Charleston

We spent two days at sea, sailing from San Juan to Charleston, South Carolina. The Atlantic was fairly calm, and the sailing smooth.

We had booked Priveé, the private dining room, for Thursday night. It’s located between Toscana and Polo Grill, and you can choose items from both menus. We invited Ashley and Ming Cheung, a couple we met at the La Reserve wine dinner to join us, and the five of us had a lovely evening of conversation, food and wine. I probably wouldn’t book Priveé again, though, because most of the experience can be duplicated by requesting a table for five in either of the adjoining restaurants. You’d just have to decide what cuisine you wanted.

Privee

Friday we docked in Charleston. The weather was temperate and sunny. Charleston is a great port, because the pier is just a block from the end of Market street, the tourist shopping area of the city. We sensed this was what Pamela had been waiting for; she had a good time browsing the wide variety of merchandise.

CharlestonMarket

At the end of the shops we split up, and Linda and I continued about a mile down King Street to O-Ku, a restaurant Dani and I discovered on a previous trip. They serve excellent sushi, in a really nice decor (although the menu and the lighting is better at night).

O-Ku

We made our way back along Market Street, where Linda stocked up on stocking stuffers for Christmas.

PuttingGreen

In the afternoon we tried out the putting green on deck 16, then watched as we sailed out of Charleston Harbor past Fort Sumter.

 

Puerto Rico

Since San Juan is a commonwealth of the US, we cleared immigration before disembarking. Last time I was in San Juan, Dani and I went into the countryside on a horseback riding excursion, so I’d never really seen the city. This time Linda and I opted for a tour of the Barcardi Rum facility, which is just around the harbor from the cruise ship docks.

SanJuanBacardi1

It’s a very campus-like setting. I was impressed that they generate 70% of the distillery electricity by burning the waste products. Bacardi’s original claim to fame was the invention of barrel aging rum, and charcoal filtration to make it clear. It’s still made that way, but there are many variations now, including flavors like the ones that have become so popular in the competitors’ vodkas. But I like the ones that are aged like scotch, and not filtered to strip out the oaky complexity.

SanJuanBacardi2

While you don’t actually tour the distillery, there is a nice visitor center, and a pavilion where you can sample the rums. (There’d nothing like a nice rum for breakfast.) The Oakheart spiced rum was my favorite.

SanJuanBacardi3

Our second stop was at the San Cristobal Fort, a National Park Service facility (which I hear uses Alcorn McBride equipment). It was very interesting to walk through the various tunnels and climb on the ramparts. The size and complexity of the place is impressive, as is the view of Old San Juan down below. At 521 years, it’s the oldest city in the Caribbean.

SanCristobalFort

After a brief drive around the walls of the old city we were dropped off at Plaza Colon, where we could shop. Then, since our ship docked right next to the city of Old San Juan, we walked back on board.

SanJuanVista

St. Barts

Tender St Barts is by far the nicest island port on this trip. It is French speaking, the currency is the Euro, the residents are French citizens, and the cooking is French/Island cuisine. We tendered over to the small marina and strolled all the way around it.

StBarts

Because it was Pentecost, most of the shops were closed, but we didn’t need any Louis Vuitton bags anyway. Linda found a nice cafe online. It overlooked the marina, and we enjoyed a light lunch an a nice bottle of Chablis.

PortCafePamela

Linda always travels with the portable chopsticks Dani gave her. They screw together, like a hustler’s pool cue.

PortCafeLinda

Speaking of screwy, I couldn’t figure out the “concept” of the Concept Store:

ConceptStore

La Reserve, St. Lucia, Barbados

LaReserve

La Reserve

The finest meal served during the cruise is a one-time event called the Connoisseur Menu. It’s served in the Wine Spectator branded La Reserve, a 22 seat restaurant that is only open three days out of 20, and serves food and wine not available elsewhere on the ship. Unfortunately our dinner was marred by the most boorish man we have ever encountered, but the other couple at our table were very nice newlyweds from Denver, Colorado.

Each of the seven courses were superb, and several of the wines were memorable as well. The standout was Kobe beef with a veal au jus tinged with a bit of Valrhona chocolate; it was served with a superb 2005 Marchesi Fumanelli Octavius Amarone Riserva. I ordered two bottles online the next day!

