Day 107 - Debarkation

Today started at 0500 when I stumbled out of my room with no sleep and passed by endless rows of luggage stacked on the dungeon floor (Deck 2) piled floor-to-ceiling on my way to the stern for our last star session.  Venus, Mars, the moon, and another star all aligned in a rare event we’re told happens only every 70 years.  It was chilly, and I stuck with those that brought their blankets from their rooms, which turned into a massive wobbling group hug that spilled over into the raising of the American flag, a privilege two students bought at the shipboard auction.  Our giant group hug stumbled and eventually split as we passed through the doorway and made our way to the aft for breakfast.  The food on our last day was unremarkable, but it was accompanied by the most magnificent sunrise as we pulled into Port Everglades at 0700.

At the gates to the port, parents and family were yelling and holding up large signs welcoming home their kids.  It was an adorable sight!  They had to bide their time, however, because it would be another several hours.  Sometime after breakfast I collapsed in the usual spot, the Piano Bar couch, into deep sleep.  Apparently Emily shared some big news with me and I had a conversation with her during my slumber.  I have no memory of this.  I awoke in a panic, not knowing what time it was or where any of my friends were.  I ran around the whole ship searching fruitlessly.  Finally, the PA announced the first Sea that was to debark.  I ran to my room and scrambled to get the rest of my belongings packed up and stuffed into the couple bags I kept out.  There were no signs left of my roommate.  At last, the Aegean Sea was called and I grabbed my customs form and a pen to fill it out on the way.

To my relief, I found my friends at the line to debark the ship, and we stepped off Deck 5 starboard together into the customs building.  We picked up our luggage, and I looked in vain for the drug-sniffing dogs they promised us.  A half hour later we passed through customs without incident, without even so much as a stamp in our passports.  We awkwardly tugged our luggage out of the building and into the throng of family and friends waiting for someone behind us.  We met some of our friends’ relatives and said long goodbyes and made many, many promises for the future.

A group of us stuffed ourselves and our luggage into a van and headed toward the airport.  The girls checked in their luggage for their evening flights (I stored mine), then we sat in wait until Cari gave us a meeting place for lunch/dinner.  (As an aside, Fort Lauderdale was by far our most difficult port; we were hit hard with having to deal with our copious baggage and the stark lack of public transportation.)  We met in a posh neighborhood where we could afford nothing and finally settled on the Cheesecake Factory.  We talked over humongous portions about our travels together and nuances about ship life that others, including Cari’s mom, who had joined us, would probably never understand.  Before we knew it, we were again stuffing ourselves into Cari’s mom’s rental and heading for the airport.  We got stuck saying goodbyes somewhere between the car and the various terminals, not able to leave.  There were just a few tears.

I picked up my luggage and stayed behind with Cari and her mom.  We went to rest at a hotel, and Cari passed out almost immediately, all of us getting virtually or actually no sleep last night.  By the time she woke up, it was time to drop me off at the train station so I could get to Miami.  It all happened much too fast, and the train even departed sooner than I could get to a seat and wave goodbye from the window.  I took out my computer to continue working on a video project, and I had just enough time to make some progress, have my computer freeze, and delete the whole file before I arrived in Miami.

I was fortunate enough to make some very kind friends on the ship who made arrangements for me to stay with them.  I was supposed to take a taxi from the train station, but there were none.  I waited in despair.  By chance, someone had come via taxi to the station, and I must have made a fool of myself making sure to flag it down.  I got in while the driver complained about my luggage: “What do you have in here – a boy!?”

Some 20 minutes later, we pulled up to a driveway of what looked like a hotel I could never afford.  I had double-checked the address before, but I had the driver assure me once more that this was the place.  I dragged my luggage into a pristine ultra-white hall with large, decorative lit pillars of ultra-white fabric.  I thought for sure security would come over and kick me out without a second thought.  I approached the desk and asked for directions to #1503.  The receptionist asked if Francisco was expecting me, and I – never having heard of any Francisco – nodded assuredly.  So naturally, she picked up the phone and dialed.  No response.  Heart rate rising.  She tried twice more before he decided to pick up and I could breathe again.  The receptionist pointed me toward the elevators – 15^th floor.

