August 21 -- We sailed into San Diego Harbor this morning at 7:15am and docked about 8am. The hills of San Diego were a beautiful sight! The Customs officers came aboard, and the ship cleared Customs about 10am, and then they started calling us to disembark. It was an emotional scene, with everyone suddenly realizing that they had to leave all of these new friends with whom they had spent the past two months. There were tears and lots of hugging.
Mom and I disembarked with the Faculty, Staff, and Lifelong Learners, and picked up our 6 duffle bags and 5 boxes. We immediately took most of this luggage to UPS, and shipped it home in three batches (Mom's home, my home, and my office).
Then we took a taxi to the Hampton Inn Airport/Sea World, which I chose because of Erin's hearty recommendation. I have to say, she was right! It is a beautiful hotel, a little far from the center of town, but near the airport. The rooms are huge after the close quarters in which we have lived for 65 days, and there are two (count 'em, TWO!) queen-sized beds with luxury duvets and lots of pillows on each bed. I must confess we got into the room about 1:30pm, and fell asleep about 1:35.
We're flying to Charlotte, NC tomorrow ...
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Monday, August 20, 2007
WebCam of San Diego Dock
If you are up about 7 or 8 am (Pacific Daylight Time), you will be able to see the arrival of the MV Explorer on this webcam of San Diego Harbor.
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Winding Down and Wrapping Up
August 16-20 -- These last few days are devoted to the last classes, turning in papers, evaluating classes, studying, and taking final exams. The staff and faculty are completing evaluations, grades, writing reports, etc. In the library, we are taking reserve materials off reserve, getting books that are charged out back, and packing up materials that will be shipped to Better World Books.
We've completed the majority of pulling reserve materials for the next voyage, marked them with yellow Reserve tape, and updated the sublocations and circulation types in Destiny. All Kathy will have to do for these items is add the Categories to the copy records.
[to be continued ...]
We've completed the majority of pulling reserve materials for the next voyage, marked them with yellow Reserve tape, and updated the sublocations and circulation types in Destiny. All Kathy will have to do for these items is add the Categories to the copy records.
[to be continued ...]
Guatemala
August 11-15 -- Guatemala was supposed to be a "difficult" port. The presidential and congressional elections take place in early September, and so far, this has been the bloodiest election campaign to take place here. At last count, I believe there were 42 election-related killings this summer. The candidates campaign with bodyguards. Part of the problem is that the drug cartels are trying to get their hands into the government, because Guatemala is a very convienent thoroughfare to Mexico and the United States for drugs.
Secondly, there is a great deal of suspicion about the motives of Americans coming to Guatemala, since adoption of Guatemalan children is relatively frequent. There have been cases of Americans innocently taking pictures of or talking to children, and then being attacked because it was thought they might be preparing to steal them.
Finally, three days before we arrived, the Pacayo volcano erupted, resulting in the cancellation of two field trips, and while we were here, the Fuego volcano erupted. Whew! However, as far as I know, there were no problems while we were in Guatemala, and everyone got back onto the ship OK.
The ship was docked here for five days, and I took field trips for the first three of those days. One difficulty is that the port of Puerto Quetzal is out of reach of everything - the closest city (Antigua) is a 2-hour drive by bus. And all of the field trips I went on centered around Antigua. First, I went to the Filadelfia Coffee Finca or plantation, where we got to see their operation from beginning to end. This was a much more realistic tour than the Britt Coffee Plantation in Costa Rica.
The next day, I was on a tour called "Textiles, Traditions, and Tortillas." We went to "La Casa de Artes," where the owner talked to us about the history of textiles in Guatemala. This is a truly fascinating topic, since each village weaves a specific design. The speaker was very knowledgeable and I enjoyed listening to her. We also got to see a presentation of two traditional dances by a professional dance troop. We ate at a lovely restaurant (heavy on the red meat), and spent the afternoon at a Master Weaver marketplace in a nearby town, San Antonio Aguas Calientes. Yes, there's a hot spring there. We saw the women weaving, then had the opportunity to buy their products. For textile lovers, it was a perfect day!
