Puppy Love
Happy 29th anniversary! After a buffet breakfast, we left the ship for a city tour of Freeport (w) , Grand Bahama (w) , the Bahamas (w) . The first thing we had to do, of course, was go through customs, particularly since we had to present Trooper's paperwork. While we waited for the customs official to arrive, Terry played with Trooper:
Puppy Love
Apparently, Grand Bahama doesn't have a dedicated cruise ship port - the ship actually docked at a cargo port:
However, there were the usual souvenir vendors:
...and this welcome sign:
Notice the pastel colors (excuse me, colours - the Bahamas were formerly British, after all). I noticed that nearly every building and structure I saw was painted in pastels:
...even bus benches:
The other times we've taken cruises, we've taken shore excursions that were organized and marketed by the cruise line. This time, we thought we might save some money by arranging our own tour. Also, no mention was made of shore excursions in any of the tour literature, so we didn't know if there would be any. There were, of course, but we never heard about them until we boarded the ship. So before we left, we contacted a tour agency in Freeport, and arranged for a city tour.
Well, we might have done better to go through the cruise line. The tour we had wasn't bad, but it wasn't great. Our guide, Israel:
...was a pleasant enough gentleman, but not extremely talkative. He pointed out a few buildings, like this government building:
...and this church, St. Mary Star of the Sea:
...and gave us a few basic facts about the Bahamas, like that fact that there are 700 islands, but only 70 are inhabited, and that their primary industry is tourism. But that was about it.
The port is way out at the west end of the island, so we began by driving from the port, through open countryside, into town. I was struck by the fact that in the Bahamas, the cars drive on the left side of the road, a remnant of their British colonial days. But their cars are imported from the US, and so have left hand drives!
Along the way, I noticed a large number of interesting looking trees:
...with very tall, skinny trunks, and tufts of foliage way up at the top. Israel told us they were Australian Pines, and that what we were seeing was aftergrowth - the original forests had been heavily lumbered.
After driving through town, and across a canal:
...our first stop (after a quick stop at a drugstore to buy fresh batteries for my camera) was The Garden Of The Groves, a botanical garden:
This place was delightful - beautiful and tranquil. We apparently came at a good time, because there were very few people there. We wandered around, looking at the flora:
...and fauna:
This olive tree, shown here being inspected by Terry, caught my attention because of the hundreds of holes in its bark. An interpretive sign explained that the holes were made by yellow-bellied sapsuckers.
In one area of the garden, there's a small chapel, outside of which we saw this sculpture. I was fascinated. With some skilled carving, a little red paint, and an inspired imagination, the artist has converted a few dead tree trunks into a group of abstract human figures. I was particularly impressed by the way one tree trunk with a branch jutting out to one side became a figure with raised arms. Very impressive.
And then we came to the labyrinth:
...which, we were told, was modeled after a labyrinth in Chartres Cathedral in France. Although the signs describing the labyrinth and its spiritual significance sounded rather new-agey, apparently its origins are Christian. This page has more information. Terry and I walked the labyrinth, much to Trooper's confusion - I'm sure he was wondering why we kept turning and twisting around like that.
We then came to the snack bar, where Terry relaxed with a cup of coffee:
...while I admired the scenery:
Our next stop was the Port Lucaya Marketplace. This is a cluster of shops and restaurants geared to the tourist trade. There were the usual jewelry stores, perfume stores, souvenir stores, liquor stores, etc. There was also a store that I was particularly interested in - a record store. Whenever I go on vacation, I like to bring back music that evokes memories of where I've been. For this trip, I wanted to bring back some Bahamian music. Alas, the record store was closed.
While on the subject of music - Israel mentioned that the day before (New Year's Day) there had been a "junkanoo" festival and parade. I pricked up my ears at this; to explain why, let me digress a moment...
