Chaos in the Caribbean

The Seabourn Ovation,
last week's home at sea

Ancient Pompeii Toilet
as seen on 2006 Greek Isles Cruise

On paper, I am not a cruise person. From the forced congeniality with one’s shipmates to endless eating to the point of requiring one of those ancient toilets or vomitoria you see on cruises to Pompeii to the forced fun of shore excursions, cruises underscore that – unless voyaging to a place like India or Alaska – independent travel is a far superior and more authentic way to go.

Except for the fact that I have enjoyed the hell out of every cruise I've ever taken. From our maiden Caribbean voyage in 2003 to sailing Greece and the Med twice to Tahiti and Bora Bora back to the Caribbean trip we just took, I have found relaxation, stimulation, good-enough food, and mostly decent people onboard ships like the Paul Gauguin, The Windstar, and last week, the Seabourn Ovation. 

I say “mostly decent people” because we went jet skiing with a Dallas anti-Semite and also caught some homophobic shade from some of our fellow passengers. I used my rusty French to let the elderly couple at the table next to us know I could understand their every word.

My iguana salt and pepper shakers

But I won’t dwell on those signs of the times. Instead, I think happier thoughts about launching an exciting new project I hope to write about here someday. I even experienced two of the greatest days of my life celebrating Joe’s birthday and smash blogging début. Until we disembarked in St. Marten on the final day and saw a veritable halfway house for stray iguanas, I even managed to avoid the longtime reptilian nemeses that plague my worst nightmares.

Back on the Ovation, taking a shore excursion to the modest botanical garden at Deshaies, Guadeloupe seemed like a great idea. I love visiting botanical gardens around the world; it is a subgenre of travel rich in beauty and discovery. I did marketing work at a public garden in Cleveland for 10 years and learned to distinguish an Oncidium from an Amorphophallus -- the “corpse plant” that is by now a bit of a cliché trotted out at every garden the world over as an example of nature’s enigmatic and sometimes foul-smelling ways.

So I am inclined to love a botanical garden. The one in Guadeloupe was pleasant enough even if it lacked a unique landscape design. The rub was getting there and back with a local tour guide whose deadly body odor made the amorphophallus smell like a rose and stank as much as his English.

Deshaies Botanical Garden
Guadeloupe, March 6, 2024

The back of our guide's head

I try to summon empathy for well-meaning, less fortunate people. But there was something about this dude’s aggressive stank (Joe and I sat directly behind him for five hours), his lying about the time it would take to return to our ship, and his misuse of the word "traditional" that made me give up empathy and laugh out loud. He made things up, and what he didn’t fabricate was still the wrong information for the wrong audience.

I never did catch his name, but I will call him Nestor. This “tour guide” informed us that on hot days, we could get a “traditional” ice cream in the town square. It hurt my brain trying to ascertain what he meant by “traditional” ice cream. I wanted to know what an untraditional ice cream would be and went back to my experiences with molecular gastronomy. I wondered if Nestor was alluding to a Ferran Adrià type of culinary experience in contrast to his “traditional” ice cream.

The aptly named "Banana's" Café in Guadeloupe

Captive on this tour and with no opportunities to go use the toilet let alone go for a hike, Nestor, still missing the boat, sternly told us not to hike on Guadeloupe or “it could be our last hike.” Oh, sweet island bliss!

And he conveniently let us tourists know where all the local jails and free WIFI centers were in case we were planning to send photos to family and friends from the streets of Guadeloupe -- or get arrested.

When we finally got back to the ship an hour later than promised, I treated myself to a traditional gelato and took an extra shower. Our botanical garden excursion may have been chaotic, but the rest of the trip was not too shabby at all.

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