Around the World. Week 21 Wrap Up

West Africa - This was all part of the unplanned itinerary and while I mostly expected we would come this route, I didn't know that we'd go into Pirate defense mode and have to keep our cabin curtains closed while guards patrolled the upper decks at night with the exterior lights off. But we're through the region now, so I can happily report there were no issues or threats. On to what actually happened this week...

Schedule

• Day 141 / May 27: At Sea

• Day 142 / May 28: São Tomé

• Day 143 / May 29: At Sea

• Day 144 / May 30: At Sea

• Day 145 / May 31: Abidjan, Ivory Coast

• Day 146 / June 1: At Sea

• Day 147 / June 2: At Sea

Day 141 / May 27: At Sea

For those that didn’t read last week’s wrap up, you definitely should, but in summary, I managed to twist my knee playing pickleball, so have been a bit on the immobile side for the past few days. With that, I kept the RICE method going through rest, ice, compression, and elevation. This also meant I needed to figure out something to do while I just sat around.

Side Note - According to Google, the average adult reads approximately 12 to 15 books per year. However, because a small group of avid readers significantly skews the average, the median—which represents the exact middle of the population—is much lower, sitting at about 3 to 5 books per year. I’ve read over 75 books since last June. Yes, I know this because I’ve started tracking them in a Spreadsheet. Surprised?! I assume not.

Back to my day - I read another book. This one called A Most Intriguing Lady by Sarah Ferguson. It’s back in my normal genre of cozy romantic mysteries set in the Victorian Era in Britain with a leading lady who is unconventional, challenging and breaking all stereotypes of the expectations of a Lady during that time. Yes, I do have a very specific type and yes, there are surprisingly a lot of books that meet this description. This book lived up to my expectations and was a bit different than others by having multiple shorter detective stories instead of one big mystery. I recommend it if your type is also this very specific genre.

For the evening, we kicked it off with a Birthday Cocktail party, followed by dinner at the Captain’s table in Grand Dining. (Semi-interesting fact - I sat in the same seat at the Captain’s table two days in a row. I feel special!)

The evening show was a solo performance by one of the Production Cast Singers - Asher. It was the first time he performed on stage in this capacity and he absolutely nailed it! It’s fun to see someone push their comfort zones and truly excel!

Day 142 / May 28: São Tomé

Deep into the mountains of São Tomé are many remains and reminders of when the island was wealthy in terms of exportable industry. Massive concrete colonial style homes and churches dominate the hillsides, but are slowly being reclaimed by nature with trees sprouting from collapsed roofs, chunks of porches crumbled into rocks, and paint faded away to dust.

While this region has very fertile, volcanic soil extremely suitable for coffee and chocolate production, it was overworked during the early 20th century. The plantations relied heavily on slave labor or indentured servants, leading to an international boycott of the exports, collapsing the industry in the region.

The country, gaining independence from Portugal in 1975, adopted a new constitution in 1990. Given that I was alive at that time means that this is a very young democracy. You know, since 1990s was literally like 10 years ago… or so it seems.

Back to current time, the excursion description prepared me for a very long day with multiple stops, riding on a bus, for seven (7) hours. Even before embarking on this adventure, I had started to warn people that I may be very grumpy upon return. However, I’m happy to report that it was a full day of learning that went very quickly.

Our bus load for the day was 17 people, so getting on and off took only minutes compared to trying to clear a large tour bus at each stop. This helped keep moving through the agenda for the day. We left from the pier and headed up the mountain towards a waterfall. On the way, there were a few times it seemed that the bus’ engine was going to need some extra help dragging the heavy load upwards, but the scariest part was when we were going around a bend, when a large truck happened to be doing the same in the same instant, resulting in our driver swerving a bit and hitting the breaks. At this time, I was sitting in the last seat on the right side, which had the absolute best view of the deepest ravine waiting to swallow us whole should the front tires lose traction or the engine stalls in that very moment, and we go tumbling down and down and further down to our gory deaths. Yes, in just a fraction of a second, my heart left my body until we jerked forward again, clearing both the truck and the valley safely. Did I mention this was the start of the day?

Just as the adrenaline subsided from that moment in time, we turned onto a gravel path. I refuse to call it a road as it was just wide enough for the bus to pass through, and in some places, the bus cleared some branches to fit through. The surface itself reminded me of a geometry problem we had once in high school. The question was what should your tire shape be if the road was repeating half circles [𖼆 𖼆 𖼆 𖼆 𖼆]? The answer is square for the smoothest ride. However…. Our tires were round, so we bounced around as the bus dipped and jumped through the divots and hills, but we made it to the waterfall!

