My World Lessons

In the weeks following our world cruise, I have reflected on our many experiences. I have come to believe that our travels offered some key lessons. Here are some of the things I have learned.

Investments in infrastructure make a difference. The ability of Hong Kong (and I suspect all of China) to make major commitments to big projects and to get them done quickly makes real change possible. The new Hong Kong subway lines are amazing. If I have any hope for our global environment, it’s that China will begin to realize the costs of its environmental degradation and apply that same focus and commitment to improving its environmental infrastructure. I only wish that the US could find a way to stop arguing and invest in the bridges, schools, transit, and scientific investment needed for our future.

There’s something to be said for a benevolent dictatorship. When you compare life in Singapore today to what existed there fifty years ago, it’s an amazing transformation. If Americans are willing to give up freedoms to prevent terrorism, what might they give up to get clean streets and a peaceful environment? I’m not advocating limiting the hurly-burly of democracy, and I’m not naive enough to think most autocratic leaders remain good, but Singapore is a testament to what is possible when sensible policies are simply put in place and enforced. All of us, from the NIMBY movements at a local level to the gridlock in Washington, should recognize that the paralysis of inaction often keeps us from improving life.

Travel while you can. It’s an amazing world, but that doesn’t mean it will all be around to see that much longer. Long-time travelers told us how the lemurs have largely disappeared over the past 20 years from the park in Madagascar. While the cruise didn’t visit the low-slung Maldives, we sailed through the rising waters that will almost certainly cover that country in the coming decades. Poachers in southern Africa are decimating the rhino for illicit gain. I’m glad that we saw what we did, but worry about how we protect the wonder for the future.

Walking away from responsibility leaves devastation in its wake. The history of how Portugal and its citizens abroad simply abandoned colonies like Mozambique (without training or preparing the citizens to run the country) makes touring a city like Maputo painful, as you experience the ruins of what once was and sense how much energy is needed to regain lost ground. Americans should ponder if our policies are leaving behind similar devastation.

Resources need to be matched with a just society. I am sure that my blog came across as harsh on Brazil. But it is sad to see a country that has so many resources like land, minerals, and people fail to deliver a more equitable society. Different people may give different reasons: corruption, a sharp divide between the haves and have-nots, a disregard for the environment, a lack of the common weal — but whatever the reason, I hope an increasingly polarized United States does not fall back into such a state.

There is hope. Around the world, people exist who care and can make a difference. In South Africa, which so transformed itself in the ‘90s, hope seemed so palpable. Even as the South Africans’ initial exuberance has been tempered by real challenges, the optimism of the people remains high. I want to claim that same optimism, not just for South Africa, but also for the United States, the world and all mankind.

Final Dispatch from the World Cruise: Home Again

It took nearly two months.  We left the house the early afternoon of March 7 and returned mid-evening on May 1.  During that time, we completely circumnavigated the globe with stops in San Francisco, Hong Kong, Macao, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, the Seychelles, Madagascar, Mozambique, three cities in South Africa, Namibia, St. Helena, Ascension Island, two cities in Brazil, French Guiana, St. Lucia, and Ft. Lauderdale/Miami.

We saw a lot of amazing sights, met some wonderful people, had a few adventures and stirred up a vivid potpourri of memories (and captured just under 1000 photographs). But at the end of our road, it was a true pleasure to see again the little town of Cambria and our small house overlooking the ocean. The northward migration of grey whales to arctic waters had begun. (We saw a mother and calf breach within a hundred yards of shore on our first day back.) A carpet of coastal poppies, bluebonnets and lupine was in full bloom on the bluffs of the nearby Fiscalini Ranch. Otherwise, things were much as we had left them.

A scene at Fiscalini Ranch in Cambria

Well, a very large box of accumulated mail was also awaiting us. A few days later, FedEx delivered five suitcases filled with dirty laundry. (We shipped our luggage rather than deal with airlines, porters, weight limits, and extra fees. Having only carry-ons let us catch an earlier flight when we got to the Miami airport hours sooner than we expected.)

But now everything is getting in place. Our travel agent sent us a welcome home message and asked how everything had gone. For a moment, I was tempted to say “book us another trip.” Luckily, sanity won out. Holland America will just have to wait.

From Robert:

About three days before the end of the cruise, my mind was set on “I’m ready to go home now.” But on the final night, as we said goodbyes to new friends and walked around now familiar decks and lounges, I got just a little wistful and thought, “Yep, I could definitely do this long of a cruise again.” We’ll see.