StLucia

St. Lucia

St. Lucia is a pretty island, but there’s not a lot for cruise passengers who aren’t interested in the beach. We docked at Castries, but our butler said there wasn’t much in the town at the end of the 15 minute walk around the harbor, so we just browsed in the shops at the Pointe Seraphine pier for an hour or so, then returned to the ship for lunch.

MarinaStern

Barbados

Barbados has a reputation for welcoming tourists, but I found it to suffer from the same annoying badgering that killed tourism in Jamaica. From the moment we stepped out of the cruise terminal we were accosted by taxi drivers trying to sell island tours. We finally waded through a sea of them and managed to get a cab for the short drive to the center of Bridgetown. The capital city isn’t particularly scenic, and on Sunday it was closed up tight, so after a brief, hot walk around, and fending off another dozen tour offers we returned to the ship.

Barbados

In the afternoon we had our second cooking lesson, this time focusing on the Asian cuisine of Red Ginger, the ship’s best restaurant. We made four things, including a tasty Lobster Pad Thai.

PadThai

Granada

 GranadaHarborGranada is a charming port that fits the quintessential image of a Caribbean island. A circular bay shelters a multicolored harbor that rises into steep, green hills dotted with homes.

95% of the GranadaÕs houses were destroyed by hurricane Ivan in 2004, so there are a mixture of new (but traditionally styled) buildings and a few remaining ruins. The islandÕs agriculture was also decimated, so tourism is now the largest industry.

Our morning tour took us on several interesting stops. First was a spice factory where they make spiced syrups, jams and other products. It is owned by the newly elected governor general, who happened to stop by while we were there, escorted by her security staff.

GranadaGarden

Then we drove over the hills to a spice farm where we had a fascinating guided tour of the spice garden, stopping to smell and taste a wide variety of fruits and spices. They included cinnamon, lemon grass, turmeric, pepper, vanilla, avocado, mango, cacao, pineapple, lemon thyme, mace, nutmeg, and many more I’d never heard of.

GranadaLemonGrass

Our third stop was a a former sugar cane plantation and rum distillery, where we toured the ruins of the 150-year-old plant, and were able to sample some modern rums. (The fact is, they now buy the alcohol from Tobago.) The 10 year old rum was pretty smooth, like a good scotch. The most popular variety on the island is unaged 140 proof rum. Although it burned like rubbing alcohol, it was surprisingly sweet.

GranadaDistillery

After a brief stop at the marina for local handicrafts (soap) we returned to the ship in time for lunch.

Colombia and Aruba

ColombiaShuffleBoard

We’ve spent a relaxing few days, mostly on board ship, beginning with two sea days that took us through the Panama Canal to Cartagena, Columbia. The shore excursion we had booked sounded like it was going to involve a very hot two hour boat ride, so we decided to stay on board the ship.

ColombiaParty

During the afternoon we played a rousing game of shuffle board, and in the evening there was a 70s show on deck as we sailed out of the harbor. Pamela has been under the weather with bronchitis, but some antibiotics and a couple of days of rest have her feeling much better.

Our next stop was Aruba. We’d been here before, and it’s not very exciting, so we just walked around the tourist strip, bought some aloe that Dani requested, and had lunch at a Mexican restaurant.

ArubaMojitos

Our sea day following Aruba featured a session in the Cordon Blue Culinary Academy, where we made (and ate) a variety of Spanish tapas.

MarinaCooking

Panama Canal

PanamaCity

Today we passed through the Panama Canal, traveling east to west, from the Pacific Ocean to the Caribbean. That’s not a typo. The canal actually runs almost north/south, but because of the S shape of Panama, we emerge somewhat west of where we started.

PanamaCanalSteve

We ascend through two locks at Mira Flores on the Pacific, then one more a mile inland. Fifty miles later we will descend through three more at Lake Gatun, arriving in the Caribbean by mid-afternoon. Each lock transports us up or down by about 27 feet, making the canal a freshwater bridge across the continental divide, 85 feet above sea level.

PanamaCanalLinda

The entire canal is powered by water, flowing down from the mountains. It flows through the locks, and also generates the power used by the “mules” that tow the boats through the locks. Along the way we observed fresh excavations for a widening that will increase its width from 110 to 180 feet.

In 2014 the Panama Canal celebrates its 100th anniversary.