The waterfall itself was lovely. It had a nice pool at the bottom with a concrete path that you could climb down to in order to get a better view or photos. Given that I had a knee injury just a few days ago, it seemed like a great idea to limp down just for the sake of a photo or two. Going down wasn’t too bad, but the method to get back up, using my left leg only, may result in one an extra strong side while the other wilts away from lack of use. (Ok, I’ll admit. I am being a bit dramatic.)

From there we returned along the same path back to the main road to arrive at a Coffee Plantation for a quick museum tour and tasting. As this had once been one of the main exports of the region, there were multiple large buildings on the site, including a school and sporting arena, creating a small village on the property. While most of the buildings were still standing, they showed their age. Even though I’ve consumed a few swimming pools worth of coffee in my lifetime, I’m not to be considered a connoisseur, so all I can report on is that the sample tasted like it should. Afterwards, we had a bit of free time to wander the grounds, where we could watch a traditional dance from the region or shop in their little store. The cutest part of the day is when the little kids found us, first being a bit shy, but then I got a proper handshake from one of them and a less formal high five from another.

Given the excursion was planned for seven (7) hours, they fed us lunch at a hotel in the city. The drastic difference between where we had spent the morning in terms of structures and clothing was highlighted as we entered the hotel, which included an infinity pool and spa. The meal itself was served buffet style with many diverse offerings, including something called “Surprise Cake”. I definitely had to save room to try that and it turned out to be very good!

Our next stop was a small fishing village, that seemed to be just a few blocks from the downtown area. Again, the difference in wealth announced itself as most of the people there had holes in their socks and shoes, or may not have even been wearing shoes. Here we watched a performance that depicted a villager fighting an evil fish (or possibly something close to that). I got a little confused when there was a guy in a hulk mask as a main character.

The next few stop consisted of a cathedral and the downtown square, where we caught the end of another performance.

We drove around for a bit until they took us to the chocolate shop! However, since we get chocolate on our pillows every night, it didn’t quite seem like many of us felt like we needed more. However, that didn’t stop anyone from buying any!

Last stop was supposed to be the historic fort museum, but because we got a bit of a later start in the morning due to tendering operations, the museum was closed by the time we got there, so instead, we headed back to the ship a bit early.

That was okay by me because watching the sunset from the ship was stunning! It set behind the city, creating tons of blue gray tones in the mountain fog, while turning the clouds to bright oranges and yellows.

After a quick shower, quick dinner, and quick load of laundry, I went to the evening show which was the ballroom dancers (Katia and Zenia) again. They were very fun to watch with all the different costumes and types of dance. It made me wonder how many suitcases they must have to carry with them…

Day 143 / May 29: At Sea

You may have figured out by now that I’m not quite keeping up with journaling daily as I did at the start of this trip. For the most part, I can remember all the details of the excursions, especially with the help of all the photos, but for the life of me, I struggle to remember what I do on sea days. Since I’m updating this entry three days later, I cannot recall what I did all morning. I’m sure it involved the coffee, the pool, icing my knee, reading and napping. Very exciting stuff.

Speaking about exciting stuff, the pre-dinner show was more Magic! As I mentioned in my last Wrap Up, I’m not actually all that interested in magic shows, but since I’ve gotten to know the magician, I wanted to support him and take more photos. Also, prior to the show, he mentioned that he’d be performing a trick that is banned in multiple countries, so I was curious to find out what it was. He saved it for the finale, building the dramatic energy leading up to it. The trick included putting a metal spike in one of the identical five paper bags then asking the audience to pick which back they thought did not contain the spike. Each time he would raise his arm high in the air and slam his palm down on the paper bag, meaning if the spike happened to be in that particular bag, it would impale his hand. I’m sure there’s some slight of hand and swapping of bags using various distractions, but he did a great job building the tension in the room all the way to the end, when he revealed the final bag actually contained the spike.

For the first time on this trip, we had a DECK PARTY! This included special food offerings in the Terrace, Waves Grill, and Aquamar. They also set up tables around the pool, so you could eat under the stars. I was struck with analysis paralysis. By this point in the trip, I have my usuals and rarely divert from those, so when we had so many extra options, I couldn’t decide, resulting in walking around and around and around, getting more and more hungry with each lap. Finally, I landed at a table that I’m not sure I’ve ever sat at before and just ate antelope steak. They did have a soft pretzel that I was really excited about since they never have those here, but it was more of a hard pretzel that doughy salty goodness that I was hoping for.

