Memorable Quotes from 2015 travels

"I knew I shouldn't have left the money in the room with the door unlocked, even though we were only gone a couple hours."  stated by one of our 6 other OAT guests after missing $500
the second night of our trip at the Lodge on the Crocodile River in Kruger National Park, S. Africa.

"Happy Days!", said JB, our guide, after he interrupted our OAT tour dinner at the Sable Sands Lodge in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe, and careened through the veld off road to find us our first lion sighting - a black bearded male, resting under a bush.  JB and Thompson, our guides, tracked the lion with large flashlights in pitch black night to this unlikely spot.  The lion eventually yawned.  JB said, "now he will get up and leave", which he did a minute later.  We were able to follow slowly along side this majestic, regal lion as he made his way back to the main track to continue marking his territory.

"I know it was Capt Vancouver, not Capt Cook", said David Case to his crack Trivia Team members in answer to the 13th question:  "Who named the Sandwich Islands?"  Since David is FROM the Sandwich Islands, now Hawaii, the rest of the team reluctantly changed their answer from the obvious Capt Cook.  Needless to say, David bought everyone a round of drinks after the contest.

"Dorothy, Dorothy, Dorothy, Dorothy"

These were the words of a new song written on stage and in front of the audience in the Insignia Lounge by  Darren Williams, a talented singer and entertainer.  He said he would write a song using someone's name, just call out the name.  David called out Dorothy.  He accepted the challenge, but could not think of anything that rhymed with Dorothy, thus, the words above.  It was a very catchy tune which everyone sang to me for a few days after the show.  Actually, no one remembered the tune, but the words were easy.

"What do you mean, you don't have your passports?"  said by our tour guide assigned to get 11 guests on a plane to Xian, China to see the Xian Terra Cotta Warriors on an overnight excursion.  As we left the Insignia Lounge with our bus number which was our official pass to leave the ship and go on the tour, the Destinations representative handed each of us our passports.  However, she told us that we were not to show it to anyone.  If we showed it to someone, they might stamp it and then we couldn't go in or out of China again.  So when we got to the airport, the representative asked for our passports to give to the ticket agent before letting us board the plane.  Every one of us said we did not have our passports.  The agent was totally shocked.  She called her agency.  We said we needed to talk to the ship.  After 10 minutes or so, we talked to Marina who warned us not to show anyone the passports.  She appologized and said that  of course we should show them for this purpose.  We all decided that we would be good at the Liar's Club night, which was coming up soon.

"I'll be damned if I accept a tow back to shore, I came this far, I can surely make it", said I returning by kayak from a normally 20 minute paddle from the island to shore in the Kingdom of Tonga, but which was taking 45 minutes to this point in drizzly, gray skies and blowing winds.  The kayak only went to the right pushed by the wind and current.  All my stroke and power had to be on the left to compensate.

"May we present you with our olive oil and balsamic vinegar menu selection?"  Fabio, the head waiter of the Toscana specialty restaurant asked after rolling up a trolley filled with about 8 different selections of each specialty oil or vinegar which will be used for dipping bread.  Next the bread was placed on the table.  Hand made, thin, Bread sticks, whole wheat or white fresh baguettes, puff balls skewered on a stick, lavosh flat bread or cracker.  This was our downfall and reason I gained 8 pounds on the trip.

July, 2015, World Cruise: Coffee and Tea

I have to preface this entry by stating that the best coffee in the world is 100% Kona coffee.  Mike and Mary MacCheyne's coffee, MnM Kona coffee is very reasonable and they are expert coffee farmers, doing it all themselves to assure quality control.  Order it direct at www.mnmkonacoffee.com. Gourmet estate coffee at a reasonable price.

Whenever we visited a coffee growing country, we bought some local coffee.  It started in Viet Nam at a large gift shop/rest stop.  This was called "weazle coffee".  We couldn't read the rest of the label so we assumed it was the coffee we had heard about where the small weazle ate the coffee cherry and pooped it out and then they gathered the beans and processed them as specialty coffee.  This coffee was about $10 per pound, however, so we were not sure if it was the famous one or not, or even if it just has the trade name weazel coffee.

Weasel coffee and Luwak coffee.  The "weazel" sure looks like a squirrel to me.  Luwak shows an actual civit which we saw at this coffee store in Bali

After our Bali tour of the island, we begged our guide to take us to buy the genuine Luwak coffee.  We wntered through lush garden walkways to the rear of the property to see the civits in cages.  A lovely lady and her assistant prepared a cup of the coffee for about $8.00 a cup.  David had a cup of medium roast and pronounced it smooth, velvety and delicious.  I was already in the gift shop comparing sizes and prices.  The shop also sold high end souvenirs.  We ended up buying two bags of 200g of coffee for about $125.00.  It is sold by the gram, but roughly 1 lb of coffee would be over $150.00 at this outlet.