I emerged from the elevator and halfway down the hallway my friends came out to greet me.  I was so relieved!  We hugged it out and I followed them into a spacious, modern, white apartment with two boys playing video games.  One of them must have been Francisco.  He didn’t look up.  Not knowing how to introduce myself, I tiptoed around, marveling at everything.  I asked to see the view from the balcony and awkwardly slipped between Francisco and his video game on the way out.  What a spectacular view it was!  I was looking straight into the heart of downtown Miami, bustling highways lit up with heavy traffic below me, grandiose technicolored skyscrapers above me.

Not missing the chance to snap a few more photos, I posed with my friend Alfredo before going inside.  Back in the apartment, I hooked up to wi-fi just because I could.  Before long, we went out again in search of sushi.  Francisco did, in fact, have a car, and I volunteered to take the middle seat in the back of his Mustang coupe.  He brought us to a classy sushi restaurant with very dim lighting and graphic music videos playing on every wall.  It really is hard to take your eyes off them.  The sushi dinner was great, but more so was the dessert, some form of brownie-ice cream-cake-pastry concoction.  And the check came with cotton candy.

After dinner, we filed back into the Mustang, drove to the lavish apartment, took the elevator up fifteen floors, passed through the expansive living room, and…it’s time to wake up.  It was 4:15 am and my taxi had arrived.  I found myself in someone’s bed…Alfredo’s, apparently, given that he was next to me (though you can never be too sure).  I unfortunately woke Alfredo, who was kind enough to walk me down and see me off, and he was the last person I hugged before I reluctantly departed for Iowa.

Day 106 - At Sea

Packing had to be finished today and luggage picked up at 1300.  We gathered in the Union for our final meeting: pre-port for Fort Lauderdale.  Here, we were passed out the usual “green sheets” of country and field trip information, but it was instead full of imaginary events we would have to do on our own.  There were presentations to brief us on the language of the country (including its many curious dialects), the various forms of transportation (and lack thereof), and the atrocious conversion rate.  As a coincidence, it was also Dean John’s birthday, and the waiting staff was kind enough to make cake for all of us and distribute it throughout the Union.

Major last-minute file transfers took place late into the night.

Day 105 - Convocation

At 1215, the ship did a maritime circle as a memorial for Casey.  It looked like the entire showed up as staff handed out flowers that we threw overboard.  The ship did a 360 and blew its horn at the end as we looked for the flowers we threw at the beginning.

In the evening, there was a graduation ceremony for those graduating in the winter and many congratulations were handed out.  The ceremony was promptly followed by the Wobble, the official dance of the SAS Fall 2012 voyage.

Day 104 - Alumni Ball

After two days of finals and not nearly enough time to nap after it was all over, we dressed up in our very best attire and attended the long-awaited Alumni Ball.  We sat down to the first seating of dinner where we finally got to see what our top-notch chefs were capable of: beef tenderloin, salmon with cream herb sauce, and stuffed cannelloni, plus starters, soup and salad, and a dessert buffet  that if you missed you might as well just go home.  When we were done stuffing our faces, we moved on to the dance in the Union and watched a slideshow of our favorite memories from the voyage.

Day 103 - At Sea

A-Day finals today.  I saw people I had never seen studying before studying very hard.  Those that I had seen studying before I did not see surface at all.  I stayed up late trying to finish an excruciatingly long written assignment due at midnight.  At 2300, the ship started rocking so severely that all hopes of staying up were abandoned.  One by one, people in deep study mode gave up and headed to bed, myself included, and studying for my 8 am final would just have to wait.

Day 102 - Roseau

We had heard much about The Gorge from students who went yesterday, so we set out to see it for ourselves.  Apparently, Pirates of the Caribbean was filmed here, though no one could remember which scene.  We parked and walked a short trail to a small pool that flowed out of our sigh between large rocks.  It was a little stream a couple meters wide secluded between two steep ledges.  On our way out, we were to wash under a warm water stream siphoned off from a nearby hot spring.  We entered the water – the very cold water!  We begged to go under the warm water, but the guides wouldn’t let us; they said if we did we would lose the courage to go forward.  So we forged ahead, swimming down the path between ledges until we came to a small waterfall at the end.  It was only about a meter high, but I didn’t plan to climb it until a guide came with another group and directed everyone up.  He got a foothold and helped everybody up into a small chamber with another, taller waterfall.  We got in line and switched out standing under the powerful surge water.  When we were all done, the guide helped throw us off the smaller waterfall back into the rivulet.  I am terribly accident-prone and definitely did not want to take part, but the guide never asked our opinions.  He threw me in along with everyone else, and I plunged into the crisp, cool water.  The pool was surprisingly deep, but not quite deep enough.  While kicking to come up, I hit my foot against a rock, scraping the skin clear off.