A few Christmases ago, my parents gave me a CD box set called "The Long Road To Freedom: An Anthology Of Black Music." This was a 4-CD set of African-American music, from early slave chants to modern blues, sung by a wide variety of black musicians, including Harry Belafonte and Joe Williams, among other lesser known names. It's a wonderful collection that I've greatly enjoyed listening to. Anyway, one of the songs is titled "Good Mornin', Good Mornin'," and following the title is the notation "('John Canoe' processional)."
Well, the similarity of "John Canoe" and "junkanoo" struck me immediately, and when I got home, I looked on Wikipedia and found these two articles: (w) (w) - which give interesting, although contradictory, explanations of the significance of the name John Canoe, as well as descriptions of what we'd missed by coming the day after New Year's. It made us wish we'd come to the island the day before. That's the story of my life... a day late and several dollars short.
We had lunch at The After Deck, a small restaurant at the Marketplace:
We had a typical Bahamian meal of cracked conch with peas and rice. Conch (pronounced "conk") is a shellfish, with a taste and texture similar to calimari. The "peas" in the peas and rice weren't green peas, they were actually garbanzo beans, aka chick peas.
After lunch, I expressed interest in seeing Count Basie's house, which I had heard was shaped like a grand piano. So off we went. As we drove, Israel mentioned several other celebrities who either have or have had houses on Grand Bahama, including Sidney Poitier and Sammy Davis, Jr. The house itself, when we got there, was somewhat disappointing - yes, it's shaped like a piano, but you have to see it from the air to see the shape. From the ground, it just looks like a house:
The house is now owned by another family, and I wondered how they felt about tourists driving up and taking pictures of their house. But the plaque that you can see on the left-hand gatepost in the second picture identifies the house as the former home of Count Basie, so I figure if they're going to advertise the fact, they can't complain about the tourists... in any case, no one came out and yelled at me to go away.
After the tour was over, we went back to the ship and relaxed with drinks and snacks at the snack bar by the pool:
There was another ship parked next door:
As I was taking its picture, someone passing by behind me commented "Ours is bigger!"
We then went to the casino and lost too much money, and then Terry went to the gift shop and spent too much money. Oh well... what are vacations for?
After another excellent dinner, Terry went back to our cabin, and I went to that evening's show. Again, there were three acts. First up was Wes Eppi, a Las Vegas lounge act if there ever was one. He did impressions - Ray Charles, Louis Armstrong, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, James Brown, Tony Bennett, Michael Jackson. Not very good. When he did his Ray Charles impression, he slipped on a pair of dark glasses (of course), and held the mike stand like it was a cane! When I reported this to Terry, she was properly disgusted.
Next came Serge and Alina again. This time Serge led off, with a balancing act. He would hold a dagger in his teeth (by the handle), and balance a variety of objects on the blade - not on the flat of the blade, mind you, but on the edge!
For the finale, he balanced a balloon on the dagger, and then a large goblet on the balloon. He then popped the balloon and caught the goblet on the dagger! Amazing.
Then it was Alina's turn. She did a hoop twirling act, at the end of which she had something like a dozen hoops twirling all around her body. She was followed by comedian Steve Zimmerman, a large black guy with a shaved head who had me laughing so hard, I was in tears. Most of it was his delivery... I'll give some examples of his jokes here, but they won't have the same effect.
His main routine consisted of riffing on the conditions aboard the ship, primarily the cabins. For example, the showers, which are so small that they don't have to worry about "slip and fall" lawsuits - "You might slip... but you won't fall!" He also commented, "If you're a big guy like me, the best thing to do is soap down the walls, and spin yourself around!" The running gag was that, whenever he mentioned some deficiency of shipboard life, he'd add "But not on this ship! I'm not talking about this ship!" (Wink! Wink!) Later in his act, he started commenting about products that he doesn't understand. Like white chocolate: "That's so we can get our fingers messy!" Or clear Pepsi: "Next, they'll be making a black 7-Up... it'll be called Wassup!"
I should point out that the previous evening, Steve had been the caller at one of the Bingo games. He commented that his parents would be so proud of him now - he had a PhD in Child Education, and here he was, calling Bingo games on a cruise ship!