Blog #15: Befriending Boca

Boca de Valaria didn’t exist thirty years ago. It is a creation of the cruise ship companies. “Boca de” means “Mouth of” and Valaria is the river it’s located on. The cruise ships needed needed a place relatively central that they could build into a viable stop for the thousands of wallet-toting tourists destined for this port each year.

The locals were pleased to accommodate. This is why they come from seven small villages each day the ship comes in.

“Don’t let it freak you out when the kids come up and hold your hand,” declared Hutch, the destination expert on the Pacific Princess. (He has undoubtedly dealt with plenty of freaked out personal space conscious North Americans before.) “They are wonderful people.”

You’d think that with this sort of background that I would hate this place.

I didn’t. I loved it. Honest.

The people there were wonderful, once I got to know them a little. “Getting to know them” means realizing that they are hospitable, pleasant people who make a living by showing off themselves and their village to the tourists. They come up to you, smile and take your hand. You can expect to be gently mobbed when you arrive…and if you relax and remind yourself you aren’t in Kansas anymore, you are in for a wonderful travel experience.

We were, of course, first off the tender boat. The locals were clustered tight at the makeshift pier, almost like someone was paying them to make EVERY tourist feel welcome.

We’d researched this port from home and learned many tourists bring supplies for the local school with them. This seemed a win/win situation for everyone. The tourists get to feel good and the kids get school supplies.

Since Sheree and I entertain kids for a big portion of our living, we decided to make them balloon animals. Balloons pack flat and I have yet to meet a kid who doesn’t love them.
I’d loaded my pockets with balloons and when we got to the end of the “love gauntlet,” Sheree looked at me and said “No time like the present.”


I pulled the first balloon from my pocket. Have you ever seen fish in an aquarium at feeding time? You need simply stand above the waterline holding the tin can and the fish cluster to wherever their little fish brains tell them you are going to be dropping the food.

It was like that. I was immediately surrounded by little people saying “Me! Me! Me!”

I asked them to move back a little and they did – but hands kept reaching even though they had no idea what they were reaching for. The balloon was taken out of my hand before I blew it up. I found myself looking into the large brown eyes of the culprit: a kid of about seven. I smiled. He looked back seriously. I tried to pry his fingers off the balloon. He regarded me evenly and didn’t loosen his grip. I ruffled his hair and pointed to the balloon and then at him. His eyes narrowed with suspicion. Finally, reluctantly, he let go.

I blew the balloon up and made a dog. The kids pressed forward. I think piranha fish learned their techniques from them. I blew on the tail and immediately a bubble of air appeared there. The kids took a collective step backward. There were collective “ooooo” and “ahhhhh” sounds. Then they all pressed forward with renewed cries of “Me! Me! ME! ME!”

I made balloons for about twenty minutes and noticed they were going down far too quickly. I felt something brush my thigh. (It has been my experience from my admittedly limited Amazon exposure that whenever you feel something touching you, you need to investigate right away.) I found a small brown hand in my pocket. The kid had been swiping balloons the whole time.

I closed my hand around his wrist and shook my head. He didn’t let go. I looked up and saw some of the teenage boys standing nearby, laughing and trying to blow the balloons up. No guilt. No one saying “gee, sorry, Mister. I don’t know how this balloon wound up in my hand…”
I was, of course, in their house. If they wanted to swipe the balloons I’d already planned to give to them for free, that was their choice.

I made balloons until they were gone – and kept my pockets zipped.

Boca is a wonderful place to meet people. Parents dress their kids in traditional costumes and you can take their picture. Usually you pass them a dollar for this – which is fine with me, since I usually do that anyway. Everyone will pose for a dollar: the kid with the tarantula, the little girl with the lizard, the man with a jungle pig. These kids handle wildlife with the same ease you would pick up a Coke.

The strange thing is that, while the wildlife is interesting, the real pictures are of the people who live here. Great faces – great clothes. Such colors! And they are literally lined up, wanting you to take shots of them.

While I agree that you don’t get the candid shots you’d prefer – I must also say that the tight crops of great photos are the real gift. For about twenty dollars, I got enough photos to keep me happily Photoshopping for some time.

It started feeling just a little creepy just once. I saw a young girl, maybe fifteen. Very pretty – wearing very little. I saw a number of the cruise ship guys pay a dollar to pose with her. Nothing off color – but it was creeping me out.

Sheree was approached by a lovely older woman who wanted her to take her for a canoe ride for five bucks. She was gone instants later and I didn’t see her again until the end of the day.

She had a wonderful time. On her ride she was taken upriver and shown a couple of villages, one of which had a modern looking school with old but still usable computers. Sheree says she was taken care of like an honored relative.

I took a walk into what the villagers call “The Nature Trail.” It goes about two miles into the jungle. As I stepped onto the trail a young teenager fell into step beside me.

He jerked a thumb to his chest: “Vincent.”

I pointed to myself “David.”

“You want to see?” He asked gesturing to the trail ahead of us.

I thought about it and realized he was offering to give me a tour.

A man tapped me on the shoulder and with a long sideways look at Vincent he spoke out of the corner of his mouth: “They are just looking for a hand-out. Don’t encourage them.”

Instantly I disliked this guy. People forget that they are guests in another country – and there was no way I wanted Vincent to see us all as tourists and not travelers. I believe there is a basic and profound difference between the two.

I nodded and clapped Vincent on the shoulder: “I see.”

“Keep one hand on your wallet,” warned the guy as we walked away.

I doubt Vincent heard or understood the exchange. If he did, he didn't show it. But the hostile look of the man bristled with suspicion in a language that is universal.

Vincent led me down the trail. I gather it was an old riverbed. He stopped every once in a while to show me the cocoa beans, bright flowers and wildlife. He kept pace tied to mine and I was surprised again at the easy hospitality of these people. They treat their guests with respect but there’s such an easy grace to what they do and the way they do it.

I was blown away again by the life all around me. The sweet scent in the air, the constant motion in the bushes -- the lushness of everything. Vincent, walking through the jungle seemed an extension of all that life, whereas I was patently a visitor here.

He stopped in the middle of the trail and beckoned me over: “Simbolah,” he said, pointing to a tiny brightly colored frog. A macro lens would have been needed to get a shot. But it was a glorious creature. I just enjoyed looking at it for a moment.

Vincent looked at me expectantly: “Simbolah,” he said again. “How you say this?”

“Simbolah,” I repeated.

He laughed out loud and I laughed too. I noticed that many Brazilians cover their mouths when they laugh.

“No, no. How YOU say?”

A light dawned. ‘Oh-ho!’ I thought, which is what I usually say to myself when the clouds clear and I finally understand the actual question. You should try it sometime. Just give yourself a hearty “Oh-HO” to promote cognitive function.

“Frog,” I said, deliberately omitting the “oh ho” stuff, since that would only confuse the issue. “We say ‘frog.’” (I will admit, however, that the notion of a young man in the Amazon jungle saying "oh-ho" to tourists entertained me for an unreasonably long period of time.)

He looked at me thoughtfully.

“Frog,” he said thoughtfully. “Frog.”