We swam out and finally deserved the privilege of standing under the warm water stream.  What a delight!  It was slippery to stand upon the rocks, but we helped each other up and refused to get down.  By the time we did climb down, we had forgotten how cold the water was to begin with and shuddered the whole way out.  When I got out, my foot injury that I had nearly forgotten about in the cold, freshwater pool started bleeding out.  If anyone asked about it, I could tell them I got it jumping off a waterfall in Dominica.  I hope it scars.

We moved on to a different form of paradise at the Champagne Reef, so named for the bubbles that come up at the many springs under the sea floor.  We got a bunch of clunky snorkeling gear and clumsily walked the boardwalk to the beach.  Getting into the water was actually somewhat difficult because the tide was much stronger than it seemed, constantly pulling us back and forth against the rocks below.  But we did make it into the water, put on our goggles, and plunged into a whole new world below us.  There were endless corals and schools of fish so close I could reach out and touch them, if only they didn’t swim away.    There were some horror stories from the day before, like getting stung by squid poison and stepping on a sea urchin (it was amazing to see the needles still stuck in the girl’s heel), but we had only the best of experiences.  At one point I caught sight of a bubbling spring and kept a close watch on it with Abby’s underwater camera, only to be tickled on my stomach by another spring right below me.

We stayed in the water until all of our extremities were pruny, at which point we returned to our patient driver and let him take us back to the tenseness of the ship, on which we again did not know what to say or what to do.  A memorial service took place for Casey shortly after we left port, and her closest friends shared stories of their time with her. 

Day 101 - Roseau

We woke up in some sort of paradise once again.  Just outside the ship was a mountainous island nation covered with lush greens.  We rushed out and after a little apprehension hired a taxi for the day.  The island is small, about 12 miles by 24 miles, but getting anywhere takes a long time because the roads to the various tourist destinations go far up the mountains and are not connected.  The road was winding and filled with spectacular views of steep cliffs and magnificent mountains, the tallest of which sits at about 4,700 m.  Our driver was constantly pointing out plants used for herbal remedies, teas, baths, or other natural life enhancements.  He stopped sometimes to pick some fragrant leaves for us, like lemongrass.  We drove past numerous crops, including coffee, banana, plantain, guava, papaya, pineapple, breadfruit, and breadnut.

We made it at last to our first stop: Emerald Pool.  We had to walk a short trail down into a small cove where we found the pool, fed by a waterfall emerging from the greenery above.  The water was unexpectedly cold, but well worth it.  We waded in and swam until we got used to the temperature and took our time hanging out under and around the waterfall.  There were plenty of lizards around the pool to keep us entertained.

We eventually had to move on, and we drove back down the mountain and back up the mountain to Trafalgar Falls.  At the entrance, we met a policeman named Daniel who was instantly very friendly toward us.  He insisted on walking us down the easy pathway to the falls and took many photos of us.  At the viewing platform, we could see a giant cliff covered by greenery in front of us and two waterfalls coming out of its face.  Daniel took many photos here.  Then he coaxed us to go farther, down to the waterfalls.  We followed.  We climbed down a narrow mud pathway and made it down to the waterfall’s stream.  We couldn’t really reach it because the water level was lower than usual, so we kept climbing huge, slippery boulders to get closer.  This is where I discovered that my new sneakers had zero traction.  Daniel in his rugged boots with sturdy rubber soles helped us with our balance.  He also took many more photos, sometimes letting us wear his police hat.

We reached an area where we could dip a toe in a tiny, shallow stream, then decided we had had enough and it was time to turn back.  This entailed again climbing huge, slippery boulders.  Once out of the rocky area, we stopped at a small pool that was muddy and misty.  Daniel convinced us to swim in it, so we undressed and waded into the hot sulfur spring.  We were hot enough after climbing over boulders, but somehow the hot spring was still refreshing.  Plenty more photos here.  Finally, Daniel was called away and our consciences caught up with us, and we returned to our driver, who was busy listening to music on his phone back in the parking lot.

