Travel Cartel update

I've started the serious business of trying to get as many travel miles as possible while spending as little travel-related cash as possible. I took another look at the Alaska Airlines credit card deal, and they want $45 or $75 (premium card) for a year. I think I'll wait a bit to see what Chris has up his sleeve ... I know he's talked in the past about deals with lots of miles and a fee-free card (sometimes for just a year - but I have a calendar so I can make sure I cancel the card when a year is up). There's also all kinds of promotions to look in to.

I've dug out all my old travel numbers from years past (when I traveled a lot), and now need to check whether they're still all active and relevant; I have Air Canada, Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Avis, Budget, Delta Airlines, Hertz, Hyatt Hotels, Marriott Hotels, Ramada Hotels, United Airlines, and US Airways to check in to.....

The Grand Experiment - Third Attempt

I know that I'm tired of going on and on about the lorazepam (Ativan) debacle - I know you are too. Last night was my third attempt at trying to wean down to .25mg of the stuff. The strategy I'm using this time is to alternate .5mg - .25mg for two weeks, then go down to .25mg for two weeks, then alternate .25mg - 0mg for two more weeks. Theoretically, that means I should be off the stuff in six weeks time.

The two previous attempts were scuttled by (first time) Mike's death - I just couldn't focus on weaning off the drugs when such a close friend was dying, and (second time) the huge physical effect going from .5mg to .25mg had on me (cutting the dose in half, even though the amount wasn't very much at all). I ended up being wide awake all night, and had to go back to the doctor for some advice about it - eventually starting me back at 1.5mg of lorazepam and 30mg of mirtazapine (don't you just love the way I bandy about the names of these drugs - quite sad).

Over the last several months, I have begun the taper of both drugs again. I'm now down to a stable dose of .5mg lorazepam and I take about 5mg of mirtazapine every third night (a little more than half of 1/8 of a 30mg pill - it becomes real guesswork to figure out how much you actually take). I don't think the lorazepam does anything at all to affect my sleep, but I sure can tell when I wean down to small doses of the stuff. Interestingly, all the reports about coming off this drug say the same thing - weaning goes uneventful until you get to the small doses - then the rebound affects (sleeplessness) really make themselves apparent.

As I said, I'm sure you're sick of hearing me go on and on about this stuff, but I find it cathartic to write down just where I am. Maybe years from now I can look back on this and say how stupid I was to give in to medicine and start taking the drug(s) - it's been over a year, ten months of which have been trying to wean off.

Panama Canal Trip Photos

I've posted the photos for the trip on Picasa:
Toronto, Miami, The Ship, Cartagena, Puntarenas, Huatalco, Acapulco, and Cabo San Lucas. If you'd prefer to see them in un-chronological order, they're here.

Travel Hacking

Signed up this afternoon for Chris Guillebeau's Travel Hacking Cartel ... in it I hope to learn the secrets of how to travel far and often - for little (or no) money. One of the cornerstones is to use frequent flyer miles linked to credit cards - as luck would have it, Alaska Airlines gave me an application on our way back from LAX - 25,000 free miles just for signing up.

Minnekhada, Part II

I'm fortunate enough to have a friend in Bruce that's willing to slow down and take his time (so I can keep up) no matter what we're doing - riding a bike or hiking up a trail. This afternoon we did Minnekhada Regional Park (for the second time in a month), but this time all the way to the top (High Knoll). I was a bit of a mess the last part of coming down, but for the most part survived OK. Thanks, Bruce!

Home Again

It's Monday, and I got home Saturday night. In all, the journey home took us the same amount of time as the trip from Vancouver to Miami ... the off-loading from the ship was late, the buses were late, and the flight was late. Overall, though, they say that the sign of a good vacation is you're anxious to leave for it and anxious again to leave from it, so I would say that it's been good overall. Although I was the only one on the ship (sans the captain and some crew) that was fifty-something, I did manage to meet a few people that interested me.