Then he nodded and continued down the path. Every once in a while I heard him repeating the word ‘frog.’

We came to the end of the trail and turned back. We passed the time in an easy silence, aside from Vincent occasionally repeating the word ‘frog.’ When we got to the end of the trail, I paid him for his time and we shook hands. I walked away thinking how cool it had been that our lives intersected for that brief time. Here he is: Vincent.

But that’s what travel’s all about.

I started getting just a touch concerned about Sheree by now. It's true that my partner in this life can take care of herself. And if anyone gives her a hard time...well..."I pity the fool."


But her one hour canoe ride had been more than four hours ago – and I still didn’t see her. I cleverly decided to stake out the bar, a raised wooden building where weak but very cold beer was two dollars and whoever approached the bar would be inundated with children asking them to buy pop for them.

I was sitting there, sipping my cold beer, looking out for Sheree when two girls came and sat on the table. They were young – and they inched closer and closer. I smiled and they moved right in. One of them had the most marvelous face: expressive eyes and what I have come to think of as “full on” Brazilian features.

I took their pictures – and showed them the LCD screen. Just as it was with the little girl in Tobago, they got very excited seeing the images. Think about this for a minute: these people have made posing for photos into a cottage industry. Hasn’t anyone ever shown these kids what their pictures look like?

This youngster was off to the races. Cindy Crawford never posed so eloquently. She was serious, she was smiling. She was bold. She was shy. And after each pose she’d come and look at the LCD screen and either smile or frown. The session lasted less than a couple of minutes – but it was another moment of contact between someone from Canada – and someone from the Amazon jungle.
She didn’t speak a word of English.

Vincent barely spoke my language – and I spoke only a few words of Portuguese.

But we communicated perfectly.

I love traveling.


We arrive in Manaus tomorrow. I remember looking at its location on a map. Manaus is deep inside Brazil on the oh-so-exotic Amazon. I am really looking forward to getting there. And I am dreading it too.


It's the last port we're going to...and that means the trip is close to being over. I'd rather not think about it. And when I do think about it, I remind myself that following our time in Brazil, we are going to spend four days on the equally exotic Florida Keys.


It makes me feel better. A little.

Travel Blog #14: The People of the River

They are literally “people of the river.”

There are no highways to connect the tiny towns of the Amazon. People use boats like we use cars and they use riverboats like we use busses. People here seem to be in a constant state of motion.

You see the boats travelling up and down this ancient river at all hours of the day and the night. In Santarem, we dock in a place that serves as a terminal for riverboats. I have no idea how many of them loaded, left, unloaded and returned while we were there. But it was a lot.

Surrounding the river terminal is no-nonsense fencing. The fence is topped with razor wire and there are armed guards here. You don’t get through the terminal without showing ID to the sweaty soldier with the machine gun. I don’t want to think about what it would be like to be a brown skinned person who forgot their ID. Nope. Won’t go there.

The presence of tourists in Santarem isn’t unwelcome – but it’s not welcome either. People are interested in seeing us, partially because our cruise ship is so much grander than the ancient chugging riverboats, all of which remind me of the African Queen from the classic Bogart film.

They watch us carefully. If we catch them looking at us, they smile and wave – but there is the strong sensation, for me anyway, that we are at best a curiosity. At worst? Intruders, maybe. Some look at us like a wary guard dog might eye an intruder who is not quite a stranger…and just may be bearing gifts.

As we glided into the port today, people lined the shore to watch our progress down the Amazon. Cars pulled over to the side of the road. People stood there. Some waved. Most didn’t. They stood silently and watched. Tourism makes up less than 5% of the local economy – so seeing a boatload of us is unusual enough to be considered an event.

We started our Malarone, the anti-malarial drug, last night. We had significant misgivings about this.

We are booked onto a riverboat for a tour down the river. It will take most of the day. We try to avoid long excursions...but considering the storm clouds forming in my head, being on a cool river instead of tramping through the jungle seems like a good idea.

I watch the well cared for tourists shepherded from the cruise ship to the new riverboats. I see Brazilians walk rickety looking planks onto their riverboats. I see people lounging on their balcony furniture as the people of the country we are in contemplate the hundreds of hammocks strung from the roofs of the riverboats. I stand there thinking that the difference between us is that I had the good sense to be born in North America – otherwise I might be one of those dark eyed people watching the comparatively fabulously rich herded from excursion to excursion and buffet to buffet.

I woke up with a headache – one of those “behind the eyes but could turn into shooting pains through your temples” headaches. As the morning passes, the pain behind my eyes gets worse, but I try to ignore it. Since I have not had one of this sort of headaches before – I have to put it down to the Malarone.

The boat chugs down the river and the guide chats on. He’s glad to be in a place where he can use his English – which he speaks very well. We go down the river and, as we do, Sheree whispers to me that it feels a bit like a theme park in Disneyland.

She’s right.

On either side of the boat are Brazilians throwing weighted nets into the water. I have the sneaking suspicion that this is so tourists on both sides can get pictures. A little further on, there is a man spear fishing. He waits until the boat is beside him before casting his spear. Then he turns and waves cheerily at the boatful of tourists pointing cameras at him.

We pass by families, conveniently situated by the shore and I have the sudden impression that we are passing through a zoo. Don’t take this the wrong way: I simply mean that these people look too easily available to be real.

We even go piranha fishing. Each person gets a piece of wood and a line. At the end of the line is a hook and a piece of meat is put on the hook, said hook thrown into the water. Again: I suspect this is so Aunt Mazie can tell the folks back in Iowa that she went fishing for piranha on the Amazon.

A surprised woman does catch one and hauls it it.

“It’s a BLACK piranha,” our guide enthuses. “You see silver. Sometimes red. But hardly ever BLACK.”

The woman swells up with pride and drinks in the attention. Shutters click as she displays the still floppy fish at the end of her line. I don’t like this much, I decide. My impressions might be influenced by the steady tightening of everything inside my head, but it really feels “put on” to me.

So, after fishing, I strap the telephoto onto my camera and look for the real pictures.

Let’s look at them together, okay? We’ll pretend you are standing beside Sheree and me and we’ll look at the faces of the people of the river together. I’ll point them out with my camera and you can just pull up one of those white plastic lawn furniture chairs on the riverboat and settle in for the balance of the tour.

This woman stood at the rail of her riverboat and ignored us the entire time.

Our guide told us that the riverboats are full of hammocks -- and the more ornate your hammock, the higher your status. The guide told us that 70% of Brazillians are conceived in hammocks. (They must have very good balance as well as a dogged determination.)

There were dozens of people on the deck looking us over. This man peered at us from behind a window. At first I barely saw him...then I realized he was looking right at me. I'd seen him just a few minutes earlier with some children. Here he was again. What an interesting face you have, I thought.

After a took the picture, I raised the camera to him and smiled.

He smiled back and wandered off into the back of the riverboat.

When we get back to the ship, I find I am having a bit of a hard time walking. My head is throbbing and the pressure in my temples and behind my eyes just makes me want to lie down in a cool place. It is literally a 'splitting headache.' Sheree has one too – but that doesn’t stop her from shopping a little at the kiosks the locals have set up.