  

Before our day was up, we visited the Botanical Gardens.  The gardens were not set up like conventional botanical gardens.  Rather than a formal enclosure, it was just an open space with native plants growing in it.  We found water lilies and giant palms, along with a peculiar tree with rope-like structures hanging down from its limbs that we used as swings.  We also found a tree covered in coconut-like fruit that we broke open by throwing it against a rock.  When we did this, our driver came over and scolded us.  These were called cannonballs, and when cracked open and left in the sun, for example in the yard of a neighbor you didn’t like, they would stink up the whole place.  We promptly left.  We finished the day off at a vista overlooking our docked ship before returning for dinner.

Back on board our worlds were turned upside down.  There was an announcement to meet in the Union, and I was surprised to see the auditorium packed.  It was the most horrendous site I had ever seen: people crying convulsively, holding each other.  After several minutes of silence except for the crying, Dean John finally announced that a girl was in a boating accident and died on the way to the hospital.  It was easy to spot the students that were on the trip with her.  I didn’t know her, even though she lived just across the hall from me.  Nothing could describe the disbelief that such a tragedy could happen on our last night in port, less than one week from debarkation.  One by one we filed out in silence from the Union to the dining rooms, forgetting all about going out to dinner.  The ship food was better than usual, and the waiters more unresponsive.  The only words of wisdom we could come up with were “What now?”

Getting anywhere on the ship took ten times longer, delays coming from hugging and comforting everyone you ran into.  When being on the ship became totally unbearable, we set off to find wi-fi to contact our families, despite the deans’ advice that we stay onboard.  We found a bar just across the street from the ship that turned off its music on request of one of our professors; students and faculty filled up the place for the rest of the night.  

Day 94 - Manaus

Wake up, wake up!  A rooster crow, an alarm clock, and our guide’s voice played over the intercom at 6:30 am to wake us up for piranha fishing.  We fell out of our hammocks to get dressed and took our motor canoes to another isolated house on the water.  The guides distributed long sticks with lines and hooks on them, which made movement awkward in the short hut, and the sticks often hit the slanted roof or other students.  Piranha bait is small cuts of beef, and they are good at getting it off the hook without being caught.  There were only a few piranha catches and one miscellaneous fish catch before the beef ran out and we tendered back to our riverboats for breakfast.

We later spent a couple hours hiking through the rainforest and learning about survival techniques and herbal medicines.  The heat was unbearable and we were drenched in sweat.  We then transferred to another shore to visit a small village and learn about its customs.  Afterward, we piled into the riverboat for the last time and napped in our hammocks on the way back.  We made it almost all the back to the ship – the other riverboats were already there – when a marina police boat pulled us over.  Let me just say that getting pulled over at sea is really awkward.  We were allowed to go on to the ship, but the cops stayed on our riverboat the rest of the way.

Day 93 - Manaus

Today was the next most incredible day of my life.

The day began at 8 am on a riverboat bound toward the Meeting of the Waters, the place where the dark water of the Rio Negro joins with the brown water of the Rio Solimões to form the Amazon River, with a sharp line distinguishing the two tributaries.  Almost immediately after boarding, several students fell asleep in their chairs or on the floor, heavily hung over from the night before.  There were three riverboats on the tour, and we were on the party boat.  We then turned around and a short while later pulled up to a sandy dock made of precarious plank bridges built into the water.  We walked the planks all the way up to the settlement of a few houses built on stilts.  We passed tall trees whose barks showed the water level of the rainy season, some 3-4 meters above the ground.  When we approached the buildings we saw a couple locals passing around three-toed sloths.  At first I was thrown off by their ET-like face and peculiar demeanor, but it took me about five seconds to think they were the cutest creatures in the world.  They really do move very slowly, and they like to wrap their three toes tightly around fingers and shirts and arms and don’t let go.  We passed the sloths around and were reluctant to leave them when it was time for our rainforest tour.

