on level 5.

The next day, Thursday the 15th, was much calmer, thank goodness. I awoke at 6 am and slipped out and up to the Fitness Room while it was still empty. Then I got our coffees on the return to the room, where Janet had just awakened. We enjoyed our coffees in bed, and remarked how glad we were that the seas had calmed down.

This was the day we could see Cuba off in the distance for a couple hours. We mostly lounged/read on the 7th-level promenade, and it was off to that starboard side where we saw Cuba. We used my binoculars, so they weren't a total waste to have brought along! (Actually, I used them during the Panama Canal day too.)

By being Latitude Platinum members, we got 30 free Internet minutes, so I used them to catch up on some e-mails. I also uploaded all the photos from the Panama Canal and Cartagena, and then edited them (this is always a long process).

We ate lunch at O'Sheehan's with some friends Janet had made with the people next to her on the Promenade deck. What was sorta funny, though, was witnessing the woman eat BBQ ribs; she had BBQ sauce smeared all over her face, and continued to talk in a very loud voice which only drew more attention to her messy appearance.

I'm forgetting much more about our final full day of this wonderful cruise. I recall that the postponed stage show from the previous night was performed on this night, and it was grand as always. I performed at a karaoke show in one of the lounges; I sang "Operator" by Jim Croce, and came in too early at the beginning of the song. "Oh, the tragedy!" All the other singers were much better performers than I, but I did get a Norwegian deck-of-cards boobie prize.

We had to pack our luggage to set out in the hall before we went to bed, so that was Janet's excuse for not attending my big singing performance. LOL

Colorful Cartagena

Day 12  Tuesday,  February 13, 2018  Cartagena, Colombia

Beautiful day in Colombia, both of our first visits to South America. This picture was from the huge fortress on the hill looking back to the main town. Our excursion tour took us to many highlights, with much strolling in the walled old city. Our tour guide, however, thought he was funnier than we thought he was, and he seemed to be promoting his "cousins'"businesses as we toured the Old City!

After a rough night on the seas, it was comforting to be inside the harbor in the morning as we approached our dock (which was right next to a huge Holland America cruise ship). The fortress photo above was from our bus as we were about to park to tour it.

From street level, the Castillo de San Felipe Barajas was quite imposing, with the long and steep walkway up to the top. The fortress was built in 1536 and greatly expanded in 1657. The street below was jam-packed with tour buses, tourists, and vendors.

A view over to the walled Old City, which we toured later. The fortress and the Old City are now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The dome dominating the Old City is the Church of Pedro Claver. 

The fortress had a maze of tunnels, so that the defenders could surprise any attackers.

The batteries and parapets protected one another, making it practically impossible to take a battery without taking the whole defense system.

Everything in this photo is OLD.

Everything in this photo is BEAUTIFUL.

A view of the skyscrapers which are to the left of the Old City. I took this from an opening in the guard tower in the photo below.

A touristy shot!

You can see how vast and thick the fortress is.

Once we worked our way back onto the bus through the crowded sidewalk, we drove through crowded streets to the Old City and this marketplace. Our guide led us to a particular stall to recommend we shop there, so it must have been one of his "cousins."

We then bused to the far side of the Old City nearest to the ocean toward the west. Those old walls sure are tall.

We walked along this narrow street toward the central plaza, and it was lined with these flowered balconies that make this part of town so charming.

More of their famous flowered balconies.

At the side of the street was another likely "cousin" who demonstrated his "lightning artwork". He would paint the 5x7s in less than two minutes. We liked them, so we bought two to bring home.

Another excellent example of their balconies in this part of town.

Once we reached the central Simón Bolívar Plaza, we visited this Inquisition Palace (museum). It showed the various forms of torture used to elicit confessions from the supposed heretics. We learned that they were damned if they confessed, and damned if they continued to proclaim their innocence. The Spanish Inquisition was imposed here in 1610, but originally began with King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Christopher Columbus fame, in 1478.

Our guide decided to make a photo op for us, but the guillotine was never used to execute a heretic during the Inquisition.

On the other side of Bolívar Plaza was a gold jewelry museum/store that probably also belonged to a "cousin." It was during this time that our tour group became confused because or guide "set us free" without ever telling us where or when to meet up again. When anyone asked him about it, his story and instructions always seemed to change.

A dazzling display in the gold museum.

Here is the statue of Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar Palacios Ponte y Blanco, or just Simón Bolívar for short (or The Liberator) in "his" plaza. In the early 1800s, he liberated five South American countries from Spain (and ended the Inquisition). He famously said near the end of his life: "If Caracas gave me life, Cartagena gave me glory." His ancestors came from the Basque Country in Spain!

A statue of Pedro de Heredia, the 16th-century conquistador who founded Cartagena in 1533.

A pretty Janet in a pretty square in front of the Iglesia de San Pedro Claver (1654). Pedro Claver, during the 40 years of his ministry in Colombia, personally baptized around 300,000 people. He is the patron saint for slaves and seafarers. Our tour guide did not show us inside the church, perhaps because none of his cousins was selling there.

Here we are at a corner of the wall of the Old City. A masted ship lies in the view of the new city skyscrapers.

Speaking of, there's the masted ship as seen out a porthole of the guard tower in the photo above this one.

We assembled back onto the bus and drove along the beach, south around the peninsula and then back up toward where our ship was docked. All along the ocean were beach tents and umbrellas and people!

Why, there is our ship over there across the bay. We got dropped off over there and still had several hours to eat, drink, and lounge around the ship before we departed. We read and napped on the 7th level promenade, and went into the hot tub and pool. We had dinner at the Cagney's Steakhouse (free to Latitude Platinum members), which included a free bottle of wine. What I had not noticed on our coupons was that there was a $20 maximum that was free, and you paid the difference of your order beyond the $20. We did need to pay a bit extra, but it wasn't too bad, just a surprise. Janet had lamb, and I had a filet mignon.