We return to the cabin and turn out the lights and try to lie perfectly still.

Is this better than malaria, I wonder?

Several hours pass. Finally Sheree stirs and starts getting dressed. I have found a position where my head doesn’t hurt and I ask her where she is going.

She wants to take a walk – just outside on the pier. I check my watch. The boat leaves in 45 minutes and at first, I decide to let her go without me. Then my desire not to waste this port and the time I can spend with Sheree in it takes over and I get dressed.

The walk is ethereal. The fresh air clears my head a little, but I need to concentrate on the ground in front of me and the world has taken on a certain glow. Fortunately the lights are no longer too bright since dusk is falling over the Amazon.

We walk outside the safety gates, past the guard and past the razor wire. All the tourists are back on-board now and we resolve to stay close to the ship. Again the sensation of being watched is strong. People are clustered near the gates to the terminal. I am not sure what they are waiting for. Most silently look at us as we leave the safety of the terminal. As we walk away, some still watch us. It's not uncomfortable, but the sense of being from 'way out of town' is very strong.

Inside the terminal, laughing workers are taking down all the tourist stuff: the gangplank, the signage and the little huts they sell crafts from.

We pause outside, take some pictures. Then the boat blows it’s horn and we make our way back on board, through the throngs of locals, past the razor wire, and onto the ship.
As we pull away, I have a slightly sad feeling. I never really had a chance to know anything about the real Santarem. I was physically here – but I haven’t BEEN here.

I think I would like to go back one day...without the Malarone.

Travel Blog #13: The Great Shirt War

Jill R. from Salem wrote in to ask if I was EVER going to get back to Photoshop stuff. Yup. Shouldn’t be too long now – because the trip journal is over half empty. Vacations are odd that way – particularly vacations that start off on the longish side.

We are at sea for two days now. Then we put into port at Santarem – which is the beginning of the actual Brazilian Amazon.

At sea days are lazy days. Sheree and I spend hours on the balcony cutting pictures, talking, playing endless games of Yahtzee on my iPod and watching the Amazon whisper by. We watch the shore with binoculars and through telephoto lenses and get excited every time we see a human on land.


It’s quiet out here on the balcony. You hear the soft whoosh of water as the ship moves. People on shore stop and watch. Many of them are in canoes and they wave their paddles in the air and wait for those on the ship to do what people on ships do best: waving back. I wonder what we look like to them in this relatively enormous boat, floating down the brown water of their Amazon.

Nights here are interesting. Adrian, the deck attendant, told us that at night he goes out with a huge broom to sweep a carpet of beetles off the deck. They are apparently drawn by the light. Sheree and I have been out several times at night in the hopes of seeing a living carpet of writhing black, but have only found a few beetles, usually on their backs kicking their stick legs in the air.

They run the ship with a minimum of light at night for that reason. They’ve also closed off the back portion of the Panorama deck – the outdoor seating behind the buffet – because too many bugs come into the ship when the doors open.

“I hate bugs,” one pudgy woman in way too-red lipstick tells me in the buffet line. She looks to me like I am a kindred spirit in bug-hating. “I just hate them. Don’t you?”

“Well. It’s the Amazon,” I explain. Sheree has made frequent observations about my inability to be social with most people. I agree with her, so I have decided to be social. “Bugs live here.”


“Well I hate ‘em,” Pudgy sniffs and pokes at the corn salad with the tip of the serving spoon. “Don’t much like corn either.”

What happens to otherwise mature people on cruise ships? I wonder. Do they forget what a blessing it is to be on the freaking Amazon River, experiencing things and people they would never have the opportunity to see otherwise? Can a trip like this actually revolve only around corn and bugs?

I smile at her and ladle a spoonful of corn onto my plate. Carbs or no carbs. I am making a point that appears to be lost on her. She sniffs and then waddles away.

The water of the Amazon is a tan brown. Not green. Not blue. Brown. And there’s a never-ending parade of foliage floating on it: tree branches, logs, leaves. The air has become more dense. Humid. Heavier.

We ramble around the ship. We are prepared to gamble about ten dollars a day on the penny slots in the casino – which takes about twelve seconds. I go to the Library room – a place with great leather wingback chairs, listen to my iPod, cut pictures and write. We’ve been to a wine tasting (wine is a great passion for both of us) and we’ve soaked in the hot tub.



Currently we are sitting in deck chairs in the hot sun. I am reading a photography magazine, pretending I don’t know Sheree is looking at me with That Look in her eye.

“You should take your shirt off,” she says finally.

I make the non-committal-but-never-effective sound, like I am simply too engrossed in my magazine to possibly pay attention to anything else.

“David?” she says. There’s a sharp tone now.

“Ummm?” I say.

“Your skin is white. You need to take your shirt off. Get a tan.”

The whole matter of whether I tan or not is of much greater interest to Sheree than it is to me. Besides, I am a big guy and I’d rather not take my shirt off. Really.

“Mmmmm,” I say.

There is a profound difference between ‘Ummmm?’ which finishes on an upward inflection and ‘Mmmm’ which has a downward inflection. The upward inflection says “Pray – please continue.” The downward one signals that I am done talking now. Sheree has chosen not to grasp this yet.

She sighs.

“No one cares, you know.”

“Mmmmm.”

“Take your damn shirt off. Tan,” she says.

I look up at her.

“I don’t want to take my shirt off.”

“Why not? Give me one reason. Just one good reason,” she says. Whenever she says this, I know that no reason will be good. All are destined to be blown out of the sky, poked full of holes and shot down in flames.

“One reason?” I ask, playing for time.

“One.”

“Because if I take my shirt off, Greenpeace could come along and try to put me back into the water, thinking my navigational sense has become confused and I have beached myself. Then the media will come out to cover the story. They’ll run headlines: “Pasty White Mystery Creature Found on Cruise Ship.” Nah. Better to keep my shirt on.”

“That’s not a reason,” says Sheree.

“Nope. But it’s funny.”

“Only to you,” she says.

“Well…that’s all that matters,” I respond, snapping the magazine open again to signal that I am now returning to my reading and she should leave me alone.

Time passes. Precious little time.

“So you’re not going to take your shirt off?”

“Nope.” I don’t look up.

“I think that’s just stupid,” she says. “You look so much better with a tan.”

“Mmmmm,” I respond.

Time passes. She sighs again.

“It’s part of a growing experience,” she says. “You’re the only one who cares.”

I sigh – look around me, and surrender wordlessly. After all: she’s right. I ease out of my shirt, burrowing back into my chair as quickly as possible, holding the magazine so it covers most of me. Okay…as much as possible.

“Was that so bad?” she asks.

“Mmmmm,” I respond.

Time passes.

“Look at that,” says Sheree.

Since I have already lost the shirt war, I have nothing more to lose and I look. She is pointing to an inlaid design on the deck.

“It looks like that thing da Vinci used,” I say. “You know? The one where the perfectly proportioned man stands there with his arms spread wide. You know?”