After dinner, I headed to the pool deck where they had one of the bands playing lively music. I was pretty content to being a wallflower as my knee was still giving me issues, but then they played one of my favorite songs to twirl along to - I Wanna Dance with Somebody by Whitney Houston. To the dance floor I went! Luckily the next day was another sea day because we continued to party under the starts for a few hours and then turned into an after party in Martini’s with many of the Entertainment team. Oh what a night!

Day 144 / May 30: At Sea

Much like the day prior, I can’t recall the specifics of the morning, but given the party the night before, I’m not sure there was much more to the early hours other than sleeping and lounging. And probably coffee.

The pre-dinner entertainer was Dimitris Dekavallas, who plays the Spanish guitar. In his words the biggest difference is the amount of drumming that goes along with playing, but I would add that it was definitely much faster and more variety of finger movements. I did not recognize any of the songs, but thought it was pretty interesting when he looped different music segments on top of each other to make it seem like there were more musicians on stage.

Similar to when Asher had his own show, the singers from the Production Cast developed their own show that included many Broadway songs. They did a fantastic job with choreographing their own music and dance, ensuring that each singer was able to showcase their talents!

Day 145 / May 31: Abidjan, Ivory Coast

Whirlwind of a morning as I typically check the meeting time of the excursion the evening prior so I know when I have to wake up by. Apparently I misread the time because I thought it was 8:45 am, so I set my alarm for 7:30 am. After waking up and leisurely getting ready, I happened to double check the time, only to find out that I needed to be down to the lounge by 8:15 am. Seeing as it was almost 8 am, I quickly finished up, at least grabbing a protein bar and some water on my way out the door. Unfortunately for me (and the others on the bus), I missed my normal coffee stop. But I did make it through immigration and was not the last one to arrive!

The excursion for the day was a variety of activities. The first stop was supposed to be at the St. Paul Cathedral, but there was a meeting of Bishops from around the World and we were not allowed to go in, so instead we headed to the next stop at the Museum of Civilization. On our way, we passed by an active construction site where they are building a 77-story skyscraper, but the next street over, there were all the little shacks constructed from corrugated sheet metal and plastic / tarps. Our guide casually mentioned that’s where middle class lived, meaning there is a significant gap between the wealthy city leaders and everyone else.

Once at the museum, they were either renovating areas or because it was Sunday, the museum was closed, but either way, they had moved about a dozen or so pieces to a single room and the guide just described the importance of those to us. At one of the statues, the guide explained that there was such a pressure on women to produce children that if one did not, she lost social status and rights in the community. Luckily I do not live in that place during that time… This visit ended with a traditional dance and drumming. I didn’t catch the significance of this dance though.

Next up was a visit to Charles Combes Museum, who was an artist known for his detailed wood carvings that depicts faces of people in the community. One interesting tidbit is that in most of his profiles, the eyes were cast downward. The guide explained that traditionally, looking someone in the eye when they are talking is a sign of arrogance, which is why he carved them looking downward.

From there, we went to a Botanical Garden. There were these trees that he said were called Cheese Trees, but originally were called Cut Trees. Initially, they were called that because apparently they were the first trees that the settlers cut down, but then found the wood too soft to use for furniture. It’s now dubbed Cheese Trees because they use the wood to make Cheese Boxes. The real name for them is Kapok tree and they are covered with these weird spikey things!

Did I mention that it was a chaotic schedule?! Each stop only lasted about 20-30 minutes, so next we were transferred to visit the Boys Orphanage. We were graciously welcomed by many of the children and given a briefing of how it operates. I didn’t hear the three reasons why the children might live there, but the building did seem well maintained and included a school on the premises.

Our last stop was to visit a Artisanal Market, aka Souvenirs. As I was only looking for magnets, I made a fairly quick circle around all the stands. At one point, I saw some that I wanted since they looked like one of the statues we saw at the first museum. I asked how much it was and I swear he said two dollars while extending two of his fingers. So I repeated back two dollars to confirm, when he then said five dollars. I was getting confused so reiterated two dollars, but he wouldn’t accept that, so I walked away. There were two other passengers who watched this exchange and informed me that his initial request was for ten dollars (not two). Whoops! I did get a magnet from another vendor for three dollars.