More from Dennis:

This ends our cruise blogging, but not FrahmannThoughts. For those who signed up to follow the cruise, feel free to stick around for my occasional posts on subjects as varied as life in Cambria, politics, family history, Wisconsin, travel and branding. Robert may also add his thoughts on topics now and then. We will also post a link to a booklet of photos we are putting together of our trip.

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Dispatch 18 from the World Cruise: Heading Home

Robert Tieman and Dennis Frahmann onSt. Lucia

We have bid a fond farewell to St. Lucia, our last port of call before reaching the United States and the end of our cruise.

It was a lovely final stop. The twin peaks of the island, Gros Piton and Petit Piton, are large volanic plugs that create a dramatic backdrop. The island itself is lush and has many lovely beaches.

We took a small bus along the back roads of the 27-mile-long island to capture views from on high of both its wild north Atlantic side and its calm Caribbean side. Our final stop was Pigeon Island. There we climbed to the fortifications on top of a tall hill, and were treated to a spectacular 360-degree view of the island, the sea, and a far-off Martinque. Then as a reward for our scramble back down, we had a native beer, Piton, at a small waterside cafe and a quick swim in the warm, peaceful Caribbean.

Back on board, the ship raised anchor. We took our final ship-leaving-port stroll on the promenade deck as the sun set. Three sea days remain before we reach Ft. Lauderdale. Many of the passengers are already packing up. But we just plan to enjoy the remaining sea days, play a few games of trivia, and have our usual pre-dinner cocktails before we return to a more normal life: spotting wild zebra on the Hearst Ranch, playing Words With Friends, monitoring the elephant seals, catching up on American Idol, taking ocean walks on Fiscalini Ranch instead of the promenade deck, and having a real morning paper to handle and fold with our morning coffee.

From Robert:

The big Big surprise on our drive around St. Lucia was seeing a cashew tree.

Yes, that’s right. A cashew tree.

Our guide had the van driver stop and he disappeared out the door for a few seconds. When he returned, he had this small yellow thing that more than anything else looked like a small bell pepper. We were unbelieving when he said it was a cashew fruit. He described how it was full of liquid (more unbelief) and he squished it in one hand, spraying a handful of liquid out the side window. We learned that these fruits come in several colors, and indeed later saw a tree filled with these “peppers” that were a pink-red color. Same fruit/nut inside, though. Islanders pick these up by the side of the road and do their own home-roasting to get what we know as cashews. And the nuts do need roasting because the liquid & outer paper shell contain some kind of cyanide variant, developed as a defense mechanism of the plant to discourage foraging by birds or other wildlife. Anyway, it was a revelation.

Now comes the winding down phase of travel: hate for it to end, eager to get home. And that’s just us after 51 days at sea. What about the bulk of the passengers who will be completing 115 days. That’s since the first week of January, kids. We can’t imagine doing another long cruise…but never say never, right?

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Dispatch 17 from the World Cruise: A Devilish Good Time

Devil’s Island is where France sentenced Captain Dreyfus in a famous political case of treason from the end of the nineteenth century. Eventually, Dreyfus was found innocent and released, thanks to his case being championed by the novelist Emile Zola and others. But for some 30,000 of the 80,000 people sentenced to this harshest of French prisons, departure from the island came only with death.

We had an easier time of it. In fact, we found this abandoned prison, on a small trio of islands managed these days as a historical site by the French government’s Guiana Space Centre located across the water on the coast of French Guiana, one of the most enjoyable stops on the entire world cruise.

Robert ponders spending time in a cell on Devil’s Island

Other than a small hotel, the island is no longer occupied. Most of the old prison buildings, including an insane asylum, worksheds, prisoner shells and other dwellings are picturesque ruins being reclaimed by a verdant jungle. Each of the islands is covered with palms and lush vegetation. We were only able to visit the main island, which was used for most prisoners (but not Dreyfuss).

Both from a distance and once on it, the island seems a most pleasant place. Surrounded only by the ghostly thoughts of long-gone prisoners, we strolled sun-dappled paths to the incessant beat of thrumming cicadas. Near the children’s cemetary (which was for graves of children of the staff, not child prisoners), we encountered a friendly troop of monkeys eager for handouts. In front of the restored chapel, a small group of large rodents called agouti roamed about. Their reddish-brown fur was a burnished glow when hit by sunlight. Near the hotel, a small flock of blue-and-red parrots flew overhead and squawked loudly. A large iguana sunned itself on a hot rock. We took our respite on the verandah of the small hotel, drinking a beer and watching the ocean. Sharing the entire island with only a couple hundred of the ship’s passengers and a few score of the hotel guests, the island seemed a pleasant and remote paradise, and hardly the setting for an infamous prison.