We saw a da Vinci exhibit in San Antonio last year. I am not only being conversational, I am telling my wife that I did, indeed, pay attention. While no woman has run screaming to her death in the vast ocean at the sight of me without a shirt, I am pretty sure it’s just a matter of time.

“You’re right,” says Sheree. “You should stand there.”

Blood turns to ice. “What?”

“Stand there. Spread your arms. I’ll take a picture of your shadow.”

“WHAT?” I ask. The worst ones are the ones you never see coming. I have this instant image of myself making a spectacle of myself in the middle of the crowded deck. It’s a hot day. Everyone’s out here. People will wonder what I am doing and they will look.

“You’re kidding, right?” I say.

“What’s the problem?” asks Sheree.

I am tongue-tied at the prospect of having to explain something so obvious. Finally I shrug and start to put my shirt on.

“No shirt,” says Sheree. “I don’t want lines of clothes in the picture.”

“What?”

“No clothes lines.”

“Want me to take my pants off too?” I ask. “Cause there is as good a chance of that happening as there is of me standing up in the middle of a crowded deck with no shirt doing an airplane impression.”

She stares at me. I stare back. I think there are sparks flying off in all directions just behind the blue of her eyes.

“Not gonna happen,” I say.

She continues to stare. I return to my magazine. She continues to stare. I have read the same line seventeen times. She stares. What exactly am I so hung up about? I ask myself. So what? She's doing a good thing for me. I am sitting directly in the middle of great steaming piles of personal growth here. I sigh. I think: so I stand on a deck with my arms spread for a minute. What’s the big deal?

Wordlessly I get up and promote my own personal growth. I stand with my arms spread.

“They have to be on the corners of the compass,” says Sheree. “Put them precisely on the corners. And your head in the middle. No! Over to the left.”

She’s talking loudly, which is what she does when she is excited. People are looking. People are studying. I’ve already told you that people will watch anything on cruise ships. Right now they are watching us with great interest. In fact it feels like every pair of eyes is fixed on me right now, a big guy steadfastly telling himself it’s no big deal.

“Take the picture,” I hiss – reaching the end of my personal growth tether for the day.

“Just a second,” she says. “I need to change my settings. Don’t put your arms down.”

Crap. I resist the urge to make sputtering airplane noises and I stand there. If I make stupid noises and actually draw attention to myself, people will think it’s my idea. My profound hope: if that happens, I will be laughing with them.

Seven years later, she has her picture.

And I still haven’t seen it.

We’ll be in Santarem tomorrow.

One other bit of information: We start our Malarone tonight, by the way. Malarone is a “holy crap” expensive pill designed to reduce our chances of getting malaria. It has a long list of side-effects that don’t sound pleasant. But apparently most people never feel a thing. This means, of course, that we are probably doomed.


Sheree and I don’t even take aspirin…that should be interesting. We've been drinking pitchers of lemon water to ensure we don't get dehydrated in this humidity...but not drugs yet.

Hope you remembered your Mararone. You don’t want to go home with a case of virtual malaria, do you? We start tonight, okay? You are supposed to take them on a full stomach. This, fortunately, is never a problem on a cruise ship.

But at least I get to put my shirt back on. For now.

Travel Blog #12: Devil's Island

An emaciated Steve McQueen stands at the edge of a cliff looking out at a furious sea. As he counts the waves, his lips move. Suddenly he does a little shuffling celebratory dance. He’s figured something out: the seventh wave is always the strongest. He has this plan: to lash coconuts together, fling himself into the sea and paddle his way to freedom.

You saw Papillon, right? It’s a classic movie about a man trying desperately to get off of Devil’s Island. Today we went there…on purpose.

Here’s some interesting stuff: the area we know as “Devil’s Island” is really three islands in a chain called the “Salvation Islands.”

The French penal colony was set up on all three islands: St. Joseph Island, Royale Island and Iles du Diable (Devil's Island). Today each of the two remaining islands, St. Joseph and Iles du Diable have one, that's one guard posted on each. These guys live there all alone twenty four hours a day...seven days a week, rambling around deserted prison islands. There's a great short story in that somewhere.

Prisoners were told they were being taken to Devil’s Island because if they were told they were about to be imprisoned on Royale Island in the Salvation Island chain, it didn't sound nasty enough. We went to Royale Island – where the main prison was located. But it became, and remains, Devil's Island to me.

When we arrived, the sun was hot – like warm fingers on our skin. The scent in the air was green and humid and the ground was littered with coconuts and leaves that moved wetly under our feet.

The last time I was in a place that had such a strong atmosphere about it was on Route 66. There's an undefinable something here. It's a thing you can't quite describe (at least I can't) but it's there all the same. Palpable. It’s exotic and wild and you fancy you hear a hundred voices rising up from the past, each one whispering something different.

There were a lot of people imprisoned here. A lot of people suffered here. It may just be my overactive imagination, but they seem to be here still, standing silently watching us pass by. Yeah, yeah. I know it sounds overly flowery...but that's the way it felt to me. We arrived on this island, fat and happy, from a cruise ship. We have five hours here and then we leave. The prisoners were here for four long years. Most of them would die before being released.

The only business on the entire island is the hotel, which puts guests up, primarily rich French tourists, in the buildings the guards used to occupy. They come here for two weeks at a time. The prices, apparently are higher than St. Barth's, but what a place to spend time! What a place to sit on a rock by the sea and let your imagination take you for a ride. What a place!

The Destination speaker, a guy named “Hutch”said something in his talk that I latched onto, body and soul. He said there was a children's graveyard on the island. A children's graveyard. It's the place where the children of the guards and staff who died on Devil’s Island were buried.
The idea of a children's graveyard on Devil's Island fires my admittedly over-active imagination and makes me sad at the same time. It makes me think of images from the old horror comics I consumed as a kid where whispy-white weeping ghosts in period costume come to lay their children down for the last time.

What is it about graveyards that interests me so much? It may be the fact that they are peaceful…and the older I get, the closer I come to a grave of my own. It may be that I find the things written on gravesites so awfully interesting. What exactly do people write as “lasting testimonies” for those who have died? The most commonly written word on those lonely tombstones was "Regrets" -- but I am getting ahead of myself.

There was also talk about monkeys – lots of monkeys on the way to the graveyard. These are monkeys who appear in the expectation of bananas. Yup. Monkeys are cool – but it was the children’s cemetery that fascinated me.

I admit it. I photographed the monkeys because, c'mon, you have to photograph monkeys. But I was obsessed with getting to the graveyard. I just knew there was something there for me to find.

But I am ahead of myself again. Let me go back to the "getting onto the island" part. As we got off the tender boat all the rest of the people headed left toward the building compound. We turned right on the pathway that ran alongside the sea.

Ruined buildings, many reduced to simple facades by the twin ravages of time and sea, dot the pathway. They appear at random times out of nowhere.

Sheree and I were together, creeping along pathways, until we got to the aforementioned monkeys. She loves monkeys. I think they're cute and all...but there's an actual graveyard here somewhere. No contest.

I saw Hutch, walking up the trail toward us. I asked him where the graveyard was and he jerked a finger over his shoulder and muttered something about it being behind him.

