Amazon Cruise 8

 Sunday, December 2  --  St. George, Grenada

We docked right downtown. Margaret went on tour early, and I slept in. It was glorious clear weather for touring or doing nothing.

Once up and out, I ambled out on deck to take some photos and check how much of a hike it was to the end of the pier. It was at least the length of the ship. Then I remembered that it was Sunday and not much would be open. End of debate...stay on board.

Margaret's tour was a good one. It went up and down the narrow roads and steep hills all over the island. One stop was at a rum factory (distillery) that has been in continuous operation for over 300 years. Taste tests included of their 150 proof version. The tour stopped at an upscale hotel for lunch before touring a chocolate factory. She didn't mention taste tests here, but did bring a bar of their product that we can taste at some later time.

Everyone must have returned to the ship early because we sailed about 20 minutes early. We had been out on our balcony watching the sun set, so stayed out for our departure. As we cleared the mouth of the cove where St. George is, lo and behold, there is another dock with the Croncwn Princess tied up to it! Then as we got out farther, we could see a very slightly smaller ship docked next to the Crown Princess, but we couldn't see the name on the stern or even the logo on the stacks. Our assistant waiter said it was a Silver Seas ship.

After dinner we tried some of Margaret's chocolate from Belmont Estate. It is very nice. Although it is labeled "milk chocolate," it is more toward dark chocolate than the kind of milk chocolate we're used to in the states. I think I would call it semi-sweet chocolate.

Monday, December 3  --  At sea (Caribbean)

Although we didn't get up and moving in time for it, the morning lecture was on astronomy and how to find your way around the night sky. The afternoon one was on Christopher Columbus and his various voyages to the Caribbean. We did go see that one, but mostly because we wanted to get our preferred seats for the Indonesian Crew Show following it. The Crew Show was fine as always.

Late in the afternoon the Captain came on the PA system asking for volunteer type O negative blood donors as the ship's Doctor is treating a critically ill passenger. Margaret is O positive but went down and turned her name in just in case. She said there were quite a few people there already with O negative plus several passenger doctors helping out coordinating the volunteers etc. Hopefully they will be able to get the passenger stabilized until he or she can be transferred to a hospital in Santo Domingo tomorrow morning.

Tuesday, December 4  --  Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

Beautiful day! I actually got off the ship and took a tour. It occurred to me that this is only the second time in this whole month aboard that I have gotten off. It was a 2 hour tour of the city which is much like other Caribbean cities. I got lots of photos to add to my collection of photos of telephone poles taken through bus windows. Here in Santo Domingo:

          Tour + traffic + replacement bus = ~3.5 hours

It was nice of the tour company to provide a replacement bus when some passengers complained that the air conditioning wasn't working. Actually it wasn't that bad, and we were almost halfway through the tour. So we spent extra time waiting for the new bus in a souvenir/jewelry shop within a mile of the ship. Then one man got upset because the stuff he left on the (old) bus wasn't on the (new) bus. Doh.

We saw a number of museums and palaces for the arts both their education and performance. There were the usual government buildings for the capital city of a country of 11+ million people. We even went through Chinatown. The most unusual thing I saw was the enormous "Columbus Lighthouse" which is the mausoleum of Christopher Columbus. I could even see it from my cabin when I got back.

Margaret took her last tour of the trip to the National Botanical Garden. The guide on my tour said the country has 7,000 species of plants so I wasn't surprised that her tour ran late also. She said she enjoyed it but wished the guide at the garden had provided more information than just the names of the plants they saw.

We have two sea days after this and one travel home day. So unless something of importance  happens (other than packing suitcases and saying goodbye to new friends), this will be my last post for this trip. Once I'm home I hope to come back to this trip account and add some photos.

Z

Oh! The ship just sent us a nice little plate of fancy candies as a thank you for Margaret's volunteering to give blood. What a nice gesture.