January 7, 2012
After that I worked my way back towards the tourist information center (which is where the shuttle bus dropped us off) and I ran into some of the dancers from the cast who were buying tickets to get on a bus that stops at a bunch of the local beaches, so I decided to tag along with them! We got on and rode the bus to the beach the furthest away from where we were picked up, saw a wedding happening at a fancy hotel on the way, and found a grassy area (this beach had grass and sand), set our stuff down and got in the water! Now, this water was kind of a dark murky color, like the beach you’d see in Florida, not like what you’d expect on a tropical island, but I’m blaming that on the “city”. So we swam around for a while, laid on the sand, read some of my book (I’m reading “Eat, Pray, Love”) and then we packed up and headed across the street to a local Crêperie (a place that sells crêpes) and I treated everyone to some DELICIOUS treats. Then we got back on the bus, then got on the shuttle, and came back to the ship where I had a lovely shower, a glorious nap, and then we had two shows last night.
On a side note, there was a grocery store right near the shuttle bus stop and it is a French supermarket chain called Le Casino. So, I saw this and I was SO excited and I said to myself “I wonder if they sell Cabernet d’Anjou! I should check!” Now, those of you who don’t know (which will be everyone but Erica) Cabernet d’Anjou is a wine that is made in the region of France where I studied abroad. If you know me you know that I’m not a huge fan of wine, but this wine is SO GOOD and it’s hard to find in the states (Erica had some luck with a wine store in Rochester, lucky girl). So, I wandered in, walked to the back and LO AND BEHOLD THERE WAS MY WINE! And it was 870f for one bottle which is roughly $10 which is AWESOME. So, I snatched up a bottle, walked away from the rack and then suddenly this woman accosted me saying (in French) that the store was closed and I couldn’t buy the wine. This perplexed me because the store was most definitely not closed…but THEN this woman pointed at a sign as she took the bottle from my hands, a sign that read “The selling of alcohol is prohibited on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and bank holidays after 12:00pm.”………………Yesterday was a Friday, GO FIGURE! Just my luck, right guys?! I was like….you’ve got to be kidding me…and I stood there like an idiot staring at this sign for quite some time before I sighed and walked away, quite defeated. I looked at the itinerary though and the next time we’re there in March we are there on a Tuesday so you better believe I will be going in there and buying a bottle or two!
Anyways, moving on to today! Today we were in a town called Lifou which is on an island called Loyalty Island which is also part of New Caledonia (aka, another French speaking place). Myself and 5 other friends of mine got off on the first little boat to take us ashore at 8am and we began asking around about this cave that we’d heard of where you could jump into a pond or something. Luckily for the people with me, my French skills came in handy when people were trying to convince us to take tours we weren’t interested in and I was just asking them, in French, how we could get to this cave. A local gave us some directions and so we headed out, after purchasing a few locally made sandwiches in a little tent that some women had set up.
So we began our hike and after a few confusing turns we arrived at a sign that said “Cave! Swimming! This way!” and an arrow…and then it said “500f/person” and I went….oh no…we have to pay? This is crazy. So I walked up to the gentleman standing by this sign and politely asked him (need I say we had this conversation in French?) why we had to pay to see this cave. After being startled that someone like me spoke his language, he replied that there was a guide down there to take us through and that that’s how they make a living. I explained to him that we didn’t have any Francs on us (which was mostly true, I had 1000f but nobody else had any and according to his sign 1000f was only going to get 2 of us in) and he asked if we work on the ship. I told him yes! We sure do! And we use American money…not Francs…and he didn’t seem to offer a solution, so, I said to him “Okay, sir, I have 1000f and that’s it, but I am not going in there without my entire party.” He repeated back to me “1000f?” “Oui.” “Okay, that’s fine.” And I was like oh….okay….you’ll take 1000f for all 6 of us to go? And he said yes. So I pulled out the money, handed it over, and then we proceeded on past him. I was happy we came to that solution because I think the next thing was going to be us making a run for it and that wasn’t going to be pleasant!
So, we started down this little path through the jungle, using ropes and rocks that were set up, and down down down we went until we found the guide who had a flashlight to lead us through the dark tunnel to this underwater cave. Eventually we stopped and we said to ourselves “Is this it?” and then Kerwin busted out his camera, took a photo, and then we saw the pond and we were once again very excited. As we all contemplated this pond, Kerwin charged ahead and tore off his shirt, plunging right into the water. Now, mind you all, this is a small pond in a cave where there’s only a tiny spot for sunlight coming from above and then the guide’s flashlight and other than that it was total darkness. So, Kerwin’s confident dive into this pond was definitely, literally, a leap of faith. He came back up alive and laughing and said “Come on in! The water is great!” And so as we all took off our clothes he climbed out and walked over to me to give me a hug, and I felt the water on his body and it was not warm…and I said “The water is great, hmm?” and he goes “Yeah!” so we all jumped in. THE WATER WAS SO COLD! I came up like OH MY GOSH and shivering…..but….it was totally worth it, and we all jumped in several times and took lots of photos.
When we’d had enough of the cave diving we hiked back out (and what a hike it was) and wandered around that area of the island for a while and took some fun photos (see Facebook). Then we climbed back down the side of the island and found some secluded sandy areas and ditched our stuff and went for a swim in the ocean, which was significantly warmer than the cave was, thank God! We also climbed around on the rocks, ate our sandwiches….and some of us…namely me…got more sunburnt. I WAS WEARING 50 SPF…so…I don’t know what’s up with that. I am going to be in pain for the next few days, that’s for sure. But then I’ll have a fierce tan! I will probably die of Skin cancer when I’m older but…hey, it’s 2012 so the world is ending this year anyways, right?
Also, we saw a ton of hermit crabs and then these other crabs were scuttling around on some of the rocks and they were kind of green and yellow and spotted…I must look them up and see what kind of crabs they were.
Tonight we’ve got our illusionist’s show and then tomorrow is another production show with our cast and we’ve got an all crew boat drill and then an all crew meeting so we won’t have a ton of time off the ship, so, we’ll see what shenanigans we can get into. Rest assured, however, that no matter what it is I will be wearing a t-shirt the whole time!
Love and good wishes from the South Pacific
Xoxoxox
B
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