Unloading Tuna at Manta

 

Tuesday 22^nd and Wednesday 23^rd January – Manta, Ecuador.

The ship bounced on and off the dockside fenders continuously.  One of them is right outside our cabin so little sleep was had.  They found us a cabin on other side of ship on the second night!  It was so bad we evidently broke 14 ropes over our 3 day stay here, more than Discovery in an entire year.  Also broke the glass on one of the portholes on deck 2 just below us.  An expensive repair bill for VOD.

The new passengers arrived, many of them without their luggage and it rained most of the two days. So with the crashing of ship into dock you can imagine how cheerful they are!!

Thursday 24^th January – Guayaquil, Ecuador.

Pronounced why – a – keel!  Took a bus from ship to Malecon (nice bit of city centre) 45 mins away from port.  Enjoyed watching the locals strolling along and kids playing.  A brass band suddenly appeared and played ‘happy birthday to you’ (badly) for no apparent reason.  We managed to Skype the girls from an air conditioned McDonalds – shame on us!!

 

Las Penas.  The Totterdown of Guayaquil?

 

Tha Brass band!!

 

 

Friday 25^th January – Day at Sea.

Have asked future tours desk if she can get us a price for an upgrade to a balcony cabin for trip up the Amazon, so fingers crossed.

Formal night and Captain’s welcome party.  I wore my formal (bow tie) T shirt as thistle was my tribute to Burns night.  It raised a few laughs.  We managed to attend both the sessions so lots of free wine was enjoyed.  We said goodbye to Captain Neil as he will have finished by the time we get back on at Valparaiso.  We will have a new Captain to impress then!

Saturday 26^th January – Salaverry, Peru.

Another commercial port in the middle of nowhere.  Very arid part of the country.  Visited Palace 8 at Adobe city of Chan Chan.  Then paddled in the Pacific at Huanchaco beach. 

Have seen on Facebook that kids all made it to Amsterdam airport so hopefully are well on their way to joining us in Lima tomorrow.

 

 

 

The (famous) Peruvian hairless dog

Frieze work at Chan Chan

Heading out through the waves

Hawaii 5 0 ?

.Nesta on the pier at Huanchaco Beach

 

 

Sunday 27th January.  There will be a break in our updates as on overland trip until 7th Feb.

 

 

Tuesday 15^th January – Day at Sea.

Another day of interesting lectures – the flora and fauna of the Galapagos Islands and the peoples of the San Blas Islands.

Nesta has become an “honorary member” of the entertainment team and has organised a dance troupe of passengers to perform
at the “talent evening”. They are doing a choreographed Zumba routine to the choir’s rendition of La Bamba… (Surprisingly, Ian declined the invitation to join in!)

The swell got up overnight and Nesta was back up on deck 7 at 3, 4 and 5am.. Keep taking the tablets!

We’ve been invited to a secret birthday party on Saturday evening (in the Explorer’s again!) for Glynis – the wife of Kevin, who is Head of Security. Always pays to keep in with the right people!!

Wednesday 16^th January – Cartagena, Columbia.

Despite everyone telling us we would need to get a taxi because it was so far, we managed to walk to the “hop on, hop off" bus we booked on-line back in the UK.

We did the complete circuit of the new town and the old colonial town and then got off for the included walking tour with guide. The colonial town is beautiful and our guide spoke enough English to give us a private commentary. Cartagena is much nicer than Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic which we saw last week.

Typical street with cathedral

                                                             Colourful balconies of Cartagena 

                                                     Thankfully, Nesta still isn't like this -yet!


After the walk, we got back onto the next bus (in the air conditioned downstairs of course – as it was 34 degrees in the shade) and then walked back to the ship.

There was a “Latin Party Night” on the ship…. “Rhumba around Columbia”!!... but we wimped out and went to bed as we were so tired!

Thursday 17^th January – San Blas Islands, Panama.

The island we visited was not the pretty paradise island we were led to believe.  Ship at anchor and the island we tendered to had a runway and army building and a small hotel.  The women who were selling their wares obviously lived on a neighbouring island.  A bit of a tourist performance rather than seeing how they live.