Now, to reiterate how crazy the day was, we made all those stops in four hours! Meaning we were back on the ship by 1:30pm. My plan was to take a shower and have a quick nap, but the nap turned into an all afternoon event.

The evening entertainment was the Production Cast with Anchor Inn. This may be the 8th time I’ve seen this show and am still able to capture some new fun moments such as this one!

For the past few days, I had been reading a new book between different activities and finally got to the point where they were about to solve the mystery, so I thought it would only take about an hour to finish the book. However, a few hours later (aka well after midnight), I was a few chapters into the next book of the series. The original book is called The Picture House Murders by Fiona Veitch Smith. What’s funny is that I thought this was the same author who wrote another series that I really liked and the one about Dead in Venice that I didn’t really like. Turns out, there are two authors with very similar names that write very similar genre - one Fiona Veitch Smith and one Fiona Leitch. Weird.

Day 146 / June 1: At Sea

I feel like I’m always saying that I’m catching up on social media, including journaling and photo editing, but really, I sit at Baristas, drinking coffee, and talking to others while my laptop is on the counter. Someone asked me how long these blogs normally take to write and honestly, unless I’m sitting in my cabin (as I am now), they can take about three (3) hours to write a single entry. Again, the actual typing is done in about 30 minutes, but it gets extended as I catch up with others about what’s going on around the ship. Anyway, I was in Baristas all morning and still didn’t finish the entries from earlier in the week.

An activity on board that isn’t widely advertised is the Behind the Scenes Tour. While it does cost money, the money is donated to the Crew Wellness fund that is used for various crew parties, excursions, and other rewards, so I thought it was worth it. Plus, I wanted to see from the Bridge. The tour took us to the theater wardrobe room, the laundry area, the bridge, the engine control room, the provision storage areas, and finally through a few of the restaurant galleys to see how meals are prepped. On NCL cruises, they give behind the scenes tours if you have a certain status, which I have, so I’ve seen the theater, laundry, and restaurant galleys before, but was excited to learn more about navigating and running the ships operating systems. I can’t quote all of the details, but found it fascinating how many different systems they have running, but most are controlled by tiny joysticks in the command boards. Also, in the provision storerooms (aka the food refrigerators), while they looked very full, Executive Chef Justin explained that they were not very full since we’re running at half capacity ship and they missed a delivery in Colombo, Sri Lanka due to a paperwork issue with Customs.

For dinner, I was hosted by Daniel and Z from the Production Cast. The party was supposed to include LeAnne #1 and J. Alexander, the current Magician onboard. LeAnne ended up declining for some reason, leaving me with the boys. I would love to report out that since we had many different nationalities represented (Australian, Ukrainian, British, and American) that we had highly educated and cultural discussions, but honestly, there was a lot of talk about salt and pepper. It’s one of those “you had to be there” moments… With that said, we did have a lot of laughter erupting from the table and it was a truly unique experience.

After dinner, we headed to the theater to watch Christine Allado’s second show. I still don’t understand how some humans are able to sing as well as she can. While I am jealous since I can barely sing along to a radio station, I’m just as happy to support from the audience and enjoy the show!

Day 147 / June 2: At Sea

Another day for my favorite on-board activity - Culinary Class! Today’s focus was on Spanish cuisine because per the original itinerary, we should have been going there soon… oh well, still got to make some simple Tapas, which Chef showed us how to make Paella. One thing I learned was where the name Tapas came from. Originally, bars would serve glasses of wine with a piece of bread or cheese to cover the wine glasses, mostly to keep the bugs out, but then they started to get more and more creative with the food offerings. Now they are served as small plates, but the expectation is still to drink wine with them as appetizers to the main course.

With a lot of the back to back activities the past few days, I spent the afternoon catching up on photo editing and writing the rest of this blog! Woo hoo! For two weeks in a row, I might end up posting on time!

I'm not sure if I've really ever discussed that the ship has an Artist Loft where they hold classes on a regular basis with an Artist in Residence. While I haven't actually taken a class yet, mostly because the sign up sheets are full before I get there or I've had other activities going on at those times, but I have gotten to meet the artists who have been on board. I'm describing all of this because for dinner tonight, I was invited to join the current onboard artist and a few other solo travelers. It was a lovely evening with discussion primarily about travel and places we've visited.

To end the night, the Production Cast performed Our World. They usually pair this show with the Crew Salute at the end of the cruises, so it was a bit odd to finish just after the last song. This is my favorite of the four shows as it combines song and dance from many different countries.

And just like that, we're on to Week 22 with only 5 more weeks to go!