Finally, on Aug. 13, I went on a trip to a place called the Open Windows Library, in the town of San Miguel Dueñas, where they provide a place for children ages 3-18 to study before or after school, and provide a library and computers for them (public schools do not have libraries here). We brought study materials and books to donate to the library, and we spent a couple of hours interacting with the children.
I should mention that in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Guatemala, we had thunderstorms on a daily basis, any time from 5pm to late at night, since this is the rainy season. The lightning and thunder were truly impressive!
Secondly, there is a great deal of suspicion about the motives of Americans coming to Guatemala, since adoption of Guatemalan children is relatively frequent. There have been cases of Americans innocently taking pictures of or talking to children, and then being attacked because it was thought they might be preparing to steal them.
Finally, three days before we arrived, the Pacayo volcano erupted, resulting in the cancellation of two field trips, and while we were here, the Fuego volcano erupted. Whew! However, as far as I know, there were no problems while we were in Guatemala, and everyone got back onto the ship OK.
The ship was docked here for five days, and I took field trips for the first three of those days. One difficulty is that the port of Puerto Quetzal is out of reach of everything - the closest city (Antigua) is a 2-hour drive by bus. And all of the field trips I went on centered around Antigua. First, I went to the Filadelfia Coffee Finca or plantation, where we got to see their operation from beginning to end. This was a much more realistic tour than the Britt Coffee Plantation in Costa Rica.
The next day, I was on a tour called "Textiles, Traditions, and Tortillas." We went to "La Casa de Artes," where the owner talked to us about the history of textiles in Guatemala. This is a truly fascinating topic, since each village weaves a specific design. The speaker was very knowledgeable and I enjoyed listening to her. We also got to see a presentation of two traditional dances by a professional dance troop. We ate at a lovely restaurant (heavy on the red meat), and spent the afternoon at a Master Weaver marketplace in a nearby town, San Antonio Aguas Calientes. Yes, there's a hot spring there. We saw the women weaving, then had the opportunity to buy their products. For textile lovers, it was a perfect day!
Finally, on Aug. 13, I went on a trip to a place called the Open Windows Library, in the town of San Miguel Dueñas, where they provide a place for children ages 3-18 to study before or after school, and provide a library and computers for them (public schools do not have libraries here). We brought study materials and books to donate to the library, and we spent a couple of hours interacting with the children.
I should mention that in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Guatemala, we had thunderstorms on a daily basis, any time from 5pm to late at night, since this is the rainy season. The lightning and thunder were truly impressive!
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Nicaragua
August 6-9 -- We docked in Corinto, the only Pacific port in Nicaragua. There is a small town here, but not very big.
Nicaragua is a very poor place. They are barely recovering from a long war. In fact, we could see no middle class, only a lot of poor people and a very few very rich people living in beautiful houses protected by barbed wire and guards. 40% of the people are unemployed. The Ortega government, elected in Dec. 2006, has only had about 8 months to work on the problems here, and so far, according to some people we talked to, not much has changed.
It was very hot and humid in Nicaragua. My first trip was to León, a city that is called the cultural center of Nicaragua. It was bombed by the Samosa faction during the war, and evidence of the destruction is still apparent. I, and several of the other people on the trip, thought it was a sad place. The "beautiful central plaza" was a concrete slab with a few trees scattered about. The Cathedral in León was lovely and peaceful inside, but desperately needing cleaning and repair outside. It is in this Cathedral that the great Latin American author, Rubén Darío, is buried.
We also visited Darío's childhood home here in León, about four blocks east of the Cathedral. Typical of most of the other buildings we saw in Nicaragua, the house is situated right on the street; the exterior walls have a minimum of windows. The entrance takes you into an inner courtyard or garden, and the interior rooms are placed around the garden, each a door to the next room and a door to the courtyard. This home is preserved as a Darío museum, but there is no air conditioning or climate control to protect the books and papers on display. (It made the librarian in me shudder!)
The third place we visited in León was an art gallery of the
Fundación Ortiz Gurdián. This museum (also not air conditioned! -- in fact, many of the galleries have open air gardens in the center of the room with the art displayed on the walls of the walkways) displays art by Latin Americans, both ancient and modern. This was the highlight of this trip. The first couple of rooms housed Baroque and later-style religious art "in the style of" or "from the school of." I'm told this demonstrates that the indigenous artists were learning the European styles of art even from the very earliest times. There were madonnas (La Virgen de Guadalupe and La Virgen de Carmen) with so much gilding that they looked like Greek Orthodox icons.