I muttered something to Sheree about going onward and she muttered something back as she concentrated on photographing the monkeys. I don't think either of us actually heard the other one as our brains were otherwise engaged.

I walked on down the island path and eventually I came to a tromped down area in the bushes to my right. Was this it? The sunlight was playing on the trees and a shadowed archway of foliage within like an invitation. My heartbeat quickened. Honest it did. I walked into it.

For a few moments, and yes I made them last as long as possible, I was living in the pages of a novel. The air was vibrant and green, full of the promise of adventure. Green plants crunched underfoot and the idea that there might even be a snake lurking inside them just an inch from my sandaled foot was as intoxicating as it was frightening.

I was alone on Devil's Island and there was a by God real children's cemetary just feet away from me. It doesn't get better than this.

I passed through the trees and saw ancient wrought iron gates. Written upon them in French were the words "Cimi..... Des enfants." (The picture is at the top of this blog.) There was sunlight dappling the graves and the far off sound of insects and the thrum of tropical life. And I was alone, for a precious ten minutes, in the graveyard of Devil’s Island’s dead children.

I walked into the cemetery, my camera hanging unused around my neck. I paused there, with my eyes closed and breathed deep. I thought about the parents – guards and their wives – carrying their children to their last rest. Maybe they wept. Maybe they stood stoically while their children were put in the ground.

Think what you want – but the magic of this place was here for an instant…a magical fragment of time. I fancied I could hear the sounds of voices long gone and the grief they must have felt.

I couldn’t keep it to myself and I re-traced my steps to find Sheree – who was still photographing monkeys.

“Come with me,” I said. “The light…the colors. You need to come with me.”

My wife trusts me and she stepped away reluctantly from photographing monkeys. I really wanted her to feel what I'd felt. I took her through the pathway I had found in the trees. I prayed the place would still be silent and crackling with atmosphere so she could feel it too. Of course it is sometimes hard for me to know what she is feeling, because Sheree lives in the moment, regardless of where she is.

This time the graveyard wasn’t the same. A man and his family had arrived while I was gone. He leaned casually against a gravestone. He chatted with his family and made jokes about the dead people planted there. His harsh voice and the braying and forced sounding laughter of the women threw a new and unwelcome atmosphere over the graveyard. Dignity fled in the face of those sounds and we were standing in a place with tourists. I sighed.

Sheree photographed gravesites…and I did too. But there was a different feel here now. It wasn’t precious and private anymore. I so wished Sheree had been with me the first time.

We spent time here and the minutes started to slide away. They became "lots of minutes" – and by the time we moved up into the Devil’s Island compound we had only an hour to make the tender back to the ship.

The difficulty was that we had no idea where the tender boat was. We'd struck off in the opposite direction upon arrival. All the instructions had been given using the building compound as a reference point and, to be honest, I had been concentrating on getting to the graveyard and hadn't really paid much attention.

We had no reference point. We had only 25 minutes to find the tender boat...not enough time to re-trace our steps around the coast of the island. Sheree was photographing what she called “cute fat little guys” – which were huge rodents native to the island. She paid no attention to the time and I had noticed there were no other cruise ship people around. Everyone was long gone. Everyone.

I went to the hotel, the only remaining business on the island, and asked the woman behind the bar for directions. She spoke only French. Despite being Canadian, the only French I know has been gleaned from examination of cereal boxes. My sense of isloation grew.

I tried showing her with my hands what a ship looked like. I tried talking very loud and slowly. (I don't know why I thought speaking slowly would make me any more understandable, but I did.) She didn’t understand. Finally she went to fetch an old guy who came around. He spoke a smattering of English. He pointed down front of the main building and then jerked his thumb sharply to the right.

We had twenty minutes. Sheree went off to pee.

I looked down the path and was reasonably certain this was the right way. I waited for Sheree and when she finally re-appeared, we had twelve minutes.

I walked down the pathway – but an old french guy called out: “De boat?”

I nodded eagerly.

He pointed down a different path and we went that way, after profusely thanking him.

We walked down a cobblestone pathway, thick green trees on both sides. It was unfamiliar territory, but we spoke reassuring words to each other anyway.

I saw the tender boat some distance away. Sheree paused to make a picture of the Pacific Princess moored some distance away. I went to talk to the irritable security guy, Allen, while Sheree finished her pictures.

As we went away on the tender boat, I felt a profound sense of loss. There were so very many places on Devil’s Island we had no chance to see…to explore – or just sit and be quiet for a long moment in.

I loved Devil’s Island. I really wanted to stay there for at least another couple of hours. But that would have ended in a very long swim through apparently shark infested waters -- so I got onto the tender boat. It's not often a place speaks eloquently to my spirit, but this island spoke to mine.

It would be guilding the lilly to say that as the tender boat chugged away from Devil's Island that I thought I saw two ghostly children standing on the dock, arms around each other watching us leave with somber dark eyes. So I won't.

Travel Blog #11: The Momentus Event

I waken one morning. Sheree is clattering around the cabin. Doors opening and closing, drawers being ransacked great meat platters being dropped from thirty feet above. Okay. Maybe no meat platters. But it sounds that way. It is just before five and she is up and about. I, on the other hand, being a genuinely slothful man, lay in bed waiting for the noise to stop.

“What are you doing?” I ask with just enough irritation to let her know I mean business.

“Capturing the Amazon sunrise,” she says.

“Ah,” I retort, thinking quickly.

The door slams as she leaves and I am left with a dilemma. Do I go back to bed or do I throw on clothes and capture the sunrise with her? My body tells me that an Amazon sunrise is no big deal. My mind says I should haul my lazy ass out of bed and get some pictures. Then I thought of you guys – sitting in rapt attention before your computers, aching for the latest update, probably refreshing the screen every five seconds or so. Probably.

So I grabbed the camera, put on my Great Hat and headed for Deck 9. I have to tell you about the Momentous Event that occurred this morning.

Sheree was in conversation with a rail thin Oriental man and a guy who looked like retired army. Rather she was standing there with a bemused smile on her face while they faced off with each other.

“East that way,” insisted the Oriental guy.

“Well, the boat is headed into the Amazon,” Military Guy began patiently.

The Oriental guy jabs a finger toward the back of the ship.

“East there,” he says.

Military guy strokes his chin. This is how I can tell he is thinking. Finally he speaks.

“Well the boat is headed into the Amazon,” says he with certainty.

I am just out of bed and pissy enough to speculate whether he was taught that shrewd navigation at West Point. I mean we are on an AMAZON cruise. It’s pretty obvious that we are headed into the Amazon. I await the next pearl of wisdom that will drop uninvited from his lips. But there isn’t one. I smile at Sheree and she smiles back.

The captain knows where we are going.

We head out to the back deck, fingers poised over shutter buttons. But it is a grey morning. The water around us has turned a light brown. (Sheree is calling it “khaki – the color of chicken gravy” but she says I can’t use the metaphor. So I won’t. She is here, beside me on the balcony and we are both writing blogs.) Anyway – the water has turned a light brown. Ummm. Sort of the color of chicken gravy. Ahem.