One thing that always impresses me is that the British, almost as a race, love to travel - and they don't seem to mind roughing it if the circumstances dictate. They'll go anywhere, anytime, and pretty much at any cost (figuratively and literally). The Americans - not so sure. The Germans are everywhere. The Canadians are a fairly well represented minority, based on our population, and I think we can travel on the down-low when we have to. That's a skill I need to re-aquire.

I can pretty much say, though, that inasmuch as the cruising life is incredibly easy (bring your own hotel), it's not for me. Although mom and dad would get angry at me for saying this, I'll say it anyways - cruising is not touring. There's been such an industry built around the wealthy people coming off the ships in every port, what they (and me) see is a sterile version of what the locals want you to see. And any port big enough to fit a cruise ship is a port I'd likely avoid. Just imagine what people see when they step off a cruise ship in Vancouver. If you're lucky enough to be at the Pan Pacific, you could walk to Stanley Park. But what if your ship is docked at the seedy eastern edge of Gastown?

My old boss, Don, was big into home exchanges for months at a time. He got linked up with people all over Europe. I think living somewhere for a month or more gives you much more (for maybe much less).

Cabo

Yesterday was at sea, so nothing much to report, other than the weather has turned cooler (18C) and the wind has picked up - long sleeve time.

Cabo San Lucas has changed since I was last here in late 2006. The street hawkers are being kept to the very sides of the sidewalk (by the police), so they can't get in your face ... although they can still yell at you. Again, they don't seem to bother with me ... in all of Mexico it's been the same. Maybe it's because I'm single and without a waist-belt-pouch-thingy or have a camera slung over my shoulder.The entire waterfront looks new since 2006, and the development must have been driven by the three cruise ships here today (and every other day I assume). I would guess today, there are 6000 of us landing in Cabo, mostly to shop. It's still hard to understand why Cabo has no cruise dock, while small towns like Huatalco do.

Cabo is still all about shopping. You could take a tour, but we have very limited time here (all aboard by 1:30pm, and the tenders started up about 8am). "Diamonds International" seems to have created an industry from the cruise ship trade. they are very unapologetic about talking them up on board. . I admit I did walk through one to try to get something for Laura, but the high priced stuff in the display cases, plus the calculators everywhere to show you what your "special price after awesome discount" kind of turns me off. Laura will have to settle for something a bit more practical than Cabo jewelry.

I want to sail here, and stay in the Sea of Cortez for a season. Then sail south to Panama, take the canal to the Atlantic, and then another season in the Carribean. Then maybe on to the Med. You only live once, yes?

Stroke recovery update - January 2011 - 16 Months

This will be another stroke update, some sixteen months after the event.

When I came home, over a year ago now, I had noticed that there were a couple of places on my body where there was numbness - almost like the novocain you would get from the dentist. There was a large area on my left leg by the knee that had no feeling, as well as the fingertips of my right hand thumb (I guess that's not a finger - although the very end of a couple of fingers were affected as well). Also, when I would open my hand fully (spreading all the fingers and thumb), it would be painful. This started with the right hand, but then seemed to improve - and move to the left hand.

This morning, on the cruise ship, I re-evaluated all these problems. Most of them have now gone away. You might ask "wouldn't you have noticed right away?", but these took months and months to disappear - and now they're mostly gone.

I've tried to walk around the deck on the ship, but found that I really can't. There's too many people also walking on the track (and I get in their way), and my balance is still not great - I tend to find it hard walking with the subtle movement of the ship. I'm going to also say that I've always dislike gyms, so I'll use that as my excuse for not visiting the one on board - even though it never seems that busy (I make no comment on the reasons why).

Sleep continues to be my cross to bear. Many people have asked why I'm so obsessive about it, and I have to answer that "you might be frustrated by the odd night of poor or limited sleep - maybe only a couple of hours - but my issue is that, without sleep meds (mirtazapine), I get little to no sleep, and this happens night after night". Once I get off lorazapam (Ativan) sometime in the next couple of months, I'm really hoping the sleep thing becomes a non-issue.