 

                                                Local families rowed out to greet us

                                     The Kuna Nation (San Blas residents) national museum

                                      Sneaky way of photographing what the locals were wearing!

Back on the ship, we did have a nice meal in the Explorer restaurant and found a new wine we liked (Verdejo Viura Rueda, a Spanish white) and plan to have again.

Friday 18^th January – Gatun Lake, Panama Canal.

Well yet again it appears that Voyages of Discovery have chosen the cheaper option for the Canal transit which involves all the locks and travel being done in darkness.  A lot of unhappy bunnies on board.  We watched from our anchorage in the lake lots of big ships heading in to the Gatun locks to get to the Caribbean.

Call this a ship?

                                                                Ships going through Gatun Lock

 

Highlight of the day was burger and chips being served in our cabin courtesy of the executive chef, Bill!!

 

Saturday 19^th January – At Anchor off Panama City.

Well after the disappointment of the Canal transit, we managed to get on one of the shore trips which took us by bus through the canal zone to Gamboa, (General Noriega is in prison here!), where we boarded small boats.  We then motored out into the canal and travelled back to the Gatun Lake to see wildlife on the little islands.  We overtook a large container ship!!!

                                                                              What we saw!

                                              What we would have seen if it had been daylight!

                                                Hello! What are all these humans doing here?

                                         Might as well take a look - they may have food with them

                                                       This turtle couldn't come on board...

                                         Watch out there's a massive container ship right behind you!!

Sunday 20^th January – Day at Sea.

So far the Pacific has been calmer than the Caribbean!  Ship had a couple of engine problems resulting in loss of air conditioning for a couple of hours.  Seems ok now.  We went to both sessions of the captain’s farewell do - so drank more free wine than was good for us!  (Felt we needed to prove that it’s still us doing the blog!!)

 

Monday 21^st January – Manta, Ecuador.

We have received a certificate this morning to say we crossed the equator at 00.34 this morning.  No crossing the line party then.  Maybe we’ll get one when we go back over it in March.

Manta is a typical Port town so not very interesting to be here for 3 days.  Can’t even get free Wi-Fi anywhere near. 

New passengers tomorrow for cruise number 4!!

 

 

Sunday 13^th January – Day at Sea.

Busy day for lectures again. Had port lectures for Cartagena, San Blas Islands and Balboa and the Panama Canal.

Turns out Voyager will be going through the locks at both ends of the canal in the dark…so the only way to actually see the canal is to book an excursion… Are we the only ones who are a bit cynical??

Anyway – we’ve booked the excursion, so less beer money now!

It was a random “formal night” on board tonight, but we didn't really bother and ate from the buffet and had another early night.

 

Monday 14^th January – Puerto Limon, Costa Rica.

Happy birthday Rebecca!

 

Free morning to explore Limon. Typical port – bustling, but not very attractive. Saw a sloth in a local park and kids wanted $1 for pointing it out!

Afternoon trip to the Del Monte Banana Plantation was interesting. The Tortuguero Canals were ok. Saw a lot of birds, sloths etc. bit didn’t really live up to the billing. All the villages on the banks were deserted. Apparently the people now make more money from tourism than fishing

       Man washing bananas to get rid of dirt etc

     He also managed to dislodge this Tarantula!!

 We watched Sloths swinging in the trees

And then listened to Paul “swinging” in the Lido Bar in the evening!!

 

 

Friday 11^th January – Puerto Cortes, Honduras.

Brilliant day! Honduras (formerly Spanish Honduras) definitely the poor relation after Belize (formerly British Honduras).

Much evidence of poverty with the roadside dwellings both in towns and villages. Indeed the reason the journey to Copan and back took so long is because of the pot holes in the roads and lack of dual carriageways.

The city of San Pedro Sula is a big traffic jam, taking and hour and a half to cross!!  
 

Copan was fabulous – able to walk right up to and even climb over the structures.

        Favourite bar name. The Ashworths get everywhere!!