There are chunks of plants floating on the water and the air is really humid. Putting the lens cap on a camera isn’t a good idea since the glass mists over almost immediately. You can’t see much through the glass doors because of the humidity. The air feels wet – like you just turned off a shower.

Anyway – I have to get back to the Momentous Event.

Said M.E. (Momentous Event) began as we got onto the Panorama Deck. This is where they put the buffet and progressively rounder tourists graze on rich food from early morning well into night. So many of my fellow travelers lack the will power to pass by food without eating it.
Following breakfast, we headed out to the back deck and there we saw two people huddled around rectangular handheld boxes.

I was curious enough to introduce myself and ask what the heck they were doing.

“These are GPS units,” said a man introducing himself as ‘Dennis from Bristol’ with more than a flicker of pride. “We are very close to the equator.”

He smiled in a way that invited me to enter into the excitement.

“We are less than two minutes away,” said the short birdlike woman, who later became known as ‘Thelma from Martha’s Vineyard.”

“Two minutes, huh?” I said. “Is that close?”

Simultaneously they both looked at me as though I’d grown a third eye in the middle of my forehead.

“Less than ten minutes,” said Dennis.

“She just said it was two minutes,” I observed.

“Well it takes about ten minutes to go two minutes,” said Dennis.

I looked at him and blinked. He liked that – which I thought he might.

“Position is measured in minutes and hours. When she said two minutes, she was referring to our position.” He paused to look down his pointy little nose at me. I was instantly back in college. “That is why it will take ten minutes to travel two minutes in position.”

He settled back with a self-satisfied look, folding his hands over his paunch.

“Do you think the captain will honk his hooter?” asked Thelma.

“Almost certainly,” said Dennis enthusiastically. “We should at the very least all give a cheer.”
I looked around at the other six sleepy tourists, sipping coffee and looking for all the world as though they could give a shit about crossing the equator.

“On the last cruise, we were all gathered on the deck,” began Thelma. “We were tracking our progress.” (I should point out that as she said ‘track our progress’ she sounded exactly like the president and sole member of the Science Club in High School.)

Dennis nodded excitedly. Since I sensed the tale was reaching its climax, I nodded too.

“But the captain honked his hooter nearly two hours early. He just wanted us to leave so he could get on with business. But we knew. We were tracking our progress.”

“Imagine that!” I said, aghast.

Dennis made a tisking sound and gave his head a sad little shake.

“Like we wouldn’t know he was lying?”

The three of us took a few seconds to contemplate the sad state of affairs the world has slid into when the captain of a south American ship prematurely honks his hooter. I broke the silence.

“So is there going to be a dotted white line?” I asked finally.

They both turned to look at me. I smiled back into blank faces – expecting at least a smile, if not gales of laughter.

“What?” asked Dennis.

“When we cross the equator will there be a dotted line?”

“There’s no line,” said Dennis evenly.

“No line,” agreed Thelma with a sharp birdlike nod.

“It’s on all the globes,” I said. “You can see it. There’s a line. Sometimes it’s solid. Sometimes it’s dotted. But there’s always a line.”

Thelma snorted. Not a pretty sound.

Dennis examined me for a long moment. “You’re having us on, eh?”

“Yes. I am,” I said.

Dennis made a sharp barking sound in what could only be considered a polite laugh. Thelma just glared at me. One of the sleepy passengers laughed out loud – bless his heart.

“Less than one minute,” said Thelma.

“What does that mean in terms of time?” I asked.

Dennis paused expansively and looked upward as he did the necessary calculations. “We are less than half a mile away from the equator. Roughly five minutes.”


“I do hope he hoots his hooter,” said Thelma.

“Me too,” I said.

They compared GPS settings and sure enough they were exactly the same.

“Three satellites are providing us the information right now,” said Dennis with an impressed looking shake of his head. “It’s really quite precise.”


“Less than one minute,” said Thelma.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” began Dennis. “May I have your attention please? We are about to cross the Equator. Perhaps we could do a countdown?”

Passengers on cruise ships are in a different state of mind. They will watch anything. Yesterday Sheree and I watched in rapt attention as a Filipino man did an ice sculpture demonstration, transforming a block of ice into a fish. It was mesmerizing. I actually applauded.

So crossing the equator was a pretty big deal.

“Less than thirty seconds,” Dennis announced.

“I hope he hoots his hooter,” said Thelma.

“I hope there’s a dotted line,” said I.

“FIVE…FOUR….THREE…TWO…ONE!”

Dennis gave a little whoop. Thelma pumped one fist in the air. I took a picture for you. It looks just like this.

That was it. No hooting hooters. No tap dancing dolphins. No change in the brown water.
Dennis and Thelma finished their celebrations and decided to go back to their cabins to lay down, presumably to recover from all the excitement.

Sheree and I took some pictures, swatted at a few bugs and then came here to write to you guys.

We get five hours on the legendary Devil's Island tomorrow. I have been looking forward to this since Sheree and I started talking about this trip in our bedroom ages ago. You remember Devil's Island, right? Steve McQueen and lepers and nasty prison guys.

I was really excited about being there. But I didn't know my most remarkable moments on Devil's Island would be spent with dead people. At the risk of sounding a little like a radio serial: I'll tell you about that tomorrow.

Travel Blog #10: Terror in St. Lucia

With apologies: I have been asked to keep these blogs a little shorter. I will do this...but the blog that follows is REALLY long because it details true jungle terror on St. Lucia, the port we visited today. I wrote it in our stateroom the same day it happened. So here it is, unvarnished and stark. I hope you enjoy it. I didn't.

The day felt bad from the very first waking moment.

Hands poking at me, fingers stabbing urgently into my skin and a way too fast rise out of deep sleep and into a cold and hostile world.

“Wha…” I stated with what seemed, at the time, commendable clarity.

“The door. Someone’s at the door,” hissed Sheree, who has the unsettling ability to wake up instantly, ready to pole vault out of bed and paint the house.

“Wha..?” I said again, since it was obvious that she hadn’t understood the first time.

“The food’s here,” she said.

I looked at her dully – which, trust me, was the absolute best I could do.

She rolled her eyes and stabbed a finger into my arm, which kind of hurt. “The food.”

I had a vague memory of ordering food for delivery at 6:30. I figured I would be awake at 5:30 and had visualized myself calm, collected and smiling as I greeted the little guy who delivers the food in the morning with a suave smile – not the hairy scary fella in underwear and a t-shirt, shambling to the door, stubbing his toes on everything, softly swearing, moving by pure force of will.

“I’d like to do the zip line today,” said Sheree – and not for the first time.

I made a non-committal noise as I had each time she’d mentioned it before. I don’t even like standing on a footstool in the safety of my own home. The thought of flinging myself off of a tower into sheer space ranks right up with a colonoscopy and a root canal on my “List of Things I Must Avoid.”

I studied my coffee cup as though one of the secrets of the universe was hidden there, shot a look at Sheree and saw her looking intently back at me. I hate that. Avoidance is not an option. So I made another non-committal noise, flashed my most winning smile and was rewarded only with that stony gaze.

“It’s something I really want to do,” she said evenly.

