This post has a variety of subjects. There were a lot of questions in the comments that I will try to get to first. Such as the service of Cruise Specialists and our leaders. First, the names of our CSI leaders are Tom Mullen from Birmingham, England and Ellen Bethel who lives just North of me in Poulsbo, Washington. They are very nice and Ellen is bubbly and chatty. Tom is more reserved. Second, CSI is doing a good job. The Amsterdam doesn’t have a special room with staff for world cruisers only. CSI fills that void by having representatives on board to answer questions.

My cabin is on the Main deck. This is the third deck up. It is also mid-ship which can be disconcerting. I have had a hard time discerning between Fore and Aft. When you are either aft or fore you become oriented much faster. At least that is my experience on this cruise, I think. It could be dementia. And, for my dear Lord Kay, the bottle is my fitness water not a baby bottle.

I went to my first specialty dinner at the Pinnacle Grill---the South American Dinner. The service and ambience is a little better than the dining room and the food is a bit better. I bought the package of 10 dinners for the price of 8 dinners. My purpose was to buy the package so I could go to the ten specialty dinners, Some of the themes---mystery dinner, French dinner, South African dinner, etc. I will reserve judgment on the relative value and report in a future post.

The photo of the geoglyphs is the part of the Arica post I felt that I couldn’t post under Arica.

Coquimbo is a working man’s town and is the port city for La Serena . Nothing special about the city and I just walked around a little, went to the internet café, and back to the ship to get my camera which I had forgotten. The weather is still quite cool but as the day goes on it does warm up. I changed to a cooler top, grabbed my camera and I was off again. There was only one photo I wanted so I could post here and that was of the zig zag stairs. As I was taking this photo I heard a shout “JUDI”. My cabin neighbors and fellow cruise specialist tour buddies were the ones shouting at me. Jennie was up by the stairs taking a photo when a tall lanky young chap grabbed her camera knocking her glasses to the ground. Locals saw what occurred, called the local police but the lanky chap was long gone. Now I knew why there were so many blue clad police in my photo. They felt I should not be walking around alone so I went back to the ship with them.

Arica, Chili is a city where when you leave you say “Been there, done that”. I enjoyed my tour and one of the highlight was the Christ the Redeemer Chili style. Unlike Rio’s Redeemer we did not have to take a cog train up the hill. The bus took us close to the top and the worse was dusty sneakers from walking the rest of the way. I didn’t see any tourist police and feel we didn’t need them. The statue appeared to be about a third of the size as Rio’s Redeemer. There were no clouds obscuring the statue from time to time giving a mystic quality to it like Rio’s Redeemer. I definitely did not feel the same power.

Eiffel’s presence is in this town in the form of several buildings including the San Marcos Church, which is a lovely cream-colored building. The Geoglyphs of Lluta are a series of hillside drawings representing llamas and humans and were quite spectacular.

I felt that the sites mentioned above were the highlights of our visit to Arica but since I covered pigeons in my Lima post, I couldn’t resist this pigeon poop stained path.

In posting photos I have found that 3 at a time is the limit so one of my photos for this post will be on the Coquimbo, Chili post and I will point that out.

Well the grimmer side of world cruising has begun. One man who was taken away by ambulance has died and Gloria, a lady I had lunch with once, died Saturday morning . I believe she was with CSI also. I have heard that approximately 10 will die during our cruise. We have had two in less than two weeks. Sir Richard who was one of Gloria’s table mates wrote a note to her family telling them that she was not among strangers. She was playing bridge, laughing, and doing what she loved to do, cruising. He asked that this note be placed with her belongings . He is such a neat guy and makes me laugh. He is traveling alone but one of his friends, Grady, is also on this cruise. He is the straight man to Sir Richard’s dry sense of humor. I know everyone was concerned (including my dear Lord Kay) that I did not have a member of royalty keeping me company. Sir Richard has now become my traveling royalty on this trip.

I have been trying to walk a mile a day on the promenade deck plus putting in a good mile walking all over the ship and shores. I believe the jeans are just a bit tighter so desserts must go as a regular to the night meal. We had chateaubriand last night cooked to perfection. Melvin, one of the guys at my table, is delighted to eat the extra meat which I set aside before starting my meal.

I have decided that this is really a young group of cruisers. I am guessing the average age is around 72 and that is very unusual. I have met so many people taking this cruise that aren’t even getting Medicare yet and find myself on the side of the elders especially when I have my next birthday on this cruise. You .all will recall I do hit the big 70.

I have been musing about why I do not feel the anticipation of forging new friendships with the ccers. When we were posting on our thread for the QE2 2008 world cruise we were forging alliances so we would have a group on board. This group of ccers were already an alliance. Most of them were renewing friendships and not looking for new alliances. I do not mean this as criticism; it is what it is. We do have a luncheon today and I will go with a smile on my face and my mind wide open.

LATER: I enjoyed the luncheon and laughed and giggled with some of the gals at the luncheon today. I am still open minded,

We are preparing to leave Callao and Lima, Peru. We have been here two days. One of the reasons I booked this cruise was the fact we are going to stay two days in several ports. This gives you time to do different things rather than just one tour.

