Travel Blog #16: Manaus Morning

Have you heard of Manaus?

I hadn’t until shortly before we left and I traced my finger on a map down Brazil’s Amazon River to Manaus with the breathlessly excited thought: “I’m going there.”

Manaus was once the richest city on the planet. Henry Ford wanted to exploit the rubber trade – and business tycoons by the dozen were created here. The expression: "Lighting your cigar with one hundred dollar bills" was birthed here too…because they made a point of doing it.

Not much of that grandeur remains today. There’s the Manaus opera house of course: Italian marble, handcrafted décor. It is said that the small road out front of the opera house was covered in rubber so that the carriages rumbling by with their loads of rich music fans wouldn’t make a sound on the cobblestones and so disturb the patrons within.

Manaus is a place of stark contrasts: there are opulent mansions still – and ramshackle slums of abject poverty. One point eight million people live here in relative peace.

The ship pulls slowly into the port and I stand on the balcony savoring the moment because I know this will be the last time for this trip that I am on a moving ship. We dock here and stay overnight. But tomorrow we leave. Our bags are packed and they sit like 900 pound gorillas in the middle of our stateroom.

I don’t dwell on it too long because it’s not a day for those kinds of thoughts. It’s a FULL day excursion. We’re going to take a tour of the town. We are going to have a look at the opera house. We’re going to take a river ride – and then go on a walk through the jungle to a real Amazon village. We are going to finish the day by going out onto the river in the dark of night hunting caiman – the indigenous alligators.

Who could be sad with all that coming up? (You just shush.)

We file off the ship with bright orange stickers on our shirts. They say “H3” in big letters. They identify us as tour members but they annoy me to no end for reasons I cannot articulate.

The bus is waiting and as we step from ship to bus, I have my first misgiving. We are being handled and I wonder if we will ever be allowed to see the real Brazil. I don’t much want to be insulated.

But I was on my way to a day I will remember for the rest of my life. It was a day when Brazil, in all it’s electric beauty touched me.

Sheree and I pile into a tour bus. It’s an odd bus because it has a locking door between the passengers and the driver. It creeps me out at first – but the guide, a pinch faced little man, explains that the door exists so we can enjoy air conditioning.

…okay, I think…

There are only ten of us on the bus – so I spread out on the back seat. I can shoot out of either window as we travel and I do. Manaus is a riot of color and people and activity. There are signs and cars and bustling commerce. The streets are choked with people and buildings. Music is played loud on every corner and there’s an affable disorder to it all.

It’s raining steadily and I shoot out of the windows and try to make the rain work for me. There are some wonderful bokeh effects that just occur when you focus on the drops and let the background blur.

We arrive at the Manaus opera house and the guide puts on his serious face. He looks at us, every one of us, directly in the eye and raises a finger. I have a flash memory of school field trips.

“We were not allowed to bring tourists into the opera house for a very long time,” he says. My ears have adjusted to his heavy accent and I can actually understand most of what he says now. “The opera house is very par-tic-oo-lar (this is the word, yes?) about people inside. You may take photos,” he pauses to look significantly at Sheree and me – as we have already been identified as ‘potential problem photographers’ – “But no flash photography. They get, how do you say, very irr-ra-tet-ed. The flash destroys paint. If you do not know how to put your flash off, give me your camera and I do it for you.”

He pauses again and looks pointedly at me. I smile disarmingly. My smile says “I know my camera, pal. You may trust me. Besides, you will only be able to get it by prying it from my cold dead fingers.”

He arches his eyebrows, still looking at me. I nod. I smile. He looks away. Finally.

There is a courtyard beside the opera house. It is a complex black and white tile, designed to simulate the ebb and flow of waves on the ocean. The guide drones on and I stop to take pictures of it. Frankly, the mosaic is much more interesting than the talk…and I am feeling a little teenager-ish from the unspoken rebuke. Like I don’t know how to use my own camera. Pffft.

We enter the opera house and it is grand, indeed. There are rooms in this place that took fifteen YEARS to complete. Stone, marble, wood – textiles were brought in from all over the world. There is a rumor that Caruso sang here. The real story is that someone said “malaria” to him, and he took off.

We go through the lobby and into the theater. There’s low light here – and I suppress my flash – and crank the ISO. I start shooting.