Had an extra treat – little“tut tut” taxis took us from the site to a hotel for lunch, going really quickly over cobblestoned roads! – A new experience…

                                            Taxi over cobblestones a real treat!!
 

The hieroglyphic stairway at Copan

One of the many images king 18 rabbitt had done of himself

 

Despite travelling for 13 hours, we managed to dance to Status Quo and Queen music at the late night party. We then slept like logs!!

Saturday 12^th January – Day at Sea.

Well, Voyages of discovery have replied to our complaint via Kay but have ignored the content and just said what they wanted to say. We have drafted a reply to Kay asking her to feedback on our behalf and are copying Eddie (the Hotel Director) in so at least he understands our point.

Went to “when the Spanish met the Incas” lecture… turns out smallpox and civil war ended hundreds of years of Inca empire in a remarkably short time.

Did the tour of the bridge – really interesting – found out why the ship moves around so much. The stabilisers only work when the ship is heading directly into the waves! Apparently they don’t help with pitching, rolling or tossing – we can vouch for that!

 

 

The Bridge was much bigger than we expected!

 

 

 

Captain Neil showed us his Sextant!!

Went to the evening entertainment show “Broadway Ballards” and finally were quite impressed. They are now using handheld microphones wherever possible so the headsets which didn’t work have been done away with.

 

 
                                                 Nesta at serpants mouth at Chichen Itza

                                          The Altar

                                            1000 pillars with Ian wearing natty shorts

Wednesday 9^th January – Day at sea.

Ian woke at 05.15 as his bed was wet again!  Yes the air conditioning unit in our cabin is still leaking intermittently.  The Ukrainian A/C engineer was called again and took half our ceiling down.  We couldn’t use our cabin for several hours.  No apology or compensation offers received yet!!

 

It is a bit windy today and ship rolling around so even more passengers have disappeared.  Nesta has had a bit of a sense of humour failure today.

 

Thursday 10^th January – Belize.

Did full day tour to Xunantunich (or tuna sandwich as we were told to remember it!). Ship too big to dock, so we had to travel 4 miles by tender in choppy seas. It was a bit of a white knuckle ride!! “Little Amy” was very rocky on the way over – lots of wet passengers from the spray. “Big Mama” on the way back was much steadier.

The ship’s generator broke down this evening which meant complete darkness in the cabin. Ian had just finished his shower and covered his face in shaving foam when the lights went out… Should have brought a torch (or night vision goggles!).

All fixed after 20 minutes (or so the captain assures us…)

                                                     The main temple at Xuantuniich

                                           Still work to be done to unveil the full glory

                                             Many other buildings still to be uncovered

Many thanks for the comments about imposters taking over our blog due to us declining free wine.  We are just pacing ourselves!!!

 

Monday 7^th January – Day at sea.

Well another day running around trying to fit in lectures around activities!

 

We ate in the (posh) Explorer restaurant.  Menu not as good as on last 2 cruises but it evidently changes again on 14^th January so we may try and fit in another one.  The ‘Malbec’ is back in stock though not on the wine list so we might have to order some more another night.  The evening ‘entertainment’ programme continues to underwhelm and the 150 less people on board means sometimes venues are nearly empty.

 

Having spoken to several of the new passengers and heard about their free upgrades and on board credit incentives we e-mailed Voyages of Discovery UK and copied the Ship in, but no one has bothered to reply to us yet.

 

Tuesday 8^th January – Progresso, Mexico.

Well we got to visit our first Mayan site, Chichen Itza, today.  My first impression was that the pyramid was not as big as I had expected – no change there then!!  Weather was hot but there was a strong breeze and not too many people to make it oppressive.  After a guided tour we had a free hour to explore ourselves, which turned into 1hour 20 mins as we ‘got lost’ and couldn’t find the way out.  Rest of our coach looked a bit cross when we finally found them.  The countryside to and from the site was not very inspiring but we really enjoyed our day.

 We had an early night as we were tired – ahh.   Still having problems getting our pictures on the blog.