The most impressive works to me, however, were the modern Latin American works, which were creative and skillfully done. My favorite was a large canvas that had as a background Picasso's "Guernica" in greys. The foreground was a copy of Velasquez's famous painting, "Las Meninas," done as if the figures were in a museum standing in front of "Guernica," with small changes that put them in a Latin American context. I was most impressed. Unfortunately, this gallery did not have a gift shop with reproductions of any of their paintings.
Another trip I went on in Nicaragua was to the Flor de Caña Rum Distillery in San Antonio, Nicaragua. This particular trip had the potential for disaster, in that we were to have a rum tasting after the tour. However, all of the participants, even the lifelong learners, were well-behaved, and I think we all had a great time. Flor de Caña's claim to fame is that their rums are 100% barrel aged, so that when you see a bottle that says "aged 18 years" on it, it really means the rum is as old as a college first-year. Apparently this is not the case for some other rums, in which only a percentage of the rum in such a bottle is actually that old. Flor de Caña is trying to expand into the United States, so we will probably see it being sold all over the U.S. in a couple of years.
Nicaragua is a very poor place. They are barely recovering from a long war. In fact, we could see no middle class, only a lot of poor people and a very few very rich people living in beautiful houses protected by barbed wire and guards. 40% of the people are unemployed. The Ortega government, elected in Dec. 2006, has only had about 8 months to work on the problems here, and so far, according to some people we talked to, not much has changed.
It was very hot and humid in Nicaragua. My first trip was to León, a city that is called the cultural center of Nicaragua. It was bombed by the Samosa faction during the war, and evidence of the destruction is still apparent. I, and several of the other people on the trip, thought it was a sad place. The "beautiful central plaza" was a concrete slab with a few trees scattered about. The Cathedral in León was lovely and peaceful inside, but desperately needing cleaning and repair outside. It is in this Cathedral that the great Latin American author, Rubén Darío, is buried.
We also visited Darío's childhood home here in León, about four blocks east of the Cathedral. Typical of most of the other buildings we saw in Nicaragua, the house is situated right on the street; the exterior walls have a minimum of windows. The entrance takes you into an inner courtyard or garden, and the interior rooms are placed around the garden, each a door to the next room and a door to the courtyard. This home is preserved as a Darío museum, but there is no air conditioning or climate control to protect the books and papers on display. (It made the librarian in me shudder!)
The third place we visited in León was an art gallery of the
Fundación Ortiz Gurdián. This museum (also not air conditioned! -- in fact, many of the galleries have open air gardens in the center of the room with the art displayed on the walls of the walkways) displays art by Latin Americans, both ancient and modern. This was the highlight of this trip. The first couple of rooms housed Baroque and later-style religious art "in the style of" or "from the school of." I'm told this demonstrates that the indigenous artists were learning the European styles of art even from the very earliest times. There were madonnas (La Virgen de Guadalupe and La Virgen de Carmen) with so much gilding that they looked like Greek Orthodox icons.
The most impressive works to me, however, were the modern Latin American works, which were creative and skillfully done. My favorite was a large canvas that had as a background Picasso's "Guernica" in greys. The foreground was a copy of Velasquez's famous painting, "Las Meninas," done as if the figures were in a museum standing in front of "Guernica," with small changes that put them in a Latin American context. I was most impressed. Unfortunately, this gallery did not have a gift shop with reproductions of any of their paintings.
Another trip I went on in Nicaragua was to the Flor de Caña Rum Distillery in San Antonio, Nicaragua. This particular trip had the potential for disaster, in that we were to have a rum tasting after the tour. However, all of the participants, even the lifelong learners, were well-behaved, and I think we all had a great time. Flor de Caña's claim to fame is that their rums are 100% barrel aged, so that when you see a bottle that says "aged 18 years" on it, it really means the rum is as old as a college first-year. Apparently this is not the case for some other rums, in which only a percentage of the rum in such a bottle is actually that old. Flor de Caña is trying to expand into the United States, so we will probably see it being sold all over the U.S. in a couple of years.