So that's the update for the end of January, 2011. Overall, progress is good and it continues. My speech is very slowly getting better, my walking is getting longer and all the ancillary quirks of the stroke seem to have been going away. Once sleep is handled, life will approach the "new normal".

Huatalco, Mexico

This morning we arrived in Huatalco, Mexico. How a quaint little village (from what I can see, about 1/100 the size of Cabo San Lucas) can afford a cruise dock, I don't know. The village is typically Mexican, but the bay that it's in is spectacular. Apparently, this is just one of eleven bays in the area along the Mexican Pacific coast. I spent the morning sitting in the village square, just people watching. For some reason, all the guys hawking trips and restaurants and boat rides and tours leave me alone. When I'm with mom and dad they'll approach, but by myself I'm left on my own. Maybe I look like a narc?

Day 8 - At Sea Between Puntarenas and Huatulco

Yesterday, we were in dock all day visiting Puntarenas, Costa Rica. I took a tour of an organic coffee plantation - an hour and a half drive from the docks to the farm. Costa Rica was much like I imagined it - poor like Mexico or Turkey, and very lush and green. The poverty line is about $450/year, but they say if you have rice and beans and something to wear, you're not poor. Overall, it's a place I'd like to come back to and spend some more time (Panama too). It would be really neat to drive down the Highway of the Americas from Alaska to Chile. As luck would have it, there was a BBC program on the ship's TV about such a drive with an electric car.

Once we got back on board (the tour was 8:15am to 3:30pm), and had left the docks by about 5pm, we had a medical emergency on board. They stopped the ship, lowered a lifeboat/tender, and evacuated the person back to Puntarenas. Once we get back underway, I saw how quickly we were moving. I went to my cabin to check he ship's speed - 23 knots. Should only take about 3 hours  to make up the lost time.

Today is a sea day, and it's cloudy with showers outside. A nice day to sit and read...

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Doug's Blog

Day 6 - Panama to Puntarenas, Costa Rica

The Pacific Ocean is today much like it was when discovered by Europeans -  Pacifico, or calm. There's a very small, slow swell, and we're motoring along at 20 knots burning unconscionable amounts of fuel (presently, 13 gallons a minute).

I attended a Q&A with the Executive Staff today, and learned some interesting facts about the ship:

1. There are 4 x 40kw diesel generators that generate all the power for the ship.
2. The propellers are 18' in diameter, and rotate 360 degrees for steering (they act as the ships rudder).
3. At cruising speed - 13 knots - the ship can stop in 8 minutes, and less than 5 ship lengths.
4. The cruise will use up as much food in the first 4 days, than they will in the following 9.
5. The duty cycles vary from 2 months on - 1 month off (Captain) to 9 months on - 2 months off (room stewards).

Tomorrow - off to an organic coffee plantation in Puntarenas, Costa Rica...

If it's Thursday, this must be Panama

I woke up about 6am this morning, turned on the light, and switched on the TV in my room to have a look at the bow camera. What is saw was that it was already dawn, and there were a few hundred people already on deck. I pulled on my clothes, didn't shower, didn't shave, didn't have anything o eat or drink, and came straight up to deck 13 (actually, deck 13 1/2). I stayed there for 2.5 hours watching the whole locking process - it really is amazing to see. Our ship (NCL Star) is considered a "Panamax" ship, and is the largest sized vessel that can transit the canal - until 2014 when the new canal opens - larger in every dimension (965'x110'x42' versus 1200'x160'x60') for larger ships. I heard someone on shore (on the PA) say that we would be the largest ship to transit today, and that it would cost $435,000 USD to do it. At a canal seminar today, I heard a "pre-2010 price" of $365,000.