 

 

Friday 4^th January – Saturday 5^th January.  Montego Bay, Jamaica.

The Christmas cruise passengers have got off and a whole host of new passengers have got on. It’s chaos again!  Will especially miss Fred, David and the 2 Grahams.  Had a taxi tour of Montego Bay but didn’t have the camera with us.  It is nowhere near as nice as Bridgetown in Barbados.  The cruise terminal very disappointing and no Wi-Fi found anywhere. 

 

On Saturday walked along the ‘hip strip’ and sat on public beach underneath landing planes.  Will take camera with us next time!  Drank a couple of beers in local bar nearby.  Much cheaper than Voyager. 

Walking back Ian was accosted by a man calling himself ‘Mr Bad Habits’ who offered to accommodate any habits that Ian might have.  Surprisingly Ian declined his offer!!

 

Sunday 6^th January – Day at sea.

As there are more sea days on this cruise, the lectures and classes have started up again. Went to Bridge for Beginners this morning – Ian is now officially a beginner plus! Turns out our Christmas present of the DVD from Mr Bridge retails at £66!!  It’ll be ok once we can get it to work…

Went to choir at sea – but it wasn’t anywhere near as good as Tom’s

 New passengers seem actually pleased to be on holiday, so there's hardly any complaining to be heard!

Gave the Captain’s welcome party a miss in the evening – after all we’ve already been to two and apparently you can have too much free wine!

 

 

Hooray - we may have found a way round uploading piccies!

 

 Fireworks on New Year's Eve in Bonaire....

                                                  Christopher Columbus' tomb (possibly!!)

                                        Santo Domingo main square with ship parked nearby!

 

Unfotunately we are having a little trouble uploading our photographs on to the blog at the moment.... We've decided therefore just to upload the written updates for now. Rest assured, photos will return as soon as we figure out a way to do so!!!

Cheers, Nesta & Ian

 

 

Monday 31^st December – Kralendijk, Bonaire.

What a memorable New Year’s Eve!!

Enjoyed our meal with the Captain, whom Nesta was sitting next to – lucky man! Whilst the other side of the table talked about the global financial markets and the fiscal cliff, Barbara (a single lady invited to the meal) and Nesta educated the captain about cannabis and he told us his best (i.e. most stupid) “customer complaints”

Incidentally, for our kind critics who have made some comments about this blog… you know who you are, Rob & Margaret J… The captain told us that when he is ashore and is asked what he does for a living always replies.. “I drive a ship and my job is to park and unpark it”

The party on the Lido deck was great. They played music 20+ years more recent than their usual set and nearly everyone danced!

At midnight the city had a massive fireworks display and they were fantastic.

Happy 2013…

 

New Year’s Day – Day at sea.

Well – after not finishing partying until 01-30 it was a later start today. We are crossing the middle of the Caribbean from south to north. Winds of 30mph and moderate seas means we are rolling and jumping again which together with dull and showery weather means the complaining lot have started again…

Went to a real eye-opening lecture about the “middle passage” i.e. the taking of the slaves from West Africa to people the New World. Didn’t know that the song “Amazing Grace” was written Rev. Newton who had previously been a slave ship captain and is based on Negro spiritual music.

No pictures today, I’m afraid and we had an early night.

Wednesday 2^nd January – Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

Ship parked right in front of the old colonial town. Great piece of reversing by the captain and Nesta told him so when she saw him!

Walked round the old town and saw Columbus’ burial site together with lots of colonial architecture. Really interesting but nor really our thing. Probably wouldn’t come back.

 

Thursday 3^rd January – Day at sea.

Relatively calm today and the weather was sunny and hot. Went to two lectures about Haiti and the slave trade and Jamaica and the buccaneers. Both very interesting. These together with the bridge seminars were the highlights of the day – oh plus the free drinks at the bridge party and Discovery Club… hic! No pictures today either, I’m afraid.

Friday 4^th January – Montego Bay, Jamaica.

Arrived at 7am this morning so here we are at the end of our second cruise already. Been on board now for a month exactly – won’t be long before the kids fly out to join us J