When forced to comment – I’d said that it was fine with me if she wanted to zip-line. I’d also said that I could stay on the ground where the possibility of soiling my own underwear is relatively low.

She was still looking at me.

“Are you coming or not?” she asked.

I frowned and tried to figure out a way to decline without looking like a little girl.

“Sure,” I said. “I’ll go.”

There’s a part of me that is eternally aghast at the stupid things I commit to. The internal conversation was instant and vehement: “Are you freaking NUTS? What did you just say? THINK about this! You’ll look like a suck for a minute…but death is forever. You moron. Idiot moron. Idiot moron poopypants. What the hell is wrong with you?”

The internal gibbering continued as I made a show of staring into my coffee cup. But sweat ran tiny ranting rivers under my arms and my smile at my wife lacked conviction.

“Really?” she asked.

I made the non-committal sound again and she rewarded me with a smile.

I don’t actually recall much about the “in between” part. I know that we hired a cab for the day (the hourly rate for most cabs is $25-$30 per hour, by the way) and I was aware only that each moment drew me closer to the zip-line.

I am a pretty big guy. Maybe there’s a weight restriction. I laid all my hopes at the feet of that one possibility and had nearly convinced myself that it would be so when we arrived. The cab driver was an efficient sort, getting us directly in touch with the zip line people, and costing himself half his tip in the process.

“I’m probably too big,” I said to the zip line guide. “Too big, right?”

He looked me over appraisingly. “No, mon. You’re fine.”

I glared at him and considered brandishing my wallet for emphasis. “Are you SURE?”
“If you can get the harness on – you can zip line,” he said with the air of someone granting another someone their fondest wish.

Hope was fading.

“Can I try a harness?” I asked. Already I was defeated. The one faint hope was that the harness would not fit.

“Yeah, mon,” he said. He sounded like a Jamaican instead of a Saint Lucean.

He winked at me in a hollow effort to reassure me. I swallowed.

He returned with a complicated mess of loops, steel thingies and nylon. He handed it to me and nodded encouragingly. I turned it over in my hand, looking dumbly at it. I caught his eye and raised my eyebrows in a “so what now?” gesture.

“I am kidding. I will help you.”

It took squeezing and pulling. We tightened and loosened. We cajoled. Okay: he squeezed, pulled, tightened and loosened and cajoled. I worked to counter purposes at each turn, taking deep breaths whenever it would make the harness tough to put on. If I could have increased the size of my thighs, I would have. The little bastard prevailed and eventually I stood in the harness, feeling like Charlie Brown after Lucy jerks the football away.

“See, mon?”

I looked over my outfit with a sinking heart.

“Isn’t this GREAT?” said my wife chipperly. (Yes. I know “chipperly” is not an actual word. But she did speak ‘chipperly.’ Honest.)

I nodded and wondered: if you fake a heart attack, does it start with the right arm or the left? Maybe I should just sprain my ankle. Maybe I could develop a sudden attack of narcolepsy. But I just stood there like a horse in a too tight saddle.

My bride put her hand on my arm: “You are going to love this, David.”

I smiled and swallowed back the bile creeping up my throat.

The first part of the zip line trip/ordeal/personal growing experience isn’t so hard. You get into a tram that takes you through the rainforest. It’s high. Really high. But you have the illusion of safety because the gondola is made of a sturdy looking metal. (Like that would protect you if the steel cable suddenly frayed and snapped and you plummeted hundreds of feet directly downward to a crashing mashed bloody screaming death.) I held tight to the guardrail, knowing without the slightest doubt that the worst was yet to come.

I took some pictures. I don’t remember them and I think most were out of focus.


We got out of the gondola, the safe precious gondola, and hiked into the rain forest. I truly understand how it must feel for a man walking toward his gallows. Each step is precious. The scent in the air is sweet and life is a wonderful gift. So precious.

“I can hardly wait,” enthused Sheree. Poor girl. At least the Lord gave me love before my life came to a crashing splattery death on some rainforest floor.

The walk ended too soon.

We stepped out of the trees and looked at a platform high above the ground. There was a steel cable soaring through the trees to another platform. They are kidding, right? Someone is gonna jump out of the trees any instant and say “GOTCHA! You didn’t actually think we were going to make you ride that thing, did you? HA! You should see the look on your face.”

The true horror of my predicament settled on me like a blanket when no one appeared..I looked at the nylon harness, listened to the laughter and chatter around me and wondered what in hell I had done to wind up at this exact point in my life: standing on a tiny platform waaaay off the forest floor, seconds from sailing over the rainforest at fifty miles an hour.
I suspect you may be sitting in your comfortable home reading this and thinking it sounds wonderful. Uh huh. It’s different when you are standing on a platform in a thin nylon harness.
The guide was speaking. Sounds were coming out of his mouth but they weren’t making sense. My brain wasn’t processing the information. He was showing us how to zip.

“What did you say?” I asked, my voice sounding far away from me.

The guide smiled: “You put your weak hand here,” he said, clamping it onto the harness. “Your other hand goes on top of the cable. You brake with your palm. Like this.”

The guide rested his hand on top of the cable and gently pressed it against the cable.

“That’s how you stop?” I asked.

The guide nodded. I think he had already identified me as the “problem guy on the tour who just might freak out at the top of a platform somewhere.”

“But don’t brake too soon. If you do, you’ll be stuck on the middle of the line.”

The guide held up his open hand, swaying it slowly from one side to another, to convey the idea of a body trapped on a cable. Trapped.

Oh
shit.

“Who’s first?” asked the guide.

Hands went up all around me. Morons all around me.

The first person was a sweet little thing from Romania. She weighed all of about a hundred pounds, mostly white teeth and blonde hair. She sailed across the distance like a pixie and landed on the opposite platform with grace. Everyone whooped and clapped.

Just like camp.

I hated camp.

“Next?” asked the guide.

I stepped onto the platform. Yes. It felt like there was someone else operating my body. But I really needed to get it over with. I really did. Backing out at this point would make me look like a coward in front of my wife. Somehow that seemed worse by far than simple death.

I stepped up on the platform and looked down. Bad idea. Have you seen those movies where the camera trains on the ground and then suddenly pulls back with sickening speed? That happened inside my brain. My head snapped up and I looked at cable stretching across the abyss.

Also a bad idea. Looking at anything at this point was a bad idea. Closing my eyes wasn’t an option. I was well and truly screwed.

The guide was strapping me onto the wire. I was thinking of every lethal injection scene from every awful movie. They strap you in so you can’t flop around like a fish frantically trying to draw life out of air.

My heart was beating inside my ear. My internal coward gibbered: “WHAT ARE YOU DOING? GET DOWN GET DOWN!!! You IDIOT!”

“Settle back,” said the guide.

“What?” I said. My word sounded sharp even to me. “What?”

“It’s like you are settling into a chair. Lean back.”

Oh my God.

I lean back, breath coming fast. The cable looks like a strand of silk to me. I feel like an elephant.

“Okay, mon. Let go and zip,” says the guide like he is giving me a great gift.

“What?” I said, stalling for time.

All eyes were on me. I didn’t care. I kept my butt cheeks clenched tight and chewed on my lips like a crazy person.