Soon, it was back to the tender and the end of this visit. So far on this tour of famous prisons, we’ve been to St. Helena where the United Kingdom exiled its most important political problems like Napoleon, and to Devil’s Island, which remained a French penal colony until 1953. Will our next stop be Guatanamo Bay?

From Robert:

“Oh, Dennis. Such a sense of humor.”

Dennis hopes an emply shell will deliver a Devil’s Island punch

Actually, he’s right, though. Who would’ve ever thought that such an infamous place as Devil’s Island would turn out to be such a great tourist stop?

The prison buildings are indeed being overrun by jungle plants, and also by general erosion of the large stone walls that we saw crumbling in many places. But the still-standing cells with their rusty iron bars are pretty ominous, even in bright sunlight. By the time we got to the solitary confinement cells, it was pretty eerie indeed. And come to find out, the prison (and the island) weren’t even always staffed by guards. With the shark infested waters, plus the dangerous rip currents, where were prisoners supposed to go? Even without constant supervision by guards and wardens, life in this tropical island prison wasn’t always tropical paradise. Most prisoners died from heat and from tropical diseases.

As for the current day hotel, well, “hotel” is a generous word. The price sure is right: we were told a room goes for 38 euros (about $50). The rooms are in some of the former warden quarters of the prison, but are very sparse indeed. We didn’t see any air conditioner units, for example. With the heat and humidity, one hopes the beds at least come with mosquito netting, otherwise tropical diseases are still the rule of the day.

While we did each have a thirst quenching beer after a long morning of hiking, some friends from the ship tried a cup of “Devil’s Punch” – a rum concoction that was very strong. Very. We were offered a sip, but declined after Dennis took the cup to his nose and smelled pure alcohol even several inches away. The joke was: no one light a match! Whew!

Back safe and sound on the ship by early afternoon, we were supposed to have a Sail Away party on the back deck, and a breezy trip around the trio of islands before heading out to sea again. And then we waited. And waited. And waited. The Captain announced on the loudspeaker that they were having hydraulic problems with the mechanism that closes the outer hatch, the door we use to board the tenders. Can’t very well set out for the ocean with a big hole open in the side of the ship. But one hour’s wait turned to two, then to three, and I started to write my portion of this blog under the heading “Stranded on Devil’s Island!” By the fourth hour, the door finally got closed, so . . . crisis averted. And because of the delay, we have been under “full speed ahead” to make up lost time and to get to our next port of call on time. See you in the Caribbean!

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Dispatch 16 from the World Cruise: Slouching Toward Belem

Belem is the Portuguese word for Bethlehem, but Belem, Brazil felt a little bit more like Bedlam, which I guess is the just the English contraction for a London hospital also named after the birthplace of Christ. Our visit to the city certainly wasn’t a religious experience, although it may have been just as pleasant as child birth.

More than any place we’ve been so far, getting off the boat in Belem prompted us to look at each other and say “we’re definitely in another world.” That’s saying a lot after being in Madagascar and Mozambique.

One of the river houses we motored by

Our large ship has too deep a draft to make it all the way to Belem. Instead we were anchored on a deeper part of the Para tributary, in a small village called Icoaracy. But even in this case, we couldn’t take our normal boat tenders to the small city quay where we could disembark. Rather we stepped onto the second-level of low-ceilinged, wooden Amazon river boats which puttered us to the shore. The boats showed minimal evidence of life preservers, but did offer flimsy plastic chairs for seating that were pushed to and fro by our ever-anxious fellow guests. When we reached shore, we had to disembark by scampering from our boat through another riverboat we were tied to and then onto a stone pier lined with hawkers of coconuts, pineapples, a mad array of tropical nuts and fruits, crawling crabs and more. The harbor was filled with small colorful craft that later in the day would be stuck in the mud after the four-meter tidal river waters fell. The small town itself sweltered in the hot morning sun, with the humidity already as high as the temperatures. The stucco walls of the buildings were blackened with mold and colored with graffiti. They rose up to tiled roofs sporting small bushes that at times literally grew from between the tiles. And all of this was before we even got onto what proved to be very modern tour busses.

Then it was nearly an hour drive through the slums and favelas of outer Belem, along side crumbling sidewalks and shacks, until we reached the high-rises of a modern city that on a closer inspection looked as crumbling as the village at which our tenders had landed.  At a very recently renovated set of warehouses that were now a tourist market, we boarded another riverboat to travel an hour into the Amazon delta. From the boatside vantage of the waterfront, the old historic core of Belem, built in the prosperous days of the late 19th century, looked charming and inviting. Soon though we were deeper in the channels of the river, where children sat on long wooden wharfs leading up to small shacks and shanties.

