Now that it’s too late to panic my mother, I can reveal that I’ve been to four of the world’s ten most dangerous cruise ports on this trip.
As a re-reading of my travelogue will show, I also went wandering well off the tourist tracks in more than one of them. Never had an issue, never felt threatened, never worried about my safety. I think the roads in New Zealand were more dangerous and I know for certain Australia was.
It’s also comical. Crime rate in Antigua (on that list) is much lower than Florida City – only about 2/3 the murder rate. So I was in more danger staying a cheap (smelly) motel in Florida than walking the back streets of St John’s. Plus Antigua has cricket.
But I’m not American, I don’t force women into slavery and I don’t smuggle drugs so maybe the crime statistics don’t really apply to me.
This morning the ship parked just off the coast of the cruise line’s ‘private island’. I was here just over two weeks ago, discovered there’s nothing here, couldn’t be bothered to queue for a tender to get there, walk on the sand in the rain, queue to get back, end up with sand and crushed coral all over my clothes, my shoes, my bags. So for the first time all holiday I skipped a chance to go ashore.
I’ll make up for it tomorrow by going ashore and staying there for a while. Unless you count overnight flights home. I’m going home. Kind of looking forward to it, even if it does mean going from “hasn’t dropped below 17C for three months” to the ice being on the road, not in a glass.
Hell, I’m looking forward to having drinks that someone hasn’t put ice in.
To be fair I had one with breakfast, albeit because it was hot coffee. I went to the main dining room for breakfast, on the grounds they’d been putting on breakfast there for the past 55 days I’d been on a cruise ship and I hadn’t been. They offered a range of options, including an American cooked breakfast, a Continental cooked breakfast and what they called a Full English.
I had to ask them to add the toast, add the hash browns, remove the tomato, add scrambled egg to the fried egg. They didn’t have black pudding or I’d have asked them to add that too. The fried eggs got complicated.
“Do you want those over easy or sunny side up?”
I’d like them cooked please, properly. No runny white but a runny yolk would be nice.
“Prop ply?”
Indonesian waiters that speak American can’t take fried egg orders. What the fuck is ‘over easy’ anyway and why can’t they just speak English?
The scrambled egg wasn’t much good either. I would rant about Americans and their inability to cook breakfast but a cook in California makes the greatest scrambled egg I’ve ever had. Maybe he was an immigrant.
More coffee, more nimble evasion of slow old people that randomly change direction. Probably a good job I dance or an old woman would right now be getting medical care for headbutting my elbow. She apologised three times for turning into me but I’d managed to dodge so well we avoided contact entirely.
A call for the medical response team. Deck 3, Casino. So, big win, big loss or someone reacting badly to perceived cheating?
An afternoon enjoying the rugby, not enjoying the cricket. Downstairs with coffee, 40 minutes with the string quartet. Whoever arranged their pieces was heavily into overwrought disjointed music so it didn’t go well, and that was before they did a Radiohead cover. A dark self deprecating song with broken guitar chords giving it a visceral edge, unless covered by a string quartet that focus on the musical arrangement and lyrical melody, thus missing out on everything that makes the song a classic.
Back in my room I sorted my laundry, threw out over a week’s worth of underwear and socks. They’re all wearing out anyway, I’ll go shopping during the week, start the year in new clothes.
Nearly a kilo of coffee and a couple of alligators in my jacket pockets, electronics into my camera bag, a few other tweaks and my suitcase should be well within airline weight limits. I’ll carry the jackets (one sports, one waterproof) onto the aircraft, wear them off it.
Set my alarm, hit ‘publish’ and it’s time for bed. Long day tomorrow, a 7am Sunday start that’ll end after the Liverpool match finishes on Monday evening.