Kingdom of Tonga coffee and Huatulco, Mexico coffee

The rest of the coffees we purchased were less than $10.00 per bag.  We bought the Tongan coffee at the pier where merchants set up tents to sell to the cruise ships.

The Cafe Huatulco in Mexico was sold at a coffee cafe in the middle of the town square near the cruise pier.  It was a local cafe, not necessarily for tourists.  The young beautiful woman poured us each a cup to taste when she saw our interest in buying her coffee.  As with every freshly prepared, fresh roasted coffee, it was delicious.  She had medium or dark roast, beans or ground.  We never buy ground coffee.  You have no idea what the size, shape or color of the beans were, freshness, or even if it is all from the same farm.  Lots of defects can be masked by buying ground coffee.

We talked about where the coffee was grown and how, whether they had the coffee berry borer beetle, etc.  Soon her mother joined us.  She is the owner of the large coffee farm in the green mountains we saw as we drove back from our tour.  I think she said they had 700 acres at an elevation about 3,000 ft.  The language barrier prevented us from learning much more.  It was delicous coffee.  We decided to buy a pound, and also saw this bag of chocolate chunks which is a drink or even a candy.  We went to pay and it was only $10 for both!  

Guatamala and Nicaraguan coffee 

David went to the El Barretal coffee farm in Guatamala while I went to the Rosario beach.  His ride there was over an hour.  The farm was at 4,000 ft.  The hacienda held musical instruments like guitars and ukuleles like they played music a lot.  They had 200 acres.  The processing equipment was for large quantities, but much older models.  The beans were dried on a big patio by the house with no hoshidana roof if it rained.  There was a gas fired drier and a 200 lb coffee roaster.

Kilambe coffee beans from Nicaragua were purchased also at one of the stands set up for our cruise ship by the port.

Costa Rican coffee beans, and Panamanian coffee

We purchased the Costa Rican coffee at the bird park gift shop.  Our gift shop brought on board Panamanian souvenirs.  We bought this bag of coffee beans there.  We never got off the ship in Panama.

David bought this coffee in Cartegena when at a coffee shop with Jerry and Marion, the bridge instructors.

Tea

In Asia, we were able to purchase some tea.

This is 8 treasure chrysanthemum tea.  Unlike the other teas, I can read the box.  The ingredients are rock sugar, Jujube (red date), Longan, green tea, chrysanthemum, goji berries, raisin, Tremella.  It is from Zhangzhou, fujian, China.  food.TENFU.com, TCRM@tenfu.com.  When Bonnie Godfred and I were in China in 2000 I bought some of this tea.  It comes in individual packets.  You can brew three cups from one packet.  The rock sugar is probably what makes it taste so good, but it is very special.  I think this cost $7.  Flavia bought it for me.  When I asked in a tea store, I never got an answer, but she knew where and how to buy it.  She got a box for herself.

These cannisters we bought in Kaohsiung, Taiwan from the merchants at the pier.  The red is oolong tea, best quality.  The blue is alishantra mountain oolong tea.

The top box is ginger tea.  There are 20 packets of brown sugar squares infused with ginger.  It is very strong and one square makes a lot of tea.    That was the best instruction I was able to get from the tea seller at the market where we bought it somewhere in Asia.  I think it was about $15.00.  At home, it makes one whole tea pot of tea, about 5 cups.  It is quite delicious with brown sugar and the sharp tang of fresh ginger flavor.  When I cleaned the teapot there were chopped up pieces of fresh dried ginger in the bottom.  This is really nice ginger tea!

The bottom box is litchi tea made from green tea and lychee.  At our tea tasting in Xiamin, this was the most popular green tea which almost everyone bought.  But it was about $20.00.

I also bought a small bag of green tea which is delicious but I have no recollection where I got it and can't read the bag at all.  But the color of the bag is green, so it must be green tea (right?)

We have to confess that in New Zealand, in Picton, we had that delicious lunch of blue green lipped mussels with a glass of New Zealand wine.  So we bought a bottle of wine at the store on the corner.  New Zealand white sauvignon blanc wine is delicious.  We savored it for quite awhile.

Tasting notes of the various coffees and teas are to come.