After Tobago we went off to Curaçao. It was a pretty busy 5 days sail with not too much sleep. Anyway, Curaçao is a very cruise ship based city. It’s an old colony of the Netherlands and looks like it – but more colourful. Curacao also has a large history in slave trade. Most of the time, I guess, was spent in Starbucks… it felt a little bit like going to Starbucks in Basel, which was very nice. The day I enjoyed the most was probably the first day of shore leave, where three of us walked around in town, went to the movie theatre and watched “Peanuts the Movie”, in 4D. It was also when we felt the first Christmas vibes because of the decorations. For Field Studies we had four trips that included going to the Slavery museum called “Tula Kulah”, visiting an Ostrich Farm as well as an Aloe Vera plantation and finally camping in Curacao’s wildlife. While camping we saw a couple iguanas, went to see some cave art and did a trip to a mountain with beautiful view. The week in Curaçao was definitely recharging and made me remember a lot from back home and how I used to spend a normal day. It took us only three days to get to Cartagena, Colombia. Before we even got to shore we had a swim Call in the morning, as Morning Fitness. The SS Sørlandet was at anchorage. First field studies strip was a walking tour through the old town, we learnt about Cartagena’s history and its link to slavery. The same day I had the best lemonade ever(!) from a street vendor as well as delicious papaya and mango (mmmhhh…!! Soo good!). Cartagena offered a lot of delicious fruity as well as coffee things: 100% fruit popsicles, frozen yoghurt, ice coffee (Colombian coffee beans!), fresh juices, “flavoured dried coconut sweets”. Still the same day, in the afternoon, we went to a Salsa dance course, which was a lot of fun. After that we could go off in groups of four. We rent bikes and biked around the old town and ended up in a park with statues of big heads. It was a day full of funny happenings and great random conversations with local people; for example, one where we ended up talking about Swiss Chorizos and blond guys. We also went swimming in a mud volcano; it was weird but great… it felt like flying but it was stinky and slimy… the sunset on the way back was in any case beautiful J. In the middle of the week our ship got moved to the port, which was super nice cause we didn’t have to organize us according to the “Tender Schedule” (small boats carrying people from the Sørlandet to shore). In Cartagena we also saw a monkey in the “monkey park”, it was an interesting approach… And yeah it’s definitely great seeing animals in freedom J. Another field studies trip was going to a slum, together with Opportunity International. They have a microfinance program with which they make real changes in poor areas, not just money donation. It was sad and somehow weird facing this immense and impressive poverty. Cartagena was overall a very impressive place and perhaps my favourite port, so far… As a side note: I feel comfortable and some sort of home at this place, with these people with the everyday routine. An everyday at sea looks like this: Getting woken up at ~ 6:45 a.m. – putting away my hammock – 7:10 a.m. morning fitness – 7:30 breakfast – 8:00 colours (watch check in, announcements n’ stuff) – 8:10 deck scrub & rinse – 9:00 first class – classes and 2h of watch until 6:00 p.m. with 1 or 2 free hours – lunch at 12:00 – 12:30 banjer clean – from 1:00 p.m. classes – 6:30 p.m. dinner – 8:00 p.m. 1h study hall – 10:00 p.m. lights out and the 2h night watches start and go until 8:00 a.m. There is a little variation on Sundays, like no morning fitness and a family dinner. It makes me realize how much our bodies can take, which I find quite impressive. After Cartagena we headed off to Panama. As a huge surprise we stopped at a paradise… Turtle Island, one of the San Blas islands. There are three man and a dog living on it. Coconut trees, white beach, transparent water, coral reef, pure nature – a real paradise. We spent the day swimming, snorkelling, playing beach/water volleyball and soccer, walking around the island, drinking coconut water, picking up trash (that stranded mostly from cruise ships…). I also liked it a lot that we spent some time outside the ship with the maritime crew, because we don’t get to do that very often and they are awesome. Then we had our last night watch and I noticed something rather special: So usually when there’s lighting you don’t hear any thunder, at sea, because the air has enough room to expand, or so. This last night watch (with my truly favourite watch) it was rather stormy and there was lightning, and the first time on the ship I heard thunder… I was amazed. It was also when I got sentimental because it was the last few days with this rotation. The whole next day and especially on last family dinner I felt just awkward. Knowing that about 9 people won’t be there when we (the students) get back from our retreat in Panama, but also knowing that they’ll be back in about 10 weeks. This night I got almost no sleep. I was packing, thinking, writing, writing poems, visiting maritime crew and volunteers on night watch. The thing with the poem: we got this assignment where we had to write 17 poems of different kinds. A lot of poems, but in that way I got to analyse, describe and process happenings or feelings in nice way. In the morning we took a water taxi to the dock, the first part of our way to our lodge in Punta Patiño, Darien, Panama. We were imprisoned in the docking area … we had to go through some unexpected paperwork which took about 5h. Our guide and our bus driver were waiting for us and provided us with some subway lunch from the outside world. I was so tired so I just slept on our bags. The postponed bus drive was cosy and after that we switched into motorboats which took us on a 1.5h boat ride. We arrived in the dark and got welcomed by mosquitos. We walked up a hill (that reminded me of my old school way (“dr Gym-Hügel”/”Blocksberg”)), got dispersed into cabins, in groups of 2 or 3. Our retreat was in the rainforest of Panama, a mostly young secondary rainforest. It was supposed to be a retreat but already in the first night some boys got surprised by a big and hairy spider. We got to go on early, as well as later morning walks, to see some animals. What we saw during our stay was: Spiders, snakes, scorpions, a sloth, a quati, birds, tamarind monkeys. During the two weeks we got internet only once, which isn’t necessarily bad. We also learned about ourselves in the seminars with our head master T.D. It was nice spending some time off the ship and without teachers around.
After the two weeks, students got a chance to meet up with their parents in Panama City for 4 days. A friend and I stayed on our own. Not being depended on a group of four or so was heaven! ^^ The 4 days were gone sooner than wished. Back on the ship we prepared for Christmas. Is was a fun day with sleeping in, brunch, a pool on deck, games, opening presents and much more! For sure different and a lot hotter. On the sail to Galapagos we also celebrated New year’s Eve on which we also crossed the equator – Heck Yeah! On the 1st of January 2016 we had the crossing ceremony where Pollywogs became Shellbacks. I got baptized as butterfly fish. In Galapagos a new law hindered us from exploring Galapagos’ National Park… our teachers set up a little tour where they dressed up as exotic animals^^. Luckily we got 5h ashore to get some land under our feet, internet and a little bit of provision. By simply getting to shore we saw a bunch of sealions, iguanas as well as marine iguanas, tortoises, penguins and crabs. Then we headed for the 20 days sail to Easter Island! 😀 20 days of school and exams… It was done before we really got to think about it. From Panama to Easter Island my watch had night watch from 4:00 am to 6:00 am and I’m happy that we’re done with that now. After our stay in Easter Island we’ll have the 6:00 to 8:00 watch, which is really nice! Our adventures on Easter Island will be covered in my next entry. What I can tell is that there are a lot of Moais 😀
🗿 Happy Easter to everyone!
😎 Next stop: Pitcairn Island 😃😄
linnaroundtheglobe 