There are things that happen with technology that seem too precisely timed to be pure happenstance. This has never happened before or since but as I raised the camera to my eye to take the seventh image, the flash goes off.

There is a collective gasp from the assembled group and the guide is glaring at me. I hold up my hand to acknowledge that I am the Flash Criminal and will take sure and certain steps to correct the situation. The gesture asks for mercy from the Opera House Police. The guide nods tightly and continues talking about something. I suppress the flash again and continue shooting.

Have you ever seen what a camera does when it is trying to focus on something in low light? The flash goes off in tight sharp bursts.

For no apparent reason, a circumstance I have not been able to repeat since that day, a bursting flashing “HEY EVERYONE! Look at me for I am the moron with THE OBNOXIOUS FLASH” screamed into the otherwise hushed silence. After what seems like several years, the panicked responses from my brain, reach my finger and I lift it off the shutter button. The flashes stop, although their presence resounds with echos of light in their wake.

I do not often feel a flush burning my cheeks. But I did then.

“See? You really should read your camera manual,” chides Sheree helpfully. She seems to be enjoying this just a little more than she should.

I am about to respond with something both flushed and cutting when there is a whoosh of air and the guide is standing beside us with a horrified skeletal grin frozen on his face.

“Do you want me to rip that camera out of your hands, you bottom-feeding lowlife stupid tourist waste of skin?” his expression says.

“Can I help you turn off your flash?” he asks through clenched teeth just behind the fake smile.

“No,” I say. “I’ll do it.”

He stands there while I suppress the flash…again. To this day, I have no idea why it was flashing. I change the setting to Shutter Mode and turn the flash off.

He luxuriates in one last “I will feed you your own liver if you continue to embarrass me” fake smile and then he turns on his heel and stalks away. His manner makes it obvious there are far more worthy people who deserve his attention.

I sit in my seat. Low. I point the camera down at the floor and half press the shutter button, just to check. Nothing. It focuses. No problem. No flash. I heave a sigh and remind myself that all technology is inherently evil.

I see a wall ornament I like and I turn the camera toward it. Tentatively I press on the shutter button. There’s a crisp click as the flash pops up, ready to do it's job. No. Not ready. EAGER.

Shit.

Shit shit shit.

Shit.

I mutter something else unkind and wander out of the theater into where there is more light and less intense scrutiny.

Next is the room that took fifteen years to build. I wonder if we will be allowed to actually walk on the floor.

I meant it as one of those little jokes I tell myself -- but it turns out we weren't going to be allowed onto the floor.

See the people here? We were all issued booties lest our unclean feet scuff the woodwork.

Having said this admittedly snotty thing, I must say this was one very cool room. It dripped elegance and money in equal amounts. The bootie things were huge (one size fits all, I suppose) but the result was that if you wanted to get from point A to point B, you needed to move in little shuffling steps. I was thinking of zombies in search of human brains to devour...or vastly overmedicated patients on a day pass from The Home.

If your bootie slipped off, you were screwed -- because you'd have to balance like a stork on one leg until you got your foot back in. I know this from personal experience. Most of the tour group was already conditioned to keep one eye on me for the next entertaining thing that I would do.

I didn't care. I took lots of pictures for the sheer joy of taking pictures. Sheree and I both saw an ornate mirror and seized the opportunity to take our portraits at the same time. Unfortunately we can’t get our booties into the shots.

As we leave the opera house, the rain is falling in a steady drizzle, and I go back to the wave thingie courtyard to finish my pictures. The rest of the people follow the guide.

Sheree is waiting by the bus.

We both wait there. It seems to be taking a long time.

I take a hard look at the bus.

“This is where it dropped us off, right?” I ask.

Sheree rolls her eyes. “Yes, Dave.”

We stand there some more.

“I’m going up this way for a minute,” I say. I have begun to suspect this is not our bus, but I don’t want to say anything in case I am wrong. (I am frequently wrong.)

I walk across the courtyard and peer around the corner of the opera house. The guide is standing there in the steady rain in beside our bus.

Crap.

He has obviously been looking for me because he sees me right away and begins waving his arms wildly to attract my attention. I presume he thinks I am so deep in my idiot stupid tourist fog he must take extreme measures to get my attention.

