Another Cruiseship day, this time the huge MS Noordam, did I say it was huge…. You’ve got to give the captain and crew credit. This is a monster they just docked, and best I can see there were no tugboats.
Beside the fact that I’d checked in advance which days where ship days, you can always tell in the morning anyway. There a little more action around, not just on the wharf, but all these little harbour boats (mostly overloaded) are coming and going. The Taxi and tour boats all start to jostle for position
So a quiet day, the odd swim. Read’em if you got’em
So, we can now reveal, that this place is what we’d call a bit “craptasic”. It’s mostly fine, and really worth the price don’t get me wrong. But scratch the surface and it not quite as good as the brochure. The dishwasher doesn’t work, but in fairness the owner mentioned this a few weeks before we arrived. Some of the reviews hinted at the place needed some good maintenance so this was not a shock. The timbers on the deck are could do with replacing. Some pool tiles are in need of repaired, some of the gas cooktops don’t stay lit. The Wifi, which apparently is a 4g wifi router in the owners flat upstairs doesn’t work most of the time, so I’ve bought our own sim for a spare handset we had. There’s more but I won’t bore you anymore.
I understand in the tropics things take a bit more of a beating and it’s not like you can drop into Bunnings and get all the bits you need.
Then there’s things like the boatyard/cargo terminal, now to be fair, I think this is temporary while they expand the main port, but out here temporary might be the next 5 years…
Then uncontrollable thing like the fact that it’s a mostly onshore breeze so any garbage that falls into the harbour seems to end up on the beach out front. The flash “doomsday bunker” of a house next to us employ a gardener and to his credit he cleans a bit out front of our house too. It’s all a double edge sword at least on this side of the point the sea bottom is mostly clear of sea cucumbers and other nasties.
But then there is a great view, there’s almost always a nice breeze, a BBQ on the deck, and the kids can go wild in the pool. So I can’t complain.
Anyway so Noordam leaves and as we’ve been stuck for a couple of days we decide to go out for dinner. The restaurant is only about 3km away, but it’s a bit far to walk. It’s not really worth getting Karl over as he lives in a village that’s about 20km away. So we’ll just get a regular bus and pay our 150vt each! When we mentioned our plan to Sarah, I’m sure in hindsight she gave one of those “Sure, if you think that will work, go ahead” polite nods of the head.
Obviously being a gated community, buses just don’t come down the street. Leaving the others at the house, I walk down the beach past the village in hoping to grab one here, but apparently as it so late in the day there are really no buses around. Now to top off the darkness, it starting to rain, in that tropical sense. My small umbrella make a feeble attempt to keep me dry. I’m walking around thinking “Shit, what do I do now”, when finally a bus arrives. I explain that there are six of us that would like to go do town, but we need to go back to the gate and would he take us? Sure he will….. Wet, but not soaked, I hop in to find three ladies already in the bus, and it appears they are now going to be taking the scenic route. I guess the driver wasn’t going to give up the fare of 6 extra people. I apologise to them for the inconvenience, I’m sure at they don’t mind, and at some level I think they are mildly amused at my expense. That’s fair!
Anyway the dinner is fine, if not fantastic. And while it’s not, I use this dinner (and this whole trip) as a celebration of my birthday.
Needless to say, it was much easier to get a bus from outside the restaurant back home!
