Cruising to the Sun Part VI: Scenic Highlights Beyond Grand Cayman's Resorts

If and when you get beyond the shops of downtown and the lavish resort hotels of Seven Mile Beach, Grand Cayman has some fascinating secrets to share with you. We got to visit a few of them on the tour I took two days ago. 

Right off the bat, Grand Cayman is probably the busiest port I've ever visited where all ships still have to get their guests shuttled to and from the shore. Thankfully, since my last visit in 2018, the shuttles are now provided by a fleet of two-decked tenders operated from the island. The last time around, we had to use the smaller and slower ship's lifeboats.

With as many as four ships in port at once (today) the ships have to be anchored offshore from the capital of George Town in a fairly orderly manner. To me, it resembles a row of cars in a parking lot with angle parking. Today, the resemblance was spoiled a bit when the first of the ships was anchored at a different angle. Anyway, here they are. Our larger fleetmate Nieuw Statendam, and Royal Caribbean's Brilliance of the Seas in the first picture ...

... and then Brilliance again, along with Carnival's Carnival Horizon and our own Eurodam partly concealed beyond the loaded tender at the pier.

So many ships, of course, means bigger crowds everywhere for the day. The  tour I chose, covering the scenic highlights of the island's East End, was operated in small European-style tour buses with only 20 seats or so. This trip turned out to be an inspired choice -- we got clear away from all the mass market tourist "attractions" and stores and out into the parts of the island where you can still get an authentic Caymanian cultural vibe. 

 

As we headed south and then east out of George Town, we still had to make our escape from the big city as we passed two surprising examples of Canadian genius at work. The first one is financial...

 

 ... and the second one, well...

 

We found out that the majority of the passengers on our coach were Canadian, when a chorus of voices urged the driver to pull over and turn in! The driver laughed -- the first of many hearty laughs he would give during the day. As he explained it later: "I love my job. That's it. I love my job!" With an attitude like that, I'm sure a lot of people come away from his tours smiling. 

 

Our driver/guide, John, explained to us that with a total of eight buses operating the tour that day (between four ships), we had to vary the order and we'd been asked to start with what was supposed to be the third stop -- lunch. So there we were, climbing out of our bus at the Eastern Star Bar and Fish Fry at 10:00 AM! Mind you, having had breakfast at 6:30, I didn't consider lunch at 10:00 a huge imposition or disruption of my day -- especially in surroundings like these.

The meal was a choice of fried chicken or fried grouper, with pasta salad and rice & beans, and the fish was lightly coated and tasty. Iced tea or lemonade were included, with bar drinks for sale. It was the setting and the view around the broad patio that made this lunch special.

From there,  we drove on to the historic site dedicated to the "Wreck of the Ten Sail." The name is a holdover from the days when a fleet would be described as "ten sail" instead of "ten ships." This was a usage which the British Royal Navy kept up long into the nineteenth century, abandoning it only when those newfangled stink pots, the steamships, finally drove sail out of the Navy for good. At this site, we  learned the story of how a fleet of ships came to grief on the offshore coral reefs, but it was hard to make the connections with that wild, stormy night on such a placid day of sunshine and breezes. 

This artifact, looking rather like a partially-rotted log, is actually a sizable weight of lead which would be placed along the inside of the keel of a tall ship. The lead weight helped to balance off the pressure of the wind against all the sails and keep the ship (reasonably) upright.

Our next stop, a short distance back along the coast towards George Town, was at a roadside viewpoint where the right wave conditions would produce a fountain of water out of a blowhole. I got one so-so photo from closer at hand, but the best one shot up after I had gotten back up to the bus. Naturally.

Our next stop was, oddly enough, the least memorable. The Tortuga company, a distillery and rum cake maker, gave us all free samples of their rum cake and their rum. The rum was rum, the cake was bland and ho-hum, and the tour facility (a small one) was completely overrun by getting hit with three bus loads at once. The crowding was severe, and I was grateful to get out and back on the bus in one piece.