Ecuador

EcuadorMontecristiExcursion

Panama hats aren’t made in Panama. Who knew? They’re actually from Ecuador, which is convenient, because that’s where we are today, and I needed a hat.

Yesterday we had a great day at sea. I spent some time in the art studio in the morning ripping off Henri Talouse Latrec with a charcoal drawing, and in the afternoon ripping off Degas with an acrylic. It was my first attempt at acrylic, and I was impressed with the materials, but unimpressed with my ability.

MarinaArtStudio

In the evening we went to one of the four specialty restaurants on board, Red Ginger. It was spectacular. Great decor and great food. Highlights were the summer rolls, which included pomello, an asian fruit similar to grapefruit, and the miso glazed sea bass, one of the best pieces of fish I’ve ever had. It put Le Bernardin in New York to shame.

Speaking of which, yesterday the list of the top 100 restaurants in the world came out, and we’ve been to quite a few. And of course we disagree with the list. For example, we’ve been to six of the top 20, and hated three of them (Le Bernardin, Alinea and L’Arpege)! Two of our favorites we have already booked for our upcoming New York stay (Eleven Madison Park and Jean Georges).

Anyway, today we toured Ecuador. The country seems much more prosperous than Peru, and the people were extremely friendly, waving to the buses as we passed. My very limited Spanish was good enough to read the environmental billboards around town; it’s nice that they are taking pride in–and taking care of–their country.

EcuadorTuna

The ship is docked in Manta, a tuna fishing port, and there are massive amounts of tuna being unloaded right next to us. Amazingly, it doesn’t smell, I suppose because it is so fresh.

EcuadorTagua

Our first stop was at a house where they make buttons and knick knacks out of the seeds of the tagua plant. These seeds, when dry, are about as hard as ivory, and can be dyed to any color. It was a bit scary watching them saw and grind the pieces with no finger protection.

EcuadorPanamaHatMaking

Then we drove up the local mountain, Montecristi, to see Panama (Ecuadorian) hats being made. It’s quite labor intensive, with the better hats taking up to six months to make, and costing as much as $1000. I bought the much less expensive $80 version, which was demonstrably better than the $25 version. The vendor showed me how to roll it up(!) and put it in its balsa wood box. Linda got a better deal in the nearby shopping area, buying shawls at three for $10. And yes, the official currency of Ecuador is the US dollar.

EcuadorWeaving

Our next stop was an agave factory, where they were turning the plant leaves into twine, and then weaving it into cloth to make burlap style bags. Personally I prefer my agave to be turned into tequila, but it was very interesting to watch the process: stripping the fiber from the leaves, drying, spinning, and weaving.

EcuadorShipBuilding

On the way back to the port we passed a shipyard where they build and repair boats the old fashioned way: with lots of wood. Our final stop was back in Manta at a small archaeological museum that displayed a few clay artifacts.

We really liked Ecuador, and there was a lot packed into this three hour tour.

Chan Chan, Peru

DragonTemple2

Salaverry is a northern port in Peru near the city of Trujillo. Our tour took us on a short drive through Trujillo to the Dragon Temple, a pyramid surrounded by a high wall. Our guide, Elver was quite informative, as we walked around the pyramid and then climbed the ramp to its flat top.

ChanChan1

Then we drove on north to Chan Chan, a nine square mile walled city built of mud bricks, and about 1000 years old. The place was quite a labyrinth. The walls, some as high as 30 feet, are original, but 85% of the decoration has been restored.

ChanChan2

On the drive back through Trujillo I observed the irony that the modern construction wasn’t much different than the ancient. It is a city of many walls, but few roofs. Most walls are left with rebar sticking from the top, so that another story can be added later. But a large percentage of the walls seemed to enclose nothing, much as in Chan Chan.

Trujillo

Lima, Peru

LimaView

For this year’s trip Linda and I set our goal to visit the last continent on our list, South America. (We’re not expecting to get to number seven, Antarctica, any time soon.) It seems ironic that the only inhabited continent we haven’t been to is the closest to our home.

Our friend, Pamela, from Australia, flew to Orlando to join us for a week before the trip, and then we all headed south. Well, actually we headed north, to Atlanta, and then south. Lima Peru is due south, oddly enough. It doesn’t seem like the east coast of the US should line up with the west coast of South America, but it does, hence no time change (except they don’t need to observe daylight savings time in a country so close to the equator).

