Îles du Salut

Saturday, February 25, 2023

Happy birthday to Karen and Marla! Today also marks six years since we lost our brother-in-law, Thom. We are thinking of all of them today.

Today was a really unusual cruise stop. We were officially on French Giana soil, on one of the Îles du Salut (Islands of Salvation) (oh, such a wrong name) Ile Royale. Nuns gave the islands their name when they fled the seven miles off shore from French Giana trying to escape an outbreak of yellow fever. It didn’t really work. Between 1852 and 1953, the islands were part of a notorious French penal colony. Have you heard of Papillon? It was set here. Ile Royal housed the main population, Ile Saint-Joseph housed those in solitary confinement (kept in darkness and silence for years). Ile du Diable (Devil’s island) was for political prisoners. (It was very not nice.) Over 80,000 inmates died there over the 100 years it was operational. They were not buried; they were fed to sharks that surrounded the island, ensuring that sharks stayed in the area, helping kept prisoners from trying to escape.

It was hot and HUMID. Shout out to my sister, Nancy, for teaching me to carry a bandana when I travel. The sweat was just rolling into my eyes, and I was so glad to remember my bandana to take care of that. There were no tours – we just took a tender boat out to the island and walked around. We were told that it would take an hour to climb the hill to where the buildings were. It took ten minutes. Mmmm. That was straight up odd. There was a gradual path that was longer, rather than the steps we took, but I don’t think it could have taken an hour. It was a pretty grim place.

Strangely, in my opinion, there is a hotel and restaurant on the island. The hotel is not made from one of the original buildings (the guard barracks are MUCH nicer than the prison cell ruins), but are just in a really plain building that looks like a motel, but without any parking in front. We were standing by it and another Viking guest came up and asked if it was a hotel. We said yes, and he walked by us and just tried and opened a door and went into a room to see what it looked like. WHAT?! I just ran away! It seemed really strange to think that the families we saw there were having a vacation at a penal colony. We saw lots of them carrying gallon jugs of water, so it really is NOT a swanky hotel. There was also a helicopter pad. Huh. There was not a helicopter.

There were capuchin monkeys around and it was great to see them hopping from tree to tree. If you didn’t notice the one on the wall in the potd, look again. Macaws were rumored to be on the island, but I didn’t hear of anyone seeing any. I thought later about how spoiled I am that I thought perhaps a macaw would just fly in front of me. I stopped and looked for monkeys, but never sat still and waited for birds. There were lots of peacocks. Everyone (apparently) but us saw agouti – second largest (?) member of the rodent family. I am not too sad to have missed them, but it would have been good.

When we got back to the dock to wait for the tender, there was a catamaran sitting at the dock, blocking our tender boat. Luckily, it moved after about 5 minutes, and the tender pulled in. When we got back to the ship, we watched for half an hour while the cat was back at the dock and the tender was just bouncing on the waves, waiting. I felt terrible for the people IN the tender because it was so unpleasantly HOT in the tender, as well as the 100 people lined up waiting to go back to the ship. Tonight at trivia, we learned that Donna and Elio had been waiting in line. They said the cat waited for a while until a CAR drove down the dock and got on the boat! It still didn’t move away. After more waiting, a guy carrying a mattress came running, got on the catamaran, and it finally moved away. Huuuuuh!

Food was a little tricky today. We got up about 9 after another very late night and decided not to go to breakfast. We’d wait until 11 for lunch. That would work because we had tender tickets at noon. Then I checked the time. I was all off. Breakfast went late today (10am) because we didn’t dock until noon, and lunch regularly starts at 11:30. Okay. We went up for breakfast at 9:40 and they were closing up. I actually said to the guy, “You can’t close already, the paper says you are open until 10 today.” I ran over to the egg cooking guy and ordered two over hard eggs. I have been ordering over medium, but the whites have been runny and the yolk isn’t cooked at all, so I thought I would try more cooked. The yolks were a little cooked today, but there were still runny whites. I am done with eggs. It took me a week to learn. Someone must have called someone, because they opened the covers on the food areas and let people get food until 10. Since lunch is 11:30-2:30, we couldn’t get lunch after we got back at 4. Our dinner was planned for 7:30. I don’t like that there is no food available between 2:30 and 6pm. We roamed around looking for something to snack on and found two pool grill guys willing to make us something even though they were supposed to be closed at 2:30. Yay!

We went to a lecture about animal migration, then to dinner in the buffet. They had good macaroni and cheese! And little potatoes. And lots of fishy food. Then we played trivia. We played with Donna and Elio and Elaine and Joe. They are former military – Elaine worked for the CIA. Keith and I didn’t have much to add to the conversation.

Play along:

1. What does an ornithologist study?
2. What is the official language of Brazil?
3. “Looks like we’re gonna need a bigger boat,” is a quote from what movie?
4. Who painted the Mona Lisa?
5. Civil rights activist Malcolm Little was better known by what name?
6. In what game do you get children represented by little blue and pink pegs?
7. What is the only animal that actively hunts humans?*
8. On what river is Victoria Falls?
9. Who wrote Herman Melville?
10. What is the day after Christmas called?
11. What was the first bridge built over the Thames?*
12. What flower is saffron made from?*
13. Where is the world’s most active volcano?
14. The Beach Boys covered what Elton John song in 1991?*
15. Where is the Sea of Tranquility?

Keith and I had 11 and 14, but the team disagreed. Winners got 14 so it didn’t matter. Did you notice the repeat questions from yesterday? That is one darned lazy trivia maker (ooooooo judgy me! But c’mon!)

The cruise director singing was the show tonight. It was good. We went to the stores after the show. Apparently, they are open late. It was the first time we had seen them open. There wasn’t much to look at – the diamonds don’t have prices, so we ran away quickly. The cosmetics are of no interest. The clothing store had some $300 sweaters and some reallllly ugly dresses. We bought peanut M&Ms at the convenience store. They were half price. Sometimes you just find where you fit.

I do not know why we are not eating the peanut M&Ms now. Keith says they are for the plane ride home. Yeah. But….

I was clapping for snakes. Have you seen The Parent Trap? You gotta clap for snakes.