 

 

On the other hand, the arrival of a small family of mama chicken and her babies entertained us for a few moments in the outdoor patio area. Grand Cayman is another one of those places, like Key West and Kauai, where the chickens run wild all over the island, and the song of the roosters runs on "Repeat Play" nonstop from an hour before sunrise and all the way through the day.

That was the official end of the tour, but as we headed back to the pier, John explained that he had gotten permission to add on an additional stop at the end for anyone who really wanted to go to Hell. I wasn't quite sure what this might entail, but I'm always up for an adventure so why not? In the end, only three of us hung on -- Chris and Terry, from Saskatchewan, and me. The rest of them chickened out. Their loss.

A little quote from George Bernard Shaw, just because. 

 

 

"As saith the poet, Hell is a city much like Seville." 

 -- Man and Superman, Act 3. 

 

 

I just threw that in because it's been ages since I quoted Shaw, so why not? And here we are in Hell.

The post office will gladly stamp your outgoing mail, or your passport (Chris got her passport stamped).

 

 

And this yellow shirt would certainly be a, well, unique clothing item at any and all future occasions. If it were a bit more orange in colour, I might have bought it for the Orange Party that night, haha!

 

 

In reality, once you get past the kitschy post office and souvenir shops, Hell does appear rather sinister.

It's not a volcanic formation (in case you were wondering and didn't bother to read the sign shown above). The Cayman Islands rank among the very few non-volcanic islands anywhere in or near the Caribbean Sea. It's limestone formed under water from ancient corals at a time when there was no island. I've seen similar rock formations, although only by the seashore, in Bermuda -- which is actually very like Grand Cayman with hills added. That's Grand Cayman's defining characteristic for me. It's flat. The highest elevation is a resounding 60 feet (18.2 metres) above sea level.

All day, I kept getting reminded of Bermuda. The stuccoed and colourful houses, the white or grey painted roofs which looked so reminiscent of the white stone roofs in Bermuda, the beautiful matching walls along the roads, Grand Cayman and Bermuda certainly share some similarities among their many differences. 

 

That little private tour to Hell added an extra hour to John's workday, but he plainly loved every minute of it.  So did we. If there were any jokes about travelling to Hell, experiencing Hell, returning from Hell, which Chris and Terry and I didn't crack and then laugh at, I can't imagine what they might be. We were still laughing about it the next morning!

And so to my favourite night of any Holland America cruise -- Orange Party night! You know it's time when the daily newsletter, at the heading, solemnly states:

 

Dress Code: Casual, with a splash of orange.

 

Orange is the national colour of the Netherlands. The long-standing Dutch royal family is called the House of Orange, and that's the origin of the colour and of this tradition on the Netherlands' national cruise ship line. It's the only time you'll ever see me wearing a T-shirt into the Dining Room in the evening! 

 

There's always an Orange Party with music and dancing later in the evening. It was up at the Lido pool on this warm weather cruise, but after my bedtime. The real feature of the Orange Party evening for me is the Dutch menu at dinner. Dutch menu? Even the table napkins are orange! Many people dress in orange clothes. If you don't have any, you can get a silly little orange hat or other orange accessories in the gift shop. I didn't see any orange hair this time, but several ladies went that route on my last Holland America cruise. People who are familiar with Dutch traditional cuisine can spot the Dutch dishes here and there on the bill of fare.

 

 

For the record, I started with the traditional pea soup, then went on to the Bami Goreng (an Indonesian/Dutch fusion dish), and finished off with the Tompouce. And it was a great meal -- especially the Bami Goreng!

Chasing the Sun # 5: The Western Caribbean Circuit

Okay, so he's at it again.  After I got back from that Eastern Caribbean cruise in December, I realized that I enjoyed it so much that I wanted to try the Western circuit on the same ship -- Princess Cruises' Regal Princess.  Once again, the last minute price was simply too good to ignore.