I met up with mom and dad for breakfast, and then back to  my room for a shower and a shave. The rest of the day was spent watching us go through two more sets of locks - Pedro Miguel and Miraflora, and then a sail by Panama City and under the Bridge of the Americas. Panama City looks spectacular - I wish we were sailing closer to it.

Tomorrow is an at-sea day, and on Saturday, I have a coffee plantation tour in Costa Rica.

Cartagena, Part II

OK, so I did make it off the ship. What I found was pretty much as expected. There's another, smaller, cruise ship docked here with us, and most of their passengers seem to have left on buses too. There's a small cruise ship terminal, which looked closed up, and a coffee shop near the entrance to the container port. I'll be on deck as we leave Cartegena in a couple of hours, so maybe I can catch a glimpse of what I could have walked to.

Cartagena

This is somewhat pathetic. All the tours (except some space left on the shopping tour), are sold out. Learning this, I planned to get off the ship and do a little exploring on my own. The Captain was on the PA system at 7:00am this morning to let us all know that we had arrived in South America. I knew this had happened about an hour earlier, as the bow thrusters could be heard quite loudly in my room. So I got up about 7:30am, and went on deck to get breakfast and have a look around.

I was expecting to see a quaint fishing village, but I should have known better. Cartagena is a city of between 600,000 and 1.3 million people (depending on how you measure). The actual city center is across the harbour from our ship, but it's only 1km or so, and you can see across to it easily. Where we're tied up is the "Cruise Ship Facility". This is right beside the "Container Ship Facility". Actually, right beside us is a container ship being unloaded (maybe 20m away). There is nothing obviously close - just acres and acres of containers. Not even the normal gauntlet of local street vendors or tour hawkers. The only thing that was outside the ship this morning was a dozen or more tour buses.

With this observation, I think I'm going to stay on the ship (we only have a brief time here - everyone is supposed to be back at 2:30pm for sailing at 3pm. I may regret this when I hear about the local market just around the corner, but from my my look around, all I can see are men unloading ships.

I won't go so far as to say this is the Americanization of the world (no more exotic ports), but I would venture to say that, if a port has a cruse ship terminal, it's not quaint.

Deep blue sea - Day 2

The ocean here in the Caribbean is a deep, dark blue. Very different from the "almost black" color of the water in the Pacific Northwest. Today would be fantastic for sailing ... 30 knots of wind on the bow, and this ship is traveling at 20 knots. That makes for 50 knots of apparent wind - it's very blustery up on deck, and the ship is rolling a moderate amount. At home, small craft warnings would be out, and I think there's about a 1-2 meter swell with whitecaps. I heard someone next door being sick in the middle of the night, and I know mom has felt queasy for the last day or so. Me, I seem to be OK - although I got no sleep last night, partially due to all the banging and crashing around as the ship hit a wave wrong, but mostly because I don't sleep.

I tried to sign up for a Cartagena shore excursion tomorrow, but they were all sold out. The only trip that had some room left was one that involved lots of "shopping opportunity". I'll pass - and take my chances seeing what I can by simply walking off the boat - I'm sure there will be a "shopping gauntlet" to pass through. I learned yesterday that the number one reason for people to cruise is eating. Number two is shopping. Never-mind about seeing things you might otherwise never see ... eating and shopping are the most important factors in this kind of tourism. Perhaps camping out at the food fair in a shopping mall would be less expensive. Or if you were really high end - stay at the hotel attached to the mall.

I'm here for two reasons. First, because mom and dad asked me to come along, I imagine thinking I could help out navigating airports. The second is to see the Panama Canal. Perhaps it's important that we aren't actually stopping in Panama - more shopping! But we are doing a daylight transit, so that makes for an all day affair on deck looking around. I know Ed, our close friend, did this a couple of years ago and spent the entire day on deck, marveling at how this was actually completed. 

So I'm into day two of thirteen days - our second full day at sea. It's quite warm and humid outside, and like I said very windy. They expect this weather to last all day.

 

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Doug's Blog