I took a tour the first day to get a feel for the two cities, We went to the Plaza Mayor and Lima is taking part in the worldwide decoration of plastic cows. I have a dozen or more photos of these artistic cows. My favorite though is this one which contains a grill in the middle and , of course, the proper utensils.

Another of the highlights of our tour was the Cathedral and a working monastery with wonderful grill work and old tiles. The story about the tiles is that a man was condemned to death for a crime. The Franciscan fathers had ordered the tiles and had piles of them but no one knew how to do tile work. This criminal convinced them that he was a tile layer so they commuted his sentence and he worked for 28 years mounting the tiles and eventually it came to light, he didn’t know what he was doing. Many many mistakes. Some of the cherubs have more than two legs.


Just outside the cathedral I saw this adorable girl feeding the pigeons and couldn’t resist taking her photo. Also, the pigeons up on the ledges. We continued on with our tour and saw too many things to enumerate.

The next day a new friend, Glen, a postman from Canada, took the free shuttle and he introduced me to an internet café so I learned how to use their computer and was able to read your comments. The charge is only $1.00 an hour which is a bit better than $.35 a minute on board. My next post will give all the details of the price structure on board. So, Don, my Dear Lord Kay, please keep reading. It is quite obvious why I guard my computer time for doing nothing but posting to my blog and checking my email while on board.

The sail away was fun. We had a trio and six dancers on the dock performing as we sailed away. I do miss the hundreds and at times thousands of people waving from the shore that we experienced on the last world cruise of the QE2.

Some more on ship life. I now remember my waiter’s name. He is as cute as a button and his name is Dowd ((David). Most of the crew is either Indonesian or from the Philippines. Dowd is from the Philippines and Jessie is from Indonesia or maybe I have that backward. I will no for sure in time. I have included a photo of one of my towel animal friends that Jessie makes for me.

Since we have crossed the Equator we did receive a very nice certificate (suitable for framing) called Crossing the Equator Certificate and it is signed by our Captain Olav Van Der Waard.

I attempted the Tech workshop but it was beyond my capability and I was afraid it might confuse what I am currently doing. If I am totally comfortable with my current blogging then I might give it a go next segment.

All in all I am very satisfied with the people I have met on board and I am sure friendships will develop in time. Most of the ccers don’t seem to be of that nature and I think I have mentioned to you that was my impression from the boards before I even boarded. Kind of a closed club to newbies and I am a newbie as far as HAL world cruises are concerned.

I have met several people that were on the QE2 and have enjoyed reminiscing with them. Remember Chloie (sp?)? The very tall silver haired man (so tall I look eye to belly button) that also did trivia. I recognized him immediately but he didn’t seem to recall me; we had a nice chat in spite of my gender.

Tonight is the Black and White ball. This is our second formal so I am looking forward to dressing (not that I walk around nude ) . This is the opposite of the QE2. I use to look forward to not dressing formally.

We really have been lucky weather wise. I don’t do well in extreme heat which is normal for this area. It has been most pleasant and Manta, Ecuador was no exception. My first impression of the landscape of Ecuador was that it was dying. Brush, trees and plants were that dirty grey brown that denotes dying vegetation. I have included a photo of an interesting tree with this dying look. Our guide explained that everything was very much alive and as soon as the monsoons came it would turn green within no time.

I have also included a photo of a little house. You will notice that the second floor is not complete. Apparently, the Ecuadorians can start their houses and if they don’t have the money to complete the house they can wait until they do have the needed cash. In Turkey I saw a similar situation but in that country it was because the government decided to put additional taxes on a house with an additional story.

The people here like in Costa Rica are exceptionally nice. I don’t buy a lot for myself while I am traveling but I found so much I wanted in Ecuador I had to borrow $5.00 to complete my purchases. I now sport a woman’s panama hat and a necklace and earring set made of their vegetable Ivory. The vegetable ivory is made from a palm tree and they make wonderful things with it.

One of the photos I am including is of a coca cola truck. I am trying to set forth here some of the sights that interested me. Not a travelogue. First, the photos take time to download and at $.40 a minute you don’t want to waste time on their wireless system.

I read your comments and in time will get to the subjects. I do think I know why you couldn’t comment on my last post. I was having difficulty posting those photos. I was doing something that was just plain silly and I won’t make that mistake again so hopefully you all will not have a problem again.

My cabin is on the starboard side so if our captain brings the ship in forward I am usually on the side of activity. By the way this Captain appears quite young and has a personality that reminds me a lot of our first Captain on the QE2. For those of you who were not on the QE2 with us he was the wonderful Captain that we had for most of our voyage and then our next Captain left a lot to be desired.

I have been attending the Cooking demonstrations and they have been enjoyable, go to the enrichment lectures and the port lectures. I do trivia once a day, try to walk a mile or two everyday, and need to go to the gym to work with weights. The food is so good I know I am not being very good but the desserts are not on my menu anymore except for the ones I just can’t do without. The first week was a dietary disaster but I am in control now; at least for the day.

It is surprising how many writers are on board. I am now reading a book by one of them about growing up in Wales. My grandfather was a welchman and grew up in Wales so I find I am interested in the subject. My grandfather died when I was about 17 so I never had a chance to ask him questions concerning his childhood when I was old enough to be interested.

My next post will be about our stop in Manta, Ecuador.