I've also learned that I could have struck an even better bargain by taking the two cruises back-to-back for a single 14-day trip.  I've even seen some pretty modest beach-front hotels that cost more for one week than this ship for two weeks.  Definitely worth checking out that possibility.

It was a great trip -- and as I sit inside a hotel room in frigid Sault Ste Marie, Ontario, with the snow coming down outside, and the temperature dropping almost as fast as the snow, I think I may be getting punished for being so impulsive!

So here's the map.  The brown line indicates the route of the Eastern Caribbean cruise which I took last month, and the purple line shows the Western Caribbean cruise this month.  In both cases, Princess Cays is the first stop out of Fort Lauderdale -- but that's the only overlap between the two itineraries.

Just for the record, Regal Princess alternates between these two routes all winter long -- but Princess does have other ships sailing trips of various lengths to many other Caribbean destinations.

If you refer back to # 2 of this series of posts, you'll read that I was unable to take the glass bottom boat cruise at Princess Cays on the first trip because turbulence in the water stirred up the sand and silt, leaving the visibility at near nil.  This time, I was able to patch that hole in my experience.  The glass bottom is an interesting idea, but usually best for inspecting shipwrecks.  In this case, as we glided over reefs that were 8-10 metres below the surface in the clear waters, the fish were best observed over the sides of the boat rather than through the bottom.

The next day, we stopped at Falmouth, Jamaica.  I refused to go ashore here because of Jamaica's appalling human rights record regarding LGBTQ people, but it was obvious that Falmouth itself was like every other major Caribbean cruise port.  That is, there's a huge shopping mall full of clothing, jewellery, perfume, and liquor stores (all supposedly "duty-free," of course) which you have to pass through before you get to see anything else of the island at all.

So I enjoyed a nice quiet day aboard a half-empty ship -- and it did get sunny later in the morning, so lounging by the adults-only Retreat Pool was delightful.

The next day we arrived at Grand Cayman.  This island struck me at first glance as being "Florida meets the Caribbean."  Due to the lively international banking scene, Grand Cayman is wealthy and everything from shops to homes to resorts reflects that fact.  It's also the only Caribbean port at which I have seen a heavy representation of American food and retail chains.

Grand Cayman doesn't have any docking facilities for cruises.  The five ships in port on the same day were lined up in a row, like cars angle-parked along the side of a shopping street.  Maybe that similarity was somewhat appropriate.

One of the biggest attractions here is the Stingray Sandbar, just inside the protecting coral reefs north of the island.  We sailed out there on board the catamaran Allura, one of the many tour boats which take groups of guests out to the sandbar.

Our guides on this sailing adventure explained that the rays are definitely not tame or denaturalized; they interact with humans very much on their own terms and at their own choosing.  

This picture gives you a good idea of the crowding of tour boats around the sandbar.  Each one stays for about 30-40 minutes, and as it leaves another arrives.  It seems as if the scheduling must be both careful and clearly coordinated.  

We had to anchor a bit farther off than some of the vessels, and drop off the ladder into 2 metres of turbulent water, then swim several metres to reach the shallower zone.  No big issue, except for non-swimmers -- and this expedition is definitely not a place for non-swimmers.  Even inside the protecting coral reef, some of the waves got pretty sizable.

Two guides from our boat were quickly visited by two stingrays who obviously knew them very well.  Each of us in turn had a chance to pet a stingray, kiss a stingray, or get hugged by a stingray.  When the guide slid the ray up my chest towards my face she started wrapping her "wings" around me, and he laughed and said, "She really likes you!"  I'm sorry I don't have a picture of that; my own camera was on the boat (not waterproof) and the third crew member with the boat's own camera was busy elsewhere at that moment.  I took these pictures after I got back on board and dried off.