Costa Rica
August 1-4 -- After Peru, Costa Rica seemed very "United States-ized." I understand that many American retirees want to retire there, because the pension goes further, and that has to have a significant affect on the social structure of the country. From what I could gather, housing is very expensive. Developers are building condos and homes for the American retirees flooding into the country, which cost $100K to $250K. That sounds very familiar.... Based on that, Costa Rica seems not to be the place to retire to any more. Instead, our guide suggested Panama or Nicaragua.
In Costa Rica, the roads are fairly good, but they are in the mountains, so everything is measured in travel time rather than distance. San José, the capital, is about an hour from Puntarenas on the coast, where we are docked. Puntarenas is a small town of about 20,000 people, without many things going on there. Most of the S@S field trips take place at least an hour away from Puntarenas, so all trips begin with a long bus ride. However, many of the students really enjoyed the beaches and other outdoor trips.
The one trip I took here was to the Britt Coffee Plantation, where they have a very well-developed tourist attraction, complete with re-enactors, movies, etc., all staged to move everyone to the very large and well-stocked gift shop. (You can get all these products by mail from www.cafebritt.com. First an actor took us into a "plantation" area to show us the coffee bushes and to explain about the bean and how they process it. Then they quickly showed us a simulated processing plant. I didn't realize how complex the processing of coffee was. Then we had a lesson in how to evaluate and taste coffee, followed by a movie about the history of coffee. The movie was interesting, and it was made funnier by the actors who presented little scenes on stage in front of it. Finally, we went to the restaurant for lunch, which was a delicious buffet. After that, we had some time to shop in the gift shop, and our group was buying quite a bit.
I will confess that I spent much of my time in Costa Rica relaxing on the ship. That was really nice, and the pool deck was gloriously empty for four days.
In Costa Rica, the roads are fairly good, but they are in the mountains, so everything is measured in travel time rather than distance. San José, the capital, is about an hour from Puntarenas on the coast, where we are docked. Puntarenas is a small town of about 20,000 people, without many things going on there. Most of the S@S field trips take place at least an hour away from Puntarenas, so all trips begin with a long bus ride. However, many of the students really enjoyed the beaches and other outdoor trips.
The one trip I took here was to the Britt Coffee Plantation, where they have a very well-developed tourist attraction, complete with re-enactors, movies, etc., all staged to move everyone to the very large and well-stocked gift shop. (You can get all these products by mail from www.cafebritt.com. First an actor took us into a "plantation" area to show us the coffee bushes and to explain about the bean and how they process it. Then they quickly showed us a simulated processing plant. I didn't realize how complex the processing of coffee was. Then we had a lesson in how to evaluate and taste coffee, followed by a movie about the history of coffee. The movie was interesting, and it was made funnier by the actors who presented little scenes on stage in front of it. Finally, we went to the restaurant for lunch, which was a delicious buffet. After that, we had some time to shop in the gift shop, and our group was buying quite a bit.
I will confess that I spent much of my time in Costa Rica relaxing on the ship. That was really nice, and the pool deck was gloriously empty for four days.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Callao and Lima, Peru
July 22-28 -- We were told that this would be the "most difficult" port of our entire itinerary, because 1) we were here over the Independence Day holidays (July 28th is the Peruvian Fiestas Patriotas, 2) strikes and demonstrations have been occurring over the past month (the teachers went on strike, then the transportation workers went on strike ...), and 3) the U.S. Embassy considers this a "dangerous" posting because of all the crime. The embassy employees are advised not to carry their passports, but only to carry photocopies of the pertinent pages, and the service the embassy performs the most is to replaces stolen passports for traveling Americans.
This was a trying time for me personally because I finally caught the bug that has been going around the ship for a month. Ick. Also, the sun never comes out in Lima (where we were) in the winter time (now) -- In spite of it's tropical geographical location, Peru is overcast and cool with a constant fine mist at this time of year. No wonder they have a well-developed industry of making warm clothing from alpaca and other wools. The artesanal markets are very nice here, and much shopping occurred ...
