Anniversary Cruise 2005
New Orleans | Day at Sea | Cozumel | Roatan | Belize | Cancun
These photos are from our second wedding anniversary cruise. Due to a star-crossed mathematical conflux occurring on the day of our wedding, our anniversary cannot logically be celebrated according to the Gregorian calendar. We were married on January 1st, 2003 (1-2-3), and our anniversaries occur every 13 months and one day (2-3-4, 3-4-5, etc). We have all of our anniversary celebrations planned out till December 13, 2014, but we are going to have to seek counsel from a renowned mathematics professor or maybe some advanced practitioner of numerology to figure out what to do after that.
Rich and I arrived early for our cruise so that we could celebrate our anniversary touring New Orleans. On the first full day, we visited the French Quarter, starting out at Cafe du Monde for some Begnets, and then we began our walking tour at Jackson Square.
To get ourselves oriented, we started out with a walk along the Mississippi River all the way through the Riverwalk to the Convention Center where Rich and I planned on visiting CTIA after our Cruise. Then we hopped aboard a mule-drawn carriage for a two-hour tour of the French Quarter (just $10 per person). Our buggy driver stopped outside the Blacksmith shop for what were definitely the best Hurricane's we tasted. Afterwards, we went from restaurant to restaurant in the French Quarter sampling Cajun appetizers, shrimp etoffee, crawfish bisque, fried crawfish, etc. Some restaurants even cook samples out on the street for passersby.
We spent the evening walking up and down Bourbon Street, including the Rainbow district where all the gay clubs reside (photo of Ken dolls dressed in Barbie clothes). We tried all the street drinks at all the fashionable places, including hurricanes and grenades, finally ending up at Pat O'Brien's flamed courtyard.
The second and third days in New Orleans were spent in the Garden District, the Warehouse District, and City Park. In the Garden District we found Anne Rice's house and two blocks away, the cemetery where some of the filming was done for "Interview with a Vampire." At City Park, we toured the sculpture garden and took a ride on their 100 year old carousel.
In all of our food sampling during our stay in Nolo, we failed to find an alligator menu item that appealed to us, and so alligator became our mission on the way to boarding our cruise ship. In the French Market, we found a shop that allowed me to take my chances with a live crawdad, and we tried some spicy alligator sausage that was totally yummy.
We boarded the ship in the after noon, and before sailing, participated in an emergency drill. Afterwards, we scratched our heads about how in the world they put 150 people on each one of those lifeboats, and we just crossed our fingers and were glad that there are no icebergs in the Gulf of Mexico.
We left New Orleans at sunset and then went on a 100 mile trek down the Mississippi river to the Gulf.
The weather the first day at cloudy, so we spent much of the day touring the ship and in our state room, which had a sitting area and a large picture window. The evening of the first night was formal night in the dining room. With Norwegian's freestyle cruising, you eat whenever you want, and each dining room has a different dress code, although all but two of the restaurants serve the same spectacular food. They say that the average person going on a cruise gains 6.2 pounds.
We arrived in Cozumel in the morning and had 8 hours ashore to play around. Rather than take an excursion, we decided to wing it, and we were glad we did. After walking through the town, we discovered a little car rental place that gave us a VW convertible bug for the same price that others were renting scooters, so we popped the top and decided to tour the island.
First, we drove down the Carribean Sea side of the island, stopping at a resort where people were swimming with dolphins, and finding a long private stretch of beach to walk on.
On the gulf side of the island, we found Bob Marley's place, and tried the guacamole and shrimp quesadillas. I finally had to kick Rich out of the hammock so that we could continue our circumnavigation of the island and get back to the ship on time. In all, we managed to stop about a half-dozen places around the island, enjoying food and hammocks at remote beach cafes where we were among just a handful of people sharing the beach.
When we came back into town, Rich spotted a Chinese restaurant on this Mexican island that served "pollo estilo kentucky." We returned the ship still confused about how the KFC legal department might react to this franchise infringement.
Roatan was by far the most fun place we visited on the cruise. All the native people we met seemed to love working the tourists, and this island is still unspoiled and underdeveloped. Roatan is one of the Bay Islands 100 miles off the coast of Honduras, and cruise ships have only been coming here for a few years.