Our final stop was in the Mexican island of Cozumel.  I was there last year on another cruise, and took the full-day Chichen Itza Express tour.  You can read here about why that was the mistake of all mistakes:  Epic Bus Ride to the Distant Past

This time, I opted for a "Mayan experience" tour, which took us to a jungle park south of downtown Cozumel, called Kun Che.  We had a full 4-hour programme, which included a number of fascinating experiences.  Cozumel has a higher surviving population of full-blooded Mayans than many areas of mainland Mexico, and the village of El Cedral (where the park is located) is mainly populated by full-blooded Mayans.  Kun Che thus has much firmer roots in cultural memory and tradition than many historic "attractions" in other parts of the world.

We sensed that right from the outset, when our first stop was a traditional Mayan purification ritual to keep us safe and welcome in the jungle, a ritual performed by a traditional shaman or elder.  This ritual was conducted entirely in the Mayan language -- but we were able to catch a great deal of the elder's meaning by the combination of gestures, facial expressions, vocal intonations, and actions.  By the way, we were assured that photographs during the ritual were not merely allowed but were welcomed.

We then walked on through the jungle to the ball court, where we watched a re-enactment of the ancient Mayan ball game, pok ta pok.  This game was a symbolic re-enactment of the battles between the warriors of the sun god and the warriors of the god of the dead.  The players were allowed to hit the ball only with their backs, their thighs, and their hips -- no feet, hands, or lower limbs were permitted.  Hence the strange, twisted body positions.  The ball was a solid sphere of natural tree-sap rubber; it weighed several kilos but bounced exactly as you would expect a rubber ball to bounce -- although not as high in the air.

Throughout the game, the drummers hammered furiously and obsessively on the drum while the man representing the god of the dead walked back and forth along the side of the arena, blowing the smoke from his gourd towards the players representing the sun god.

After the game ended, there followed a demonstration of ritual Mayan dancing, including warriors' dances and this eye-popping fire dance.  The two dancers behind the fire dancers are blowing on conch shell horns.

Yes, that is a live burning coal which the dancer is about to thrust into his mouth.

Of course, I couldn't resist the offer to be photographed along with these super-high-energy re-enactment artists.

We then had a series of food tastings: Mayan tortillas, tamales, and several different kinds of Mayan chocolate.  This definitely wasn't your sweet chocolate store treat.  One was combined with habanero peppers, another with honey and black pepper, and the third with anise.  We also had a chance to sample a chocolate drink laced with a local liquor.

On the way to the included lunch, there was an optional tequila tasting, and I bit -- even though I am not normally a huge fan of tequila.  These, though, were flavoured tequilas, much lower in alcohol strength than the normal bar beverage, but very intriguing when mixed with such ingredients as pistachio paste, anise, or cappuccino (the last one tasted very much like Bailey's).

Lunch was a buffet of traditional Cozumel foods, very tasty, and was followed by a Mexican folkloric dance show.  Not easy to photography in the tricky light, but I did get a few decent pictures of the swirling skirts and fast-stamping feet.  In this picture, the dancers are balancing glasses of water, with a floating candle burning in each glass, on their heads.

And make no mistake, they were moving at a good rate of speed with their circular turns while balancing those glasses.

I didn't keep track, but there must have been a dozen different dance numbers, all presented in different but equally dazzling costumes -- perhaps these represented different regions of Mexico.

And when the show was over, there was another opportunity to have our pictures taken with these very talented artists -- and I couldn't resist the chance.  No, I did not buy the sombrero -- it belonged to the dancer who was taking the picture on my camera.

All of that made for a very full 4 hours, and I was left with the genuine feeling that I had more than gotten my money's worth out of this attraction.  Kun Che is well worth your time and effort if you ever find yourself in Cozumel.

And with that, it was time to head home again.  Everything else about this cruise mirrored what I had to say previously about the last trip.  If I ever come this way again, I will almost certainly do the full 14-day double circuit in one go.