I wave back in my most carefree manner and saunter toward him.

“We were waiting by the wrong bus,” I say.

His look, of course, says something completely different than what comes out of his mouth. On the off chance children will be reading this, I won't attempt an interpritation. But the visual message was a stark contrast to the words spoken which were: “No problem…sir.”

He decides to have the bus drive around the block to pick up Sheree and we walk together in silence.

I think he probably still hates me.

That’s the morning. We’re on our way to a river ride next. I don’t know it – but we are about to meet one of those Wonderful Life Characters…and lay the groundwork for coming back here one day.

The river ride is spectacular. I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.

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 #6: St. Barth's

Eddie Murphy spent New Year’s Eve in St Barth on his boat. Other travelers have seen Tom Cruise, Denzel Washington and a ton of other luminaries. Apparently they come here because the climate’s great, nasty tropical hurricanes rarely hit here and the prices on everything are high enough to keep the riff raff away.

The last time the ship was in port, there were over two thousand yachts in the harbor. We’re not talking your twenty foot skiff either. We’re talking multi-million dollar yachts like you expect to see really wealthy places. These have their crewmembers in white pressed linen and their passengers seated on chairs so comfortable that you can’t imagine ever wanting to move.

During the “At Sea” days, we developed a great relationship with a few crew members. This is a great idea, by the way. They’ve been back to the port often enough to know it well. Once they believe you aren’t a jerk, they are very friendly and often supply great information. One of these crewmembers is a deck attendant named Adrian. He’s from Croatia.

“Going to St. Barth’s tomorrow?” he asked with the kind of sly smile designed to spark the obvious question.

“Yup,” said I. “Why?”

“Take your charge cards. Oi! Very expensive!”

He made a flapping motion with his hand.

“Are we talking “oi” expensive or “Oh-my-God” expensive?” I asked.

Adrian paused to consider this. Then he smiled: “What is higher than “Oh my God?”

We tendered into the port the next morning anyway, glad to be off the ship for a while and instantly got the same feeling that came through loud and clear in Monte Carlo: this is where rich people live. And they don't like you much. They know you are there, of course, and they are happy to feed on the little bits of money you spend (which is how they got rich in the first place, I guess) – but there is a chasm between them and us and the bridge between us was torn down and dynamited a long time ago.

Our destination speaker told us that many of the shops actually close when cruise ships are in town since they don’t want the browsers wasting their time. We’re talking about shops that sell two thousand dollar shirts and women’s dresses that run upwards of $20,000 USD. (You wouldn’t want to get a chicken gravy stain on one of those babies.)
The place drips money and just a touch of scorn.

We arrived in port, and stood there for a minute drinking it in. An old guy approached us almost instantly.

“Do you want to split a cab?” he asked, introducing himself as Joe. “They are so pricey. We thought we could split the fare with another couple.”

He spoke very loudly and I saw two huge hearing aids that looked a little like tumors sticking out of each ear.

“Yes,” said Sheree instantly. “Let’s do it!”

So we piled into a cab run by Celine – a woman who claimed to be fluent in English. She was pleasant enough: but most of the commentary was confined to: “Over der une building.”

We sat and waited for more information. There wasn’t any. Yup. It’s a building alright.

There was great beauty in the places she showed us. The roads were narrow, but very expensive looking little cars zipped over them with ease.

I guess the thing that bugged me just a little was that everyone looked so well coiffed. Even the blue jeans were pressed, and that’s just a law against nature. You have the notion that even the jeans that have holes in the knees were put there on purpose before they were sold by some little guy in a sweatshop somewhere who probably wondered what the heck was wrong with people who wanted holes put into perfectly good pants. Isn’t it perverse that one of the fashions of the rich is to look poor?

I didn’t have the sense that there was anything wild left on St. Barth…and those things that looked wild were first domesticated and then re-created into the image of what people would expect to find on a tropical island.

Napoleon “discovered” this island and named it for his brother. (Here’s another strange thing: how come places are only “discovered” when white people get there? Didn’t the ‘natives’ count? They were already there…so….??)

But St. Barth landscapes were breathtaking and the marinas well stocked with yachts.

We paused at an ice cream shop and got two very small gelatos and a bottle of water. Total cost: $22 USD. At first I thought he was kidding. But he just smiled and put out his hand. Yikes!

