"The Joy of the Red, White and Blue" - Time Out #193

As I go down my life's senior path, I certainly think I am taking more and more time for personal reflection, and "smelling more of the roses".

This was glaringly apparent on our most recent international travel experience.

My bride, Ms. Debbie, and I flew for the 9th time out of super convenient Stillwater Regional Airport (SWO), aboard our local airline carrier, American Airlines via Dallas/Ft. Worth, then on to Miami, FL. Miami is the self-proclaimed cruise capital of the world, with several ocean cruise lines having their corporate headquarters in their huge port area. Many other cruises depart just north up the coast a bit from the port at Ft. Lauderdale. Still others in Florida leave from Ft. Canaveral, farther north on the east coast, and from Tampa on the west coast of the Sunshine State.

This latest adventure, we cruised with a Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) subsidiary, Oceania Cruises, and their larger-size vessel (1,250 guests), Riviera. Because it is a more expensive smaller cruise line, composed of 6 total vessels, it carries a crew of 800 international workers. With a guest/crew ratio so low, the on-board service was certainly excellent!

O.K., back to the premise I stated earlier; personal deep thought, associated with this interesting excursion, well outside the good ol' USA.

Our port stops were the principal reasons for my special introspection, as we visited Honduras, Guatemala, Belize, and for the 2nd time in 2 years, fascinating Cuba.

It is probably no surprise, Central America's economy is not doing well. Couple their bad economies, along with almost constant political unrest, and the results are major society problems for most countries in the region. In fact, Costa Rica and Panama may be the only two countries that are not experiencing big internal issues. I am not implying everywhere a tourist goes in certain "troubled" Central American countries that danger lurks in the shadows, but one certainly needs to be totally aware of his/her surroundings there, and should probably travel in groups. Honduras was stop #1, and our visiting from our ship was done to the island of Roatan, about 30 miles off the coast of their mainland. The day we were there, 3 other large cruise vessels were also visiting this small area, so our ship had to anchor off shore. Anchoring meant we had to tender ride (smaller, lifeboat-like vessel) to shore. I made the short jaunt into their port, but my bride decided to stay on-board our " mother" ship and relax. This area is very tropical, and offers lots of beautiful ocean swimming/snorkeling/scuba opportunities for tourists.

The next day, we were in Guatemala, an adjacent country that is a little better off economically because of their large banana-exporting industries. Here, Ms Debbie and I rented a local taxi and a 60-year-old, fluent English-speaking driver, who provided us an escorted 2-hour tour of the local area. Wow, we saw so many motor-powered, 2-wheel modes of transportation everywhere, and large crowds of native people, many of them of direct ancient Mayan descendants. We also saw large areas of poverty, along with co-existing economic decay. On the other hand, however, we drove through a large, bustling downtown market, full of merchants and prospective shoppers.

On to British-influenced Belize, the next day, and another visit to an off-shore island. This stop, Ms. Debbie and I took a shore excursion through a dense, red mangrove area in a shallow bay, adjacent to the island. Here we closely observed many large manatees (aka "sea cows") slowly swimming, just under the surface of the clear, blue, ocean water. We were also able to see lots of