29 MARCH 2012



Slept like a baby last night. I have to admit that I am finding the dinner company a bit tedious now. Punch and Judy were asked by the restaurant manager if there was anything that they would like to eat that had not been offered. Punch said 'fish and chips' and Judy said ‘Pie and mash’ – at this point I wanted the earth to open and swallow me up! Donut ended up the evening completely sozzled and made no sense at all. Time for a change pleeease!!!

Woke up this morning at Pusstin o’clock (6.20am) and had a look out of the curtains . It looked a bit grey and dreary and I thought ‘ I haven’t planned for any bad weather – so what is going on? ‘. I went out onto the balcony and it was very warm but very windy. The phone rang and the voice said ‘ Good morning Madam – your breakfast is ready’ . I went straight to the cabin door sporting my very fetching waffle robe, a la Celebrity, and nearly knocked the hapless cabin attendant out. The door opens outwards and just flew out of my hand as I had left the patio door open! Poor man rebounded off the bulkhead and said in a strangled cry ‘ Please shut the outside door first’ When I opened the cabin door again, he was practically modelling my omelette as a new vogue of toupee. Yet he was very gracious, if a little flustered " Enjoy your breakfast Mizz Frampton" he said, peeling off the omelette and putting it back on my plate.

It tasted pretty good despite this.

Following my somewhat unceremonious disembarking yesterday, I was all fired up, scoffed my brekkie and legged it down to Deck 2, ready for disembarkation.

Another sticker – blue today.

As it turned out I was first off but the tour guides weren’t ready, so I had to hang around like a spare pr**k at a wedding until the tour guide turned up. I was guided to a launch and took a seat near the steps. The boat gradually filled up and a couple on board asked me when my friends were getting on. I told them I was travelling alone and they were aghast! Is it not dangerous? Was I not afraid? Do I feel safe? I assured them I was OK and then we were on our way. At this point I met Ginny. She is Australian, 50 years old next year and travelling on her own – at last a kindred spirit! We had a bit of a giggle on the crossing to our private beach retreat (that’s what it said on the ticket) and discovered that we had a similar sense of humour and decided to spend the day together. She has travelled much farther and wider than I have and is intelligent and good to talk to. We have spent the day together and had a really enjoyable time.

 
I think the funniest moment of the day was down to a Japanese wannabe model and her parents.

They had the obligatory Nikon cameras with a two foot zoom lens and she was posing in the shallows, wearing a kind of floaty outfit. All sort of dramatic and dreamy. Then she stripped down to a white bikini and repeated all the poses. At this point I offered the really nice looking American guy on the sunbed next to me $10, if he would swim underwater and pull her over into the water. He was up for it but at that moment they saw his wife had a sunbed in the edge of the waves.
 

Ah So!! Daddy-san dragged one of the sunbeds into the water and she draped herself over it. We were all just falling about laughing at it all and the American guy’s wife, Elizabeth had her sunbed in the water and she was mimicking everything that the Japanese girl was doing.
 

 We also found out that this was not just a trip to a private island. They had several native animals who had been injured or orphaned and they were being looked after until they were well enough to be released. They had some sea lions who you could hug – they smelt of bloaters - and who would kiss you for the price of a fish but even after seven years on my own, I am still not that desperate! They also had monkeys, jaguars, puma, snakes, macaws etc. They were mostly being kept in cages until they were well enough to be released but I took no photos as I hate seeing animals confined like that. 



We could have swum with sharks but I declined!

On the island they had reconstructed some replica ruins and had a kind of small museum showing the art and stone carvings of the ancient Hondurans. Ginny and I were amazed how oriental the carvings and figures looked. Some looked very Japanese, others more Indian or Cambodian . I told her about the books that I had read explaining how some kind of Apocalypse had wiped out a lot of the world’s civilisations and the survivors had spread their technical building knowledge over the surviving civilisations. This was a time when Quetzacoatl appeared among the Mayan people. Legend has it that he was fair skinned, blond haired and blue eyed. There have also been carvings of Negroid heads found in central America that date back many hundreds of years, well before Columbus landed. This tends to lend to the theory that others had travelled there before and would account for the similarities in pyramidal buildings in Egypt, Central America and Cambodia, maybe because of some apocalyptical disaster?
 

OK, here endeth the history lesson!!

On our return Ginny and I have imbibed a couple of sherbets and I am visiting her dinner table tonight. I hope the company is better than Punch!

I have just introduced her to Absolut Vodka and Diet Coke and she is forever in my debt!!. We set sail at about 5pm and I am now sat on my balcony in a howling wind writing up my day.

We have a day at sea tomorrow before we reach Costa Rica and my sloth sanctuary on Saturday.

Dinner was with at Ginny’s table tonight, probably the most tedious company I have ever suffered. The two American couples were awful. The first one consisted of a quiet male half (he never opened his mouth all night, apart from eating!) and his trophy wife, every finger sporting heavily encrusted diamond rings aka Anorexic Barbie. Conversely her mouth was only open to talk about herself and no food passed her lips, although she did rearrange a couple of lettuce leaves on her plate a few times. Ginny said that she had rarely seen her eat anything.

The other couple were equally obnoxious – again the guy hardly spoke but Mrs Motor Mouth more than made up for him. He’s probably lost the will to live and lives in his own little world. She was sat next to me and immediately changed seats with Mr Mouse as she found my perfume was choking her and bringing on an asthma attack!

Well, a) I wasn’t wearing any and b) I wished I had – and loads of it – just to make sure it landed her in the Ship’s Hospital.

Bee-itch!!!!

The two dynamic duos left quite early and the waiting staff gathered round Ginny and I - the feeling was that there was not a lot of lurve radiating out to the four most boring people on the planet!

The trouble with eating so late is that it’s 11pm before you know it and if there’s a trip the next day, there’s no time to see a show etc My next cruise finds me booked onto the 6pm sitting which is actually too early to eat after a busy day but it does give you the option to do something after.