Part of the challenge of travel, for me anyway, is to try very hard to set aside negativity and enter willfully into enjoying a place. This is something Sheree does quite naturally. But it doesn’t come easy to me. I tend to keep seeing only the stuff that bugs me.

It was on this trip however that I got over my uneasiness with a polarizing lens. I bought this little wonder a year ago, played around with it and concluded it wasn’t going to work for me.
But polarizing lenses are wonderful for reflective subjects. Once the filter is attached to your lens, you’ll notice that an outer part of the filter can be turned with your fingers. Point the camera at water or sky (or in this case a deep hued chain), turn the outer ring, and you will see the subject darken. It’s the same effect as looking out at the world through very cool sunglasses where you can adjust the lenses at will.

If you point a polarizing lens at water, the fish become clearer. You can shoot through glass much more easily. Before long I was shooting most things with a polarizing lens. You just have to keep in mind that your subject really determines whether you use one. And it is going to mess up your camera exposures, so be prepared to play around and bracket your shots.

So we pulled away from St. Barth’s happy enough that we’d come here. We saw nary a celebrity. But we did see David Letterman’s house from a distance. And that should be enough for anyone, huh?

We go to Tobago tomorrow.

Travel Blog #5: Sea Days

Life on a cruise ship is split into two kinds of “days.” A “Port Day” means you get off the boat and see stuff. A “Sea Day” means you are going to spend the day on the ocean going somewhere. We’ve got a couple of “Sea Days” coming up.

The ship plans activities from the lame to the really lame to cover the time at sea – which is why I use the time to process pictures, write, eat and hang out. Sea days are a real pleasure after you’ve been to several ports in a row. Since on Port Days we start first thing in the morning and work to get off the ship as soon as possible – and get back on as late as possible (usually with just enough time to cut photos and then fall exhausted into bed) these are really busy days.

This is a very small cruise ship as cruise ships go. We’re on the Pacific Princess, which, if you are as old as me, you will remember was the ship on the classically awful series “The Love Boat.” They show re-runs of that series here all day and some of the places look familiar.

Activities that looked really stupid when you got on the ship become quite interesting as sea days pass. One of the highlights of one at sea day was a screening of “Mama Mia” – starring Meryl Streep and a host of others. You could not have gotten me into this movie with a shotgun to the face before…but now I can hardly wait. There’s an ice carving demonstration later that I may check out as well.

Some ships offer courses in computers, Photoshop, guest lectures, destination speakers (people who dispense the straight poop about places you are about to go) and a bunch of courses in everything from western line dancing, ceramics to bow tying. (If I ever go to any of these, please please just shoot me.)

You can also sit on the balcony and watch the world pass by. These are my feet on the rails.

Here’s always a casino, bingo, art auctions, tons of bars and more. There are shops and a pool with deck chairs. There’s a pizza place, an ice cream parlor and a buffet. There’s a library and a card room. There’s also an Internet café where you must simply agree to turn over all you earnings for the next twelve years in order to get onto the web.

You’d think it’s impossible to get bored, right?

It is.

There’s an amiable peaceful Neverland feeling to it all. You have merely to pick up the phone and order food – and minutes later, it’s delivered to your room. We started each day with a carafe of great coffee and a pitcher of ice water with lemon.

Sounds cool, huh?

It is.

The hours slide together and soon you are in a happy place where you are not sure what day it is. You gage the passage of time by the position of the sun in the sky and the meal or activity you are currently planning.

At night there are shows and music and a night club not to mention supper in the formal dining room.

The “formal dinner” puts you back in touch with the same people at the end of each day. There are four courses served and this meal can be one of the day’s highlights as you chat and laugh with new friends – or a horror. It all depends on who you are seated with.

This cruise put is in touch with Jack and Jenny (not their real names, by the way.) These two are out of Vancouver and are really experienced cruisers. They are travelling with Jenny’s father: Frank. Frank served in World War II as a fighter pilot. He’s still got a sharp mind – but he needs to go slower and he has hearing aids that make talking with him sound a bit like a friendly shouting match. I really liked Frank. He wore his medals proudly and he told wonderful stories about the war and the people he served with.