“Just step off the platform,” said the guide.

“Why?” I asked, panic tight in my voice.

Confusion crossed his face. “So you can zip.”

My nostrils flared. I mean they FLARED. I wondered briefly if there was any way out.

Then the madness came. I stepped off the platform and into nothingness. Seconds later, I sailed into very thin air. Holy freaking crap.

This is the proper time to say that something cut loose inside me – that I cried out in triumph and pumped my fist in the air – and that my companions on the other platform applauded and the music rose and the credits rolled.

All I can say is this: I did not pee in my pants. Much.

My wife was having the time of her life. I wasn't.

There were ten towers – each one a little higher and a little longer than the last.

I was first across nearly every time. There were ten towers. Ten zip lines. TEN.

Around the eighth tower the guide strapping my washboard stiff body onto cables looked at me: “At first I thought you were an eager beaver,” he said with a glint of sudden inspiration in his eye. “Now I see you just want to get it over with.”

I thought something very very unkind.

I nodded and took the moment to ask the question that had been burning in my mind.
“Do you really like this?” I asked. “This whole zip line thing?”

“Yeah, mon,” he replied with the same tone he’d use if I’d asked if the fall really would kill me.

“No. Really. I mean do you really like this?”

“Yeah, mon.”

I braced myself and prepared to sail off into my ninth potential oblivion.

“Have fun, Dave,” encouraged Sheree. My poor misguided bride of twenty plus years was STILL having a wonderful time. “C’mon! Holler when you go across this time.”


The sentiment was echoed by others on the platform.

I launched myself into the air and zipped in terrified silence across space. None of the previous trips had been this fast. The platform was coming up too fast. I braked too early and just as my feet touched the platform, I started falling backward.

“Help,” I squeaked weakly.

It was in that moment that the guide insured a tip. He caught me and pulled me in before anyone saw.

“Thank you,” I whispered and meant it.

“You’re doing fine, mon,” he said softly. “Almost done.”

“How many more?” I whispered.

“Two.”

“Okay. I can do two.”

So I did.

As we walked toward the tram for the return ride down, Sheree looked up at me, smiling brightly. The sunlight played across her face and her eyes sparkled. She crackled with life. She smiled at me. I smiled back at her and my heart did its familiar two-step.

“Wasn’t that great?” she said.

I made a non-committal sound but realized I was still smiling at my bride.

I have now zip-lined above the rain forest. Am I glad I did it? Sure.

Would I like to do it again? Not while there is breath in my body.

Travel Blog #9: Seeking Heaving Bosoms and Voodoo Priests in Dominca

"You're going to Dominica?" asked my friend.

"Yup," I said. "Dominica. Cool, huh?"

I am the only person I know who still says 'cool.' But I have to tell you, that going to Dominica for me eased into the "way cool" category a long time ago.

"Be careful there," said my friend. "There are a lot of pickpockets and the food can make you really sick."

I nodded and asked him what parts of Dominica he had been to.

"Well I haven't actually been there. But you hear stuff," he added with a significantly arched eyebrow.

I nodded and made a mental note to ignore every additional piece of advice he offered in the future. Still I would have been reluctant to give the real reason for why I was so looking forward to seeing Dominica. I suspect it would only make sense to me. But here it is anyway.

When I was a kid, I was a constant reader. And in one of the books that consumed my attention, there was a hero who had opened a sugar cane plantation there, only to have his lady love abducted by voodoo priests. There followed a wonderful narrative of guys skulking around in the dark, midnight rituals, hidden caves and lots of heaving bosoms. This book took place on Dominica and it instantly became a breathlessly exotic place in my mind. I have wanted to go there ever since and as we cruised into port, I could barely contain myself.

We ran into nary a single voodoo priest (or a heaving bosom for that matter) but my first impressions of Dominica were splendid. This is a rugged place and the aura of mystery could have been a part of my own expectant invention -- but it felt like a perfect setting for an adventure.

Enter Louis. We were casting about for a cab driver that looked like he would be able to give us a great look at this little island -- and along came Louis. He was an angular black man with an easy smile and a shirt loud enough to be seen from outer space.

"Welcome," he said. "Can I show you the island?"

It was done. We hit the highway for a day of great pictures, wonderful people encounters and lovely weather.

As we left the main city, the first thing I noticed is that the roads here are rutted, narrow and place unreasonable expectations on the skill levels of the drivers. Plus they drive on the left side of the street, a sensation I never quite got over. I often pumped my non-existant brakes (which provided the easy-going Louis with no end of entertainment) and came dangerously close to soiling myself on more than one occasion as we whipped around a mountain curve directly in the path of an ancient truck lumbering directly toward us.

The image at the top of this blog interested me.

"What's this?" I asked Louis.

"It's called 'Red Man,'" he responded with a mysterious smile.

My heart quickened. Red man? Could it be some arcane sign? Was some creepy old voodoo guy marking his territory? Memories of my book came back, washing over me.

"What's it about?" I asked as evenly as I could manage.

Louis shrugged. "Maybe some guy gets drunk and comes here with a paint brush."

That crashing sound you just heard was my imagination coming back down to earth. But it was a very cool (whoops there's that word again) image. Maybe the photo doesn't show you the scale: but the nose of the image is a jutting rock and all the additional writing looks Christian in nature. You see "Jah" all over the place in Dominica. It's the shortened familiar form of Jehovah, one of the names of God.
Louis took us to beaches and small villages. The image to the left was taken during a mini-trek into the jungle. You really can feel the rain forest here. It's like a humid presence pressing in around you. (See? I have not totally given up on the voodoo priest/heaving bosoms thing.)

What amazes me is the variety and intensity of life on Dominica. We're not even in the Amazon yet -- but there is so much life on Dominica. You can smell it. You can sense it. You can hear it -- the air hums with it.

Everything seems to coexist with everything else. The vine grows on the tree to the left. The tree feeds on the rich soil. Insects feed on the tree and birds spread the seeds. I stood there for a long moment in a place where the canopy of trees was so thick I could not see the sun, and really wondered at the perfect balance life has struck in this place.

The air is, very literally, sweet. There's green growing magic all around you. You take a deep breath and it's not unlike being in the mountains on a perfect morning. There's a sharpness to the air, like the air itself is an active part of the living forest.


The towns are a stark contrast to the jungle. They teem with people: little people in very english looking school uniforms, merchants, travellers -- men sitting together watching the people and the time pass with equal degrees of experienced disinterest.

There are merchants selling everything from beer to souvenirs. There is fresh fruit everywhere and juice and meat, covered with hungry flies.

Dominica was wonderful. Earthy and gritty and lovely enough that I decided to forgive it for failing to produce voodoo priests.

This was the third port day in a row. We were up early and onto the tender boat or the dock each time. We really put a lot into the ports. I am getting just a little tired. The world has taken on this etherial glow. We wake up, go to a place we've never been before and go back to the neverland of the ship for a meal and to cut pictures. The next morning we are in a new place where the whole drill repeats itself. It's wonderful...but I am not at all opposed to the sea days that come our way after tomorrow's port.