Since I wasn't going to Machu Picchu with 90% of the voyagers, I took three trips here. The first was a city orientation of Lima, during which we saw Casa Aliega, a house built in 1535, that has been lived in by the same family for 16 generations. We also saw the Plaza Mayor, the Presidential Palace, the outside of the Cathedral, and the Monastery of San Francisco, which has catacombs, complete with bones. Lots and lots of bones.
The next day, I went on a service visit to a home for children who are at risk in the home. This is run by the ANAR Foundation. They had 14 girls from ages 6 or 7 to 14 living there. This is not a "safe house" -- I asked -- and they allow their parents to visit them. The risk involves other problems at home including divorce, money problems, etc. 25 students went on this visit, and they seemed to have a great time playing with the kids. The kids really went wild over the student's digital cameras and were running around like little paparazzi, taking pictures. The money that was part of the cost of this field program was used to buy new mattresses for the children.
The third day, Mom and I went with a friend to Miraflores, one of the "safer" neighborhoods of Lima. It is very upscale, with a J. W. Marriott Hotel and very expensive malls and shops. We found a yarn shop, and although it didn't have any natural fibers (wool, alpaca, cotton) we bought a couple of big bags of yarns for various projects. Mom is teaching a number of the children how to crochet, and she made an afghan for the Students of Service auction.
I should mention that Students of Service is an organization that raises money on each voyage which is donated at the end of the voyage to a charity active in a part of the world the voyage has visited.
The fourth day, I was trip leader for a field trip to Pachacamac, an ancient oracle site for the Incas (and three previous cultures on that spot). After Pachacamac, we visited an hacienda where we saw the beautiful Paso horses that they breed there, and had a catered lunch. (The family that owns the hacienda also owns one of the nicer restaurants in Lima, called La Rosa Nautica.) The Paso breed is a gaited breed, similar to the American Saddlebred and the Tennessee Walker, but has a more compact conformation. That was a lot of fun. The students enjoyed riding the horses.
On the fifth day, I rested ...
This was a trying time for me personally because I finally caught the bug that has been going around the ship for a month. Ick. Also, the sun never comes out in Lima (where we were) in the winter time (now) -- In spite of it's tropical geographical location, Peru is overcast and cool with a constant fine mist at this time of year. No wonder they have a well-developed industry of making warm clothing from alpaca and other wools. The artesanal markets are very nice here, and much shopping occurred ...
Since I wasn't going to Machu Picchu with 90% of the voyagers, I took three trips here. The first was a city orientation of Lima, during which we saw Casa Aliega, a house built in 1535, that has been lived in by the same family for 16 generations. We also saw the Plaza Mayor, the Presidential Palace, the outside of the Cathedral, and the Monastery of San Francisco, which has catacombs, complete with bones. Lots and lots of bones.
The next day, I went on a service visit to a home for children who are at risk in the home. This is run by the ANAR Foundation. They had 14 girls from ages 6 or 7 to 14 living there. This is not a "safe house" -- I asked -- and they allow their parents to visit them. The risk involves other problems at home including divorce, money problems, etc. 25 students went on this visit, and they seemed to have a great time playing with the kids. The kids really went wild over the student's digital cameras and were running around like little paparazzi, taking pictures. The money that was part of the cost of this field program was used to buy new mattresses for the children.
The third day, Mom and I went with a friend to Miraflores, one of the "safer" neighborhoods of Lima. It is very upscale, with a J. W. Marriott Hotel and very expensive malls and shops. We found a yarn shop, and although it didn't have any natural fibers (wool, alpaca, cotton) we bought a couple of big bags of yarns for various projects. Mom is teaching a number of the children how to crochet, and she made an afghan for the Students of Service auction.
I should mention that Students of Service is an organization that raises money on each voyage which is donated at the end of the voyage to a charity active in a part of the world the voyage has visited.
The fourth day, I was trip leader for a field trip to Pachacamac, an ancient oracle site for the Incas (and three previous cultures on that spot). After Pachacamac, we visited an hacienda where we saw the beautiful Paso horses that they breed there, and had a catered lunch. (The family that owns the hacienda also owns one of the nicer restaurants in Lima, called La Rosa Nautica.) The Paso breed is a gaited breed, similar to the American Saddlebred and the Tennessee Walker, but has a more compact conformation. That was a lot of fun. The students enjoyed riding the horses.
On the fifth day, I rested ...
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