Jack’s favorite topic is Jack. He has an opinion on everything, even if it is a subject he’s never heard of before. If you have been to the hospital for a routine operation, Jack has operated on himself and successfully removed his own brain tumor. If you are into Photoshop (like me), Jack used to use it but has moved on to more sophisticated software since then. Actually he’s designing software that will make all other software obsolete, despite the fact that he is an electrician by trade.

You try very hard not to make eye contact with Jack because he will talk to you. Even when your eyes glaze over and you start tying your own noose, attaching it to the nearest rafter, he will keep talking. I have the idea that he would continue discussing himself with my softly swaying no longer kicking corpse.

Jenny doesn’t have much to say. She’s a realtor in Vancouver and she makes all the arrangements for their trips together…arrangements Jack does little except complain about. She even cuts his meat and picks lobster meat out of the shell for him.

They have decorated their metal cabin door with magnetic stuff, including a Canadian moose. If you squeeze the hand of the moose it plays “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer.” It’s their doorbell. Jack thinks it is hysterically funny. Every time.

We were invited to their suite for a ‘cocktail party.’ Since we were at sea that day, any distraction was welcome and we went.

Their suite was a mirror image of ours. We were at the back of the boat and they were at the front. We had a relatively smooth ride. Theirs was a lot roughter.

“Ask me why I am wearing these sea bands,” said Jack, brandishing his wrists in my face.
“To keep from getting sea sick?” I offered weakly, realizing that this whole cocktail party had probably been a really bad idea.

Jack nodded and cast a sly look Jenny’s way. “Bingo. Now ask me why I have to worry about being seasick,” he demanded.

I offered him a blank look. It seemed pretty obvious to me…

“Because a certain someone booked our cabin at the front of the ship,” said Jack with perfectly synchronized jerks of head and thumb toward the hapless looking Jenny. “Betcha you two have a smoother ride at the back.”

I made a show of considering this. Jack didn’t care.

“All night. Up and down. Up and down,” he said, sticking his tongue between his teeth, cocking his head to one side and making a loud gagging sound for effect.

I nodded and looked around the room to signal the conversation was over.

He continued talking and I continued nodding and making interested noises.
The desk in their suite was occupied with cans of pop and huge…and I do mean HUGE – bottles of liquor.

“Ask me how much I paid for those bottles,” asked jack.

I considered faking a heart attack.

“I have no idea,” I said.

“Go on. ASK,” said Jack.

“I really don’t --” I said.

Jack punched me in my arm, a little harder than he had to.

“C’mon,” he said. “Guess.”

I sighed. “Six hundred dollars?”

“HA!” said Jack. “Ten dollars a bottle. We go to the PX on the base with Dad here,” he gestured toward Frank. For the first time, although not the last, I wondered if Frank actually had any hearing problems or if he was faking them. I would have.

I looked around the cabin. Jenny had put suction cups on the mirror so they could hang their matching Australian bush hats there. Said bush hats were covered with pins from all over the world. I worked very hard to control rampant envy. (If Sheree and I ever get “samie” hats, just shoot me.) Then I caught Jenny’s eye looking at me looking around their cabin, reminded myself I was a guest in their home and felt like a shithead.

“We scrapbook,” said Jenny half apologetically.

Suddenly I liked Jenny. She was a gentle soul but she had a look about her that looked worn down. Tired. She told us that on the sea days she and “Dad” and Jack got together to cut photos and paste them into scrapbooks she had purchased for that purpose. She opened a Tupperware container and showed me her carefully kept scrapbooking kit. I kept her talking because as long as she did, Jack was silent.

You meet people on a small ship. And photographers draw other photographers to them. We found ourselves shooting beside a spare woman of about 50 from Germany, who specialized in horse pictures. We talked at length with a geography teacher from England who was videotaping the trip for her students. Even the ship comedian had a brand new Canon 5D. He was everywhere with it. There was a guy from California, a software designer from Intuit, who also had a 5D…and no idea how to use it.

On a small ship there are people you nod to, people you’ve exchanged a few pleasantries with and people you’ve spent some time with.

And the Pacific Princess is a very small ship as cruise ships go.

Tomorrow we are putting into St. Barth’s – playground of the really rich and famous.

I am absolutely ready to get off this ship.