We reached our destination, where the tour had promised a 45-minute walk through the Amazon forest. It ended up being close to two hours of a sweat-dripping stroll in a single line of 50 people, with most too far from the guide to ever hear what was being said. But it did allow an up-close view of rubber trees, açai palms, various coconuts and immense 400-year old trees with branches covered in bromeliads, trunks encased with vines. At one point, an industrious little urchin, about 7, who lived nearby even showed up to demonstrate climbing and swinging on the vines. All the grandmotherly types in our group immediately fell in love and offered small tips.

Then this trek was all reversed. Seven and a half hours after leaving the ship, spent with no beverage, food or toilet breaks, we were back on the ship. Our rewards included the sighting of a royal sloth, a tarantula and a close-up view of an army of leaf-cutting ants.

As for Brazil, I won’t even bother to talk about our impressions of Fortaleza two days earlier. I can not imagine how this country manages to build airplanes for export or how it can successfully host the World Cup in 2014 or the Olympics in 2016. But I don’t plan to be buying any tickets for either event, even though our very expensive visas are good for 10 years.

From Robert:

Dennis disposed of most of the negativity we felt about our two stops in Brazil, so here are some other notes.

Our guide impressed upon us that the language of Brazil is “Brazilian.” Portuguese “is what they speak in Portugal.” He gave a few examples of vocabulary words that are identical in spelling & pronunciation, but entirely different (and occasionally insulting) in what they mean in each ‘version’ of Portuguese. This made me recall our stops in South Africa, and the fact that Dutch and the Dutch-originated Afrikaans language are mostly non-compatible languages, according to our guides at least.

I was disappointed that we sailed from the Atlantic Ocean into the Amazon delta during the middle of the night because I wanted to see the difference that everyone kept talking about. While we were in Icoaracy and Belem, the Amazon waters are a very unappealing and dingy brown, a result of all the sediment that is constantly being washed into the river upstream. We officially sailed away from Belem on Tuesday evening around 6pm, and would not reach what the Captain called “the open seas” of the Atlantic until about midnight. We woke up Wednesday morning still in brown water! Apparently the Amazon disgorges such a huge volume of water – millions of liters a minute! – the sediment and brown color reaches about 200 miles out into the Atlantic. The Captain says a quick look at Google Earth will show just how far that brown color extends into the ocean. But we saw it for ourselves: the entire day under steam was brown, brown, brown; and it wasn’t until about 5pm that the color of the water just barely started to turn back to “ocean blue.” Just amazing.

An interesting phenomenon: long white stripes in the brown-ish water, which are caused by the collision of fresh Amazon water with salty Atlantic water.

Meanwhile, our clothes are getting tighter. This is not a good sign.

Postscript from Dennis: 

We do leave Brazil with highlights: realizing first hand the immense power of the Amazon as we sailed far into the ocean amidst its muddy flow; marveling at the colorful variety of fruits, nuts and sealife at the riverside markets; being awed by the amount of plant life growing from the limbs of the Amazon canopy; and traversing the interplay of high-rise modern life with the charms of cities already hundreds of years old.

Check our our book sites:

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Dispatch 15 from the World Cruise: The Shipboard Village

This week, we were scheduled to spend a day on Ascension Island before another three sea days to reach the Brazilian coast. But on a bright April morning, the captain made the decision that the swells at Ascension were too rough to allow the ship’s tender boats to transport the guests safely to the waterswept stone steps of island’s only jetty. The stop was canceled.

Nevertheless, the day exposed all our favorite tropes about shipboard culture. The first involves what we less-than-affectionately call the scooter people. Did God decide one day that only seriously obese people would have mobility problems that required scooters? Did he also decide that such folk should be endowed with a sense of rude entitlement? Or did we just fail to wake up and realize we were now in the movie, Wall-E?  Whatever the case, despite the captain’s warning that everybody who wanted to tender ashore had to be able to navigate down the ship’s exterior flight of stairs to board a boat in heaving seas, and then on the other end of the short boat ride walk up 20 water-slicked stone steps, some scooter people still showed up with sudden claims of mobility. The waters of Lourdes apparently have nothing on the mid-Altantic ocean.

Which brings me to our second favorite cultural meme:  complaints (especially around the rumor of the rudeness of those on scooters.) It is remarkable what a group of highly-privileged people (with the time and money to travel around the world while being waited on day and night) can find to complain about. Robert has promised to compile his top hits list.