We began our day by taking a 20 minute bus ride to a cove where we met the captain of the Jolly Roger, and 60 foot sailing catamaran that would take is half way around the island. The captain said that he bought his house on the water with a dock and land for $3000 just two years ago. The only problem, he said, was that the only way he could access his property was via a jeep or boat.
We cruised and danced, and then moored the boat off a reef where we snorkeled for about an hour. Finally, we arrived at the Nature Park, which was where we were about to have the most fun we have ever had.
One of the features of the nature park is a long shaky rope bridge with an aerial zip line running right above it. This zip line is 13 runs long starting at the top of the island, and ending down on the beach.
I used to be afraid of birds, but not today. Today, I was having a ball, even though one of the parrots was trying to steal my diamond wedding ring and the others were using me as a jungle gym. Rich kept his had on to avoid scratches on his bald head (as well as other bird-related nasties), but the bird decided that the button on the top of his cap might be some kind of seed and decided to pick it off.
In one part of the nature park, monkeys pounce on you from trees, railings, the ground or from person to person. Entering this area, we met one woman who was absolutely mauled, with dirt all over her clothes, and she had a smile that would not quit. One of the little monkeys gave Rich a run, first going after his cap (Rich politely removed the monkey's hand from his cap), and then sneaking over his shoulder and attempting to unzip the backpack to see what could be found in there.
For about a half hour, I played with the monkeys trying to keep my yellow visor (which looks too much like a banana). The monkeys feel feather-light on you as they use their tails for stability, leaving their hands and feet free for play and mischief. For me, playing with these animals was the highlight of my entire cruise.
After playing with the animals, we walked through the rest or the preserve and returned to port with two hours for shopping. We met up with two local grade-school girls, Barbie and Anna, who agreed to be our personal shoppers, helping us carry our bags and negotiating the best prices for us on jewelry, carved wood products and knickknacks. They talked to us about life on the island, shared their life ambitions, and took us from store to store driving hard bargains with the shopkeepers.
After a fun-packed day on Roatan, we returned to our state-room to find another monkey in our room, this one made out of towels.
Belize is the new name of what was formerly known as British Honduras, which gained their independence in 1981. We found a brochure about a Belizian adventure that read, "When was the last time you ever did anything for the first time in your life?" and we decided to go. We immediately boarded a bus to take us to the deep jungle of Belize, about a one-hour drive across bouncy dirt roads deep into the interior or Belize.
I think all caves are created by water, but we had never been in one where the water still flowed through it. We hiked with tubes for about a mile to the beginning of our tubing adventure through a mile-long winding cave with stalagmites and bat caves dotting the ceiling, and waterfalls and rock cliffs along the sides. We used spelunking flashlights mounted to our head and laid back in our tubes to easily study the details of the cave. It was dark, but rarely claustrophobic, sometimes with low ceilings and occasionally opening up into huge caverns.
After tubing through the caves, we walked another couple of miles to our next adventure at the tops of the trees. After we were setup with harnesses, pulleys and climbing gear, we looked up 100-150 feet to the platforms from which we would be jumping off of as we zip from tree to tree. Rich and I were the first in our group to climb to the top of the hill, and therefore the first to hit the zip lines. The run I am on in the photo above is the longest run of the six runs we did. On this run, you could not see the finish platform until you got there.
Rich was a speed demon on the zip lines, which had redundant cables and pulleys, as well as two safety lines (features rarely seen in central America). At the end of our tour, we repelled the last 100 feet to the ground, a new experience for both of us. In the end, our knees were still shaking as we hit the ground, looking back up and shaking our heads at what we had both just done.
Since we were first on the zip lines, we had some time before our bus returned, so we found a little jungle cafe, and started a couple of games of dominos, and of course, I heartily beat Rich each and every game.
Cancun is a long stretch of islands off the Yucatan peninsula. Due to the shallow seas, our ship archored off Isla Mujeres pictured out the window at breakfast, and it took quite a while to get tendered into Cancun.
Once in Cancun, we took a shuttle bus to the furthest of the malls which dot the islands, and then walked along the beach back to the ship. The water was the clearest we have ever seen, and the constructions projects were massive, building numerous beachfront skyrises filled with million dollar condos.
We considered eating at Bogarts, but ate lunch at Carlos n Charlie's instead, and then returned to the boat and ate in the Italian restaurant on board. On the way back to New Orleans, Rich said he slept like he has never slept in his life.