Travel Blog #4: Ship Stuff

The key words to getting onto a cruise ship are "submit to the processing." You get onto a bus with a bunch of other people who look just slightly confused and really hungry. One guy told me he hadn't had more than three meals in the four days so he could get his money's worth out of the cruise. He was all a-quiver at the idea of getting at the buffet.

No sound system on any cruiseline bus really works. The person imparting the information usually sounds like Mickey Mouse on steroids talking through a pound cake. But they smile as they speak. It's not so awful because you know you are in the arms of the cruise ship company and will stay there until you get off the boat.

You get into a line-up with everyone else and baby-step through the whole process. For this cruise you must have a visa from Brazil as well as certification that you've had your Yellow Fever shots.

The woman doing the processing was Rita, who was professionally cheerful.

"What happens if someone has forgotten to get a Brazillian visa?" I asked, making conversation.

Rita froze. "You do have a visa," she said with dread in her voice.

"Sure I do."

"Sometimes we can get them to the Brazillian embassy in time."

"And if you can't?" I asked.

Rita looked crestfallen. "They can't get on the ship. No way."

I nodded. "Has it happened before?"

She dropped her eyes. "Yes."

We give them credit cards to cover all our purchases onboard and are awarded a cruise card. This is the most important card in your life for the next two weeks. You need it to buy anything, to get on and off the ship -- to get drinks. Without the card, I think they throw you overboard. (I'll bet they apologize first -- but they feed you to the sharks anyway.)

Then there's that first moment of looking into your stateroom. Ours was wonderful.


As I stood on the balcony with Sheree, I had visions of sitting on the plastic chair provided, snapping shots of colorful birds and smiling natives as we cruised slowly down the Amazon.

"Keep your balcony door CLOSED," said Mary Rose, our cabin steward, appearing in our room. She's from somewhere in the Philipines, as are most cruise ship staff. She's got a broad smile and a warm manner.

"Why?" asked Sheree.

"The bugs in the Amazon are drawn to the light. You will see them all over the glass doors. I spent hours killing bugs. Please please keep the balcony door closed when we get to the Amazon."

"All over the doors?" I asked.

She nodded emphatically. "All over the doors."

Mary Rose paused at the door and looked at me "ALL over the doors."

I nodded.

Message ingrained on my mind. I have a new image there: me battling eight foot grasshoppers.

I have this wonderful tickling excitement happening in spite of images of snakes and cannibals and things that go "Buzz Snap Snarl" in the dark. I am going to countries I have never been to before. I am in a good place.

Even as the ship sails away and the ship band "Alaska" launches into a real whitebread version of "I Will Survive" (which I do my best to tune out) I see people all around me with the same smiles on their faces.

We're all at the start of a long journey. We are going to the Amazon. What could be better?

The pictures: The fellow on the top is at a safety drill in which every passenger must participate. Here you see everyone on the ship from the dancers to the shop clerks wearing the same awful orange life-jackets and expecting you to do the same.

That's Sheree in the middle image on our balcony. Try to tell me she doesn't feel the same excitement. The last image is of a couple I saw sitting by the pool together.

Travel Blog #3: Waiting in Fort Lauderdale

Fort Lauderdale is full of old people. They sleep a lot. They sleep in comfy lobby chairs. They sleep by the pool and start turning the most alarming shades of red. They even sleep in restaurants between courses.

Usually it’s the women taking care of the men. They pass them pills and hand them stuff their men have put down and forgotten. The women make arrangements at the front desk for the rooms while the men stand silently looking like mildly confused lizards and wait to be told where to go and what to do.

During meals the guys don’t say much. Usually they fix their attention on the plate of food in front of them. When they comment it’s usually just a few words, but they don’t look up.


This hotel looked ideal on the Internet. Great rates, breakfast and just minutes away from Fort Lauderdale’s cruise ship terminal. None of the pictures made it look like a holding facility for old people.

The problem is that it’s not close to anything. It’s parked in an industrial area and we get to it so late that it’s really not worth going out to take pictures since night is falling. So we decide, with very low expectations, to try the hotel restaurant. I usually hate hotel restaurants. They’re not exotic and they seem so awfully bland. This particular hotel restaurant is outstanding.
They offer a HALF POUND cheeseburger. Since I am about to get onto a cruise ship, and need to watch what I eat, this is what I order. And I eat it all.