If people aren’t complaining, they’re gossiping. Two days earlier, at St. Helena, an able-bodied guest had twisted and broken his ankle going up the stones steps of the island’s pier. Rumors abounded as to who and how this happened. The week earlier in Namibia, it began to seem as though a good percentage of the ship had knocked themselves into a coma from overturned dune buggies.  And don’t get anyone started on the big question: just how many passengers have died on board since the cruise started in Ft. Lauderdale one hundred and three days ago.  The consensus seems to be that only one person actually expired while on the ship (apparently around Manila and thus, alas, before we boarded), but that six to eight guests have been taken off the ships. And we’re not so certain they ever made it home.

Let’s face it. With fewer than a thousand guests, the MS Amsterdam is just one big village, with the same forces at work as any small isolated town. I almost feel like I’m back in the pages of my novel. Everyone thinks they know most everything about most everyone, and even if we don’t, we’re still happy to talk about them.  Reputations are developed and burnished. The smallest of events grow into the biggest of stories. The silver lining might be that in two weeks, all of us will disembark and go our separate ways. But here’s the scary secret behind this grand world voyage – probably a third of these loyal people will be back on board next January to spend another four months together. For these people, the Amsterdam will always be a place to which they can go home again.

From Robert:

Small villages, at least on TV, always have a town drunk, right? Well, no shortage of cocktails on the ship, but now I’ve seen everything!

The window in our cabin looks out directly onto the Promenade deck, with its deck chairs and the ocean beyond. Just now, there are two older gals out there in the chairs immediately under our window (glazed with a highly reflective coating, by the way, so we can see out but no one can see in). I noticed that they are drinking martinis in these really cute glasses that I haven’t seen in any of the lounges on the ship. “I wonder where they got those glasses,” I thought, and then looked down at the side of one of the chairs. There’s a silver cocktail shaker! Well, I guess the ladies make their own! And to top it off, one of them finished off her olives, whipped out a tissue, wiped off the olive pick and put it into her purse!

Now I’ve heard of thrifty, but this just cracked me up.

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Dispatch 14 from the World Cruise: Able Was I Ere I Saw St. Helena

Napoleon was exiled to this island where he eventually died. Not that we sought to mimic a dictator, but we nearly did ourselves in by walking up the 699 steps that make up Jacob’s Ladder on this remote island. The staircase, some nine hundred feet in length and rising some seven hundred feet, offers no resting spots, no retreats from the sun, and certainly no switchbacks. It’s just a straight assault up a very high hill. (Originally, small carts on rails operated on each side of the staircase in a counter-balanced funicular or cable car approach, to haul donkey manure up and produce down.)

Well, we hiked up and were awarded with extraordinary views of this island. Then we had to walk down. If the upward walk was hard on the heart, the downward trek was even nastier to the knees. We made it down without harm, purchased our certificates of achievement at the local museum, and went on our way to visit the little town of Jamestown. And, as far as we know, everyone from our ship who attempted the hike made it up and down safely, with no heart attacks or fainting spells.

And that is certainly a good thing. Because St. Helena is even more remote than Easter Island. The only way on and off, other than a very occasional cruise ship call, is the regularly scheduled Royal Mail Ship RMS St. Helena which motors between Cape Town, St. Helena and Ascension Island. It’s five days to Cape Town, and when any of the 6000 people on this town, which is a British colony, want to get away, that’s their only way out.

The town of Jamestown is charming and feels very 18th-century English in its architecture. It hosts the oldest public library and the oldest Protestant church in the Southern Hemisphere. After our exhausting climb, we decided to forego renting a taxi to travel into what we are assured is a very more luxuriant inland area, and therefore we did not get to see Napoleon’s final home called Longwood. (I suppose technically his final home is really Paris, since although he was first buried on this island, they dug him up to inter him at a better address in France.)

As a result, I guess we will just have to come back some day. Luckily an airport is under construction, with an expected debut of 2015 and non-stop flights to South Africa. That will make it easier.

From Robert:

Two quick things: (1) I keep having to correct my pronunciation of this island’s name. I always want to say HEL-eh-nah, like the capital of Montana, but it is actually Heh-LAY-nah. Hmm. (2) While there are indeed 699 individual steps to Jacob’s Ladder, he forgot to say that the rise of each step was a high 11 inches, more or less (and it was the occasional ‘more’ or ‘less’ that trips up any kind of rhythm one might have).

The island is named St. Helena, by the way, because it was first discovered – uninhabited, by a Portuguese navigator – on May 21, 1502, St. Helena’s feast day.

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