I haven’t blogged for a while. That’s because I am on vacation, and was running in circles getting ready to leave Toronto last week.

Thursday January 22, a friend and I flew to Panama to get on a cruise ship - a new route, and 95% Spanish speakers. On Friday, we went for dinner at a traditional Panamanian restaurant, and saw some traditional folkloric dancing - front row seats for the show! On Saturday we engaged a taxi and took a four-hour tour of the old city of Panama, and the Miraflores locks in the Panama Canal. Not only did we get a taxi driver, we got a congenial man who gave us lots of history and a sense of Panamanian politics.

Panama regained full control of the locks - and the fund flowing from them - in 1999. This means that in the last ten years, the levies on ships transiting the canal are now going directly into Panama, rather than out of the country. The agreement was signed in 1977, under President Jimmy Carter, but the US had a 100-year lease which expired in 1999.

Building in Panama is moving so fast it makes one’s head spin. Social infrastructure, which was not much prior to that time, is also being rebuilt. Everyone can go to school. Everyone, even the poorest, can get basic medical and health care - the wealthier pay a small fee. A huge medical complex is just being built, in partnership with Johns Hopkins medical school. Research funds are available. Oh, it is not perfect by any means, but certainly is an example of what can happen when a country has control over its own resources and funds, and is able to put those to good use for its own citizens.

The locks are a marvel, and watching huge ships go through is jaw-dropping. New waterways are being constructed to complement the older locks, but with the addition that they will work on recycled water, rather than taking water in from river and sea. Wherever trees are taken out for construction, they are replaced elsewhere. Without water the canal could not function. With a nine-month rainy season, water is the life-blood of this country, and trees are critical.

But in the midst of reconstruction, there are desperately shabby neighbourhoods and very very poor people, even surrounding the hotel and casino neighbourhood where we are staying. I am reminded, in this lush tropical place, of the devastation of Viet Nam and the struggle to bring themselves out of destruction and poverty.

Monday January 26: we have toured Cartagena de Indias in Colombia, including the Plaza of the Inquisition - brought here by the Spanish Christians in their misguided efforts to Christianise whoever came across their path. The place is beautiful, but the articles of torture leave one’s mind completely boggled at how such things could be done in the name of God. The number of lives lost is staggering - and I am ashamed.....

Walking around the old city, we encounter a beautiful small park where bougainvillia blooms in red, purple, orange, yellow and white all together overhead. As we walk, a family of Mestizo children from the country side play a couple of tiny drums, and the children - barely older than six or seven, dance for us in something approximating native dress. When we drop a couple of dollars into their basket, they run to their mother agog at how much they have made. Again I have mixed feelings. The two dollars are nothing for us, and so much more for others. Sure, the money will be helpful - but as Cartagena grows and grows, what is happening to native peoples?

Tuesday January 27: We lie by the pool in the Solarium aboard the ship, opting not to go ashore. We are dining with the Captain, and want to be sure we don’t get fried in the hot Colombian sun, then turn up looking like something from a horror show! The Captain’s table is comprised of wealthy and educated Argentinians, Brasilians, a couple from Puerto Rico; my friend and I, who speak Spanish “poquito”, and the Captain who is from Norway, but is fluent in Spanish and English. One of our table companions is an illusion artist currently working in Las Vegas, Carlos Barragan. We strike up a friendship and exchange emails.

I love cruising - it’s the ocean, the ships, and the ports  - but mostly the wonderful ocean. However, it is always an exercise in contrasts. Our table waiter is a wonderful Filipina woman, who tells us about her six-month contracts on the ship, and her two children at home. She is a single mother, and her comment is “Thank God I have a job, and I am able to feed and educate my children. I am not complaining, although I miss them.” Fourteen hour shifts, every day for six months - for a tiny wage, room and board, and the tips she earns going home to her family to support them. We privileged people count out our tips, and think we are being generous if we give more than five dollars above the recommended amount. I think I am a bit lavish on this trip - I have brought boxes of homemade cookies, and some small gifts, for the staff who look after us.

Wednesday January 28: Aruba, Netherlands Antilles. This tiny desert island struggles to make anything happen. With the discovery of oil in Venezuela, a processing plant has been built, and some jobs are returning. Construction on the island is mostly obscenely luxurious hotels; our tour guide drives by all the hotels and golf courses as part of the sightseeing, assuming we really want to see it. Homes of the kind we would expect to live in sell for three or four million dollars.

Thursday January 29: Curacao.  This is a lush and well organised Dutch colony, beautifully laid out, clean and lovely, but completely geared to the wester tourist. As we walk around the town of Willemstad, looking at Burger Kings, Kentucky Fried Chicken, McDonald’s, we wonder about our western need to take even such a jewel as this for our vacation spots, and then make it into an image of our own homes. I am offended by this blatant colonialism - for that is what it is. But the highlight of our day is a tour in a beat-up mini-van, with six Spanish speakers who patiently try to teach us a little, and explain things in their English which far outstrips our Spanish. We travel together to amazing underground caverns where slaves lived in hiding, in order to escape being drafted into labour aboard ships.

Friday January 30: Bonaire. Of all our stops we love this one. The island is not large, but clean and not yet too touristy. There are only 15,000 people living here. Offshore, there is another smaller island, where turtles and flamingoes breed - and now a protected area. There is one beach for the tourists, for swimming, snorkelling and beachcombing. The water is clear to about 40 feet, clean and warm. We feel spoiled in this place, and find ourselves angry at sloppy tourists throwing garbage on the beach when there are garbage cans placed right in front of them.

Saturday January 31. We have a day at sea, and are invited yet again to visit on the bridge. I am struck by how small the world really is. The First Officer is a young man from Toronto, who lives about four blocks from my home.

I called this blog mixed feelings - and it is. As I said, I love the ships, I love the sea, I love the people I have met and lifetime friends I have made. I am sad to be leaving. I have made friends who have touched my heart in so many ways, and I know I will not lose them - but I miss them already and it is only one day! They work to look after us, pamper us, so that we can have a vacation - but they are living long and often lonely months away from family, in order to send money back.. I admire and respect them all. Definitely mixed feelings.