The flight was surprisingly quick, just six hours to go about 3000 miles. That was a good thing, because the “flat” beds on this A330 were anything but. In all fairness, I think mine was broken, because it kept recoiling from the flat position, but the design doesn’t even attempt to level the bed, so you keep sliding off the bottom. Delta has won an award for some of the top beds in the industry, but I bet it wasn’t on this plane, which was inferior to the two other Delta designs I’ve seen, which we had on flights to Sydney and Istanbul.

We arrived in Lima and cleared immigration and customs before midnight. Since Pamela hadn’t booked her room through the cruise line, I’d called to arrange her transfer, and he dutifully appeared. I’d also called the cruise line to confirm ours, and they assured me the hotel was handling it. Nope. So we hired a taxi for the trip to the JW Marriott in Miraflores Lima.

Lima is criss-crossed by four lane roads, but they don’t seem to form a useful grid, so the half hour ride involved much jogging through back alleys to get from one road to another. Finally we followed the beach for a few miles, then climbed the steep palisade to Miraflores.

The Marriott is a very nice hotel. It’s a high rise located at the top of the bluffs, overlooking the bay upon which Lima is situated. During our Sunday in Lima the weather was a bit socked in with low clouds, but we could still see from one end of the bay to the other.

Pamela and I met for breakfast and then she retired to her room to rest up for a day while Linda and I went out to explore the multi-level mall that clings to the cliff face in front of the hotel. We had lunch there at an outdoor cafe appropriately named Cafe Cafe. Linda had a mixed ceviche dish she proclaimed the best ever. It must have been good, because she even scarfed down the octopus.

LimaCeviche

In the afternoon I took a three-hour nap (ahh, vacations) and then for dinner we went to a restaurant recommended by Diego, an Alcorn McBride intern whose mother is from Peru.

Taxis in lima are interesting. There are no meters, and the fare is subject to negotiation. The trip to the restaurant cost 10 Nuevo Sole ($4) and the trip back cost twice that. The restaurant is actually about two blocks from the hotel, but it is several hundred feet below, on the other side of a busy highway.

LimaLaRosaNauticaPier

La Rosa Nautica is located on a jetty, so waves constantly break below as you walk out to the place past some cute tourist shops. Inside the spaces are quaintly decorated with flowers, mirrors and lacy white woodwork reminiscent of the Carnation Pavilion at Disneyland. We were seated in a round room with a 270 degree view. There are many dining areas in the restaurant, but ours seemed to be reserved for American tourists, which was very practical, as all the servers spoke English.

We had their tasting menu, which was three courses of three items each. Everything was beautifully presented, and quite tasty, and the price of $65 per person seemed very reasonable. To accompany dinner we had an Argentine Chardonnay that was quite dry, and a Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon with an interesting charred wood nose.

LimaLaRosaNautica

 

After a good night’s sleep, we transferred to our ship midday on Monday. The process at the hotel was inscrutably disorganized, with no one knowing when or where the transfer would be, no luggage tags to direct bags to the cabin, and no boarding documents. But somehow we ended up on a shuttle with our luggage, and got to the ship, where boarding and check in were quick and efficient. And despite all expectations to the contrary, our luggage showed up at our cabin, even with no cabin ID tags.

We are on the Oceania Marina, a ship about twice as large (1200 passengers) as our previous Oceania ship, the Insignia. This suite isn’t quite as nice as the one on the Insignia, or as spacious as the one on Celebrity last year, but the ship has much more to offer in terms of restaurants and public spaces. We certainly got a good deal on our suite, which was priced at under $650 a day for two including insurance, far below the usual half off rate, and even includes a $400 cabin credit. That plus the new unlimited Internet offering discounted to $20 a day make this a very economical luxury cruise.

OceaniaMarinaPanorama

We went to the main dining room, where the host invited us upstairs to the Polo Grill, one of the specialty restaurants (which tend not to be busy on embarkation day) for a nice dinner.

The ship overnighted in the Port of Lima (which is very noisy–thank goodness for earplugs) and then on Tuesday Linda headed out for a visit to two museums. Since they were right back where we came from in Miraflores, I decided to opt out of this tour and have a restful day on the ship. Linda enjoyed the trip, and reported much pottery, including this one that reminded her of our cat Tucker sleeping on her (although I think this guy is being eaten by the cat).

LimaPottery