In the rainforest, we came across a rubber tree, and our guide demonstrated how to extract the rubber.  Brazil was the main producer of rubber before synthetic rubber came into popular use.  The guide carved a diagonal line into the tree bark, and white goo seeped out, which he collected into a can stuck under the line.  The goo solidified, and if you pulled on it, it would stretch just like a rubber band.  We also saw exotic plants, like trees with roots above the ground that were several meters wide, trees whose barks were covered in needles, and giant Queen Victoria water lilies that were a meter wide.  What we didn’t see were many bugs; the particularly acidic water of the Rio Negro prevents many species of insect from laying their eggs in the water, including the malaria-carrying mosquito.  On our way out we passed by the sloths again and had to have them ripped out of our arms.

Back on the riverboat, we were feeling the repercussions of being on the party boat.  There two other riverboats had already left and were far ahead.  We were supposed to be among them.  Our guide reprimanded us for taking so long harassing the locals for beer, especially given the fact that we were not allowed to be drinking.  The guys making inappropriate jokes (that weren’t even funny) and the girl who threw up during our jungle trek didn’t help our case.

The guides distributed a hammock and cords to each of us and taught us how to make the knots that would secure our hammocks to the beams above.  The hammocks were hung in close quarters, but they wrapped around you as you lay in them, providing a lot of privacy.  We rocked and swung around and bumped into each other.  There were only 30 of us, but somehow the boat was meant to fit over 70.  We enjoyed lunch on the ship using plastic plates about as sturdy as plastic wrap, then napped in our hammocks during the 3-hour journey to our next destination.

Three hours later we were gently awoken to swim with the pink dolphins, actually a variety of whale.  The venue was a couple floating buildings linked to each other in the middle of the river.  There was no other sign of civilization in any direction.  We were truly in the middle of nowhere, Brazil.  We were very excited to swim with the dolphins, but when it actually came time to step into the water, we became apprehensive.  A few people even sat out.  We had to put on black socks so the dolphins didn’t think our feet were fish and try to eat them.  There was a small platform under the water that we could stand on, but we were also given pool noodles.  We huddled together on the platform and as a group screamed from anxiety so loud the guides had to hush us to not scare the dolphins away.

The water was completely opaque, so we couldn’t see the dolphins, even if they were right in front – or under – us.  There was a guide in the water with us who would coax the dolphins to the surface with a small fish.  There were many occasions where one person would yell, “I’m touching one, I’m touching a dolphin!” and the person beside him, usually an unhappy girl, would say, “No, that’s my leg.”  We could also “ride” a dolphin that was directly under us and the person right next to us would be completely unaware.  Eventually we gathered our courage and tried reaching out to find the dolphins.  They felt so weird!  Their skin is completely smooth, like touching one of those hairless dogs, but wet.  They have strange teeth and a deformed snout and beady eyes; they are far from cute and cuddly.  We kept swimming through the sunset, and when the sun finally disappeared we got out.  We were covered in dirty water that stuck to our body hairs, making us look particularly hirsute.   There was a crude shower where we could rinse off the water that was likely infested with shistosomiasis among other things.

From there we piled into motor canoes to go searching for caimen, small alligators.  Almost immediately, a fish jumped into our canoe and flopped around back and forth under the floorboards.  Three more fish jumped in throughout the night.  By this time, it was almost completely dark, except for the bright light of the waxing gibbous moon, which was ok because caimen are nocturnal.  We explored every corner of a large bay, probably for over an hour.  At some point, our guide asked if any of us had a flashlight, because his had gone out.  We saw that our other canoe in the distance was flashing photos (easy to spot in the pitch black night), so we made our way over to hijack whatever they found.  They were passing around a caiman, which resembled a lizard more than it did an alligator.  This is what Mulan must have felt when she found out her ancestors sent her Mushu instead of a dragon.  Nonetheless, it was a cool site, and we passed it around our canoe, too, before releasing it back into the water.

We wrapped up caiman hunting and headed toward a beach luau.  We didn’t know where we were going, but we soon saw lights off in the distance.  Around the lights it was pitch black for as far as we could see, and again we felt very isolated.  The lights kept getting bigger until we pulled up to shore.  We found rows of lights and chairs and, most importantly, the buffet line!  There was ample food, including mashed potatoes, chicken, shish kebabs, and flan.  We tried to balance our food on the same flimsy plates, and enjoyed the food and atmosphere until it was time to cuddle up in our hammocks for the night.