Outside there are some very limited photo opportunities. A billboard catches my attention, not because of anything except the way the tree seems to have formed to suit the curve of a shark fin. I am bored enough to take several images here, much to the merry amusement of the hotel staff who have seen most things this world has to offer – but have never seen a guy in a great Tilley hat concentrate on eight million different angles to shoot a billboard. Little do they know.

I hate flower pictures. I really do. Yeah yeah – they are pretty. But there so many of them out there. I saw this red one (and no, I have no idea what it’s called) and started using my macro lens. I took several shots but they weren’t very interesting. So I took several different exposures and made it into an HDR image.

Tomorrow we get up early and board the cruise ship bound for the Amazon.

I am really excited about this.

Can you tell?

You guys ready to come along?

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year...

Yup. It's a holiday classic, isn't it? Andy Williams warbling his way through "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year." The song was recorded before I was born and has played every year since.

Let me tell you about the last time I heard it. It was about five days ago. I was in an elf costume about to do a show in a downtown restaurant. There were, of course, two significant things figuring into my particular situation at that moment:

1) A six foot tall guy lugging sound equipment and magic props through downtown streets invariably attracts notice...as well as the odd rude comment and/or slack-jawed stare, which is why I make a point of whistling Jingle Bells REAL loud.

2) Since it was -28, I really just wanted to stay in the car. Where it was warm. And strangers don't point and laugh. And a cold wind doesn't freeze the important stuff under my tunic -- which, come to think of it, is a really stupid notion for "clothing to give someone who lives at the North Pole." (I suspect Santa gives his little people tunics to ensure they stay inside.)

But it is being a magician and special events fella at Christmas time that enables my wife and me to hit the TRULY "Most Wonderful Time of the Year." I am speaking specifically about that golden period between Christmas and New Year.

What makes this time of year so special?

It's the time when the work is done and Sheree and I are joyfully getting ready for our Big January Trip. It's what I look forward to throughout the Christmas season. Last year we were off to Australia and New Zealand. It was a classic. We met wonderful people, took great photos and did some serious travelling. (I see a tremendous difference, by the way, between "travel" and "vacation." Vacationers rest. Travel isn't restful. It's an experience that takes you to places you'll never see sleeping in or grazing a buffet. Travel makes you tired...and happy...and, well, awed.)

In two short days, both of us get on a plane to Fort Lauderdale -- and will board a cruise ship bound ultimately for the Amazon River and Manaus -- deep inside Brazil.

THIS is one of the best parts of the trip. This is when we pack up clothes and photography equipment. My wife makes lists. It's when I ask her if everything on the list is really necessary. She just sighs and continues packing.

It's when we buy colorful money from a nation we've never been to, because we are going there...it's when we both feel a joyful anticipation over where we are going and who we will meet, the places we'll see and the food we'll eat.

I LOVE this part. I really do. It's the difference between being a kid and looking in anticipation at the glittering tree and being that same kid on Christmas afternoon, after the presents have been unwrapped and all the mysterious rattles revealed. We are, right now, in that happy travel state of having no idea what's going to happen...with the whole trip before us.

Why am I telling you all this stuff?

Because I'd like you to come along. Here's my proposal: let's take the trip together. I'll take pictures and think hard about how to tell you about the things we see and the people we meet. And I will send you blogs at every possible location...every day if I can.

Yup. It's true that I get to do the fun parts. (Which is only fair since, y'know, I was the guy in the elf suit freezing his bells off to pay for this trip.) But I'd really like to share this with you.

So get out your sun screen and a trashy novel. Reserve a deck chair near the pool and consider yourself invited along on a cruise to ports we've never heard of, down the Amazon River and finishing everything up with a few days poking around Key West, Florida.

How does that sound?

You want to come along? I hope so...because you're invited.

When Photographers go Cruising...

I like cruising. You don't have to unpack three times a week, the food you eat will not kill you and there are lots of people nearby to bring you cool drinks and herd you toward the next buffet.

I hate cruising because you just don't get very long in each port (usually about a day), sometimes your formal dinner table companions are just slightly more animated than drying spackle and all of the "extra fee" options you can pick up during those "at sea" days can really make for a nasty surprise when the bill comes due.

But on the balance -- I love cruising. Since Sheree and I will be celebrating New Year's eve by sitting on a runway to start a trip that will ultimately take us down the Amazon, cruising is on my mind. Having braved a number of cruises over the years, I have come to the conclusion that there are FIVE RULES for GETTING GREAT SHOTS ON CRUISES. Here they are:

1) Take a Power Bar. The people who design cruise ship staterooms think one plug-in for two photographers is plenty. It's not. Take a power bar with at least four additional plug-ins so you can power those batteries and laptops. This keeps you from having to make the decision of whether or not to throw your companion overboard so you can definately hit the next port with two charged batteries.

2) Do Your Research. The great thing about taking a cruise is that you know where you're going in advance. The internet is a WEALTH of great information on the places you are going. You will need to be well organized and decide IN ADVANCE where you want to shoot.

Local people can be a great resource. Don't be afraid to take a cab. The fellow in the image above is a cab driver in NZ who gave us a truly wonderful day. His name's Lance and he took us to vineyards and some of the most amazingly beautiful places only locals know about. Cabs are more expensive...but they can be truly wonderful.

3) Dilly Dally at Your Peril. You'll want to be the FIRST off the ship or the first in line for the tender boat. (Sometimes cruise ships need to ferry the passengers off the ship and to shore in tender boats. This results in LONG lines and a ton of wasted photography time.) Get there first, using elbows if necessary, to get off the ship before the aggressive people do. Those extra ten minutes of sleep can cost you BIG when the line up forms.

4) Don't Be Afraid of Excursions. These are extra cost "tours" available when you are in a port. (The image above is from one of the Great Excursions of All Time: a Lord of the Rings tour we took in New Zealand. It's written about elsewhere in this blog...seek and you may find it, Frodo.) If you buy them from the cruise ship company you can count on two things: they are going to be more expensive, and they will take good care of you. The cruise ship will wait for you if a cruise-line tour runs late. But you'll see a pile of tour operators waiting for you at each port. Some operators are wonderful...some aren't. But if they don't get you back to the ship on time, you will need to borrow a snorkel set from the guide because the ship will be gone.

5) Be Nice. Be nice to your cabin steward, the locals in the ports, the tour guides you use. Be nice to the shop-keepers and the kids selling chicklets to the tourists. Talk to them before you take their picture...and don't be cheap. Give them a couple of bucks for posing. You may even try your hand at speaking their language. Whenever I do, it provides everyone with hours of amusement.

5a) Don't Be Stupid. You are in a foreign land. In many cases you won't speak the language. It probably isn't a good idea to follow that scurvy looking guy down a dark alleyway for a shot. If your gut is telling you "no" don't go. Stay where the people are. You need to be alert and stay alert. This means it's also not a good idea to get loaded when you are in a port. Your pictures will come out blurry and crooked...and you will probably get rolled and/or lost on your way back to the ship.

5b) Don't be a Pansy. You travel to meet people and have an adventure. The idea here is simply not to get stabbed, shot, mugged or sold to white slavers. None of these makes for golden cruise ship memories. Also: don't hang around the tourist traps in ports. Diamonds International etc has all the same crap you get at home. Be reasonable. Have fun. Be smart.

5c) Check on Local Regulations. For the Amazon, Sheree and I needed Yellow Fever shots, a visa from Brazil (which took nearly three weeks) and Malarone, an anti-malaria drug. Usually the cruise ship company will let you in on this stuff, but not always. (We couldn't get into the famous Monte Carlo casino because we didn't know we needed to take our passports with us...) Check into local customs too. For example: there are some places in the mideast where women need to dress a certain way to avoid offending the locals and drawing unwanted attention.

There are a ton of sites filled with helpful advice on local sites, customs and highlights. Just go to Google and input the name of where you're going, and type words like "Customs" and "Tourism" or "Activities." You'll get more information than you could possibly use within seconds.

If you are interested in cruise info try http://www.cruisecritic.com/ for specifics on the ports and the boats. These are serious cruisers and they can provide tons of useful tips.

Follow these rules, grasshopper, and you will be happy cruisers.

How many sleeps till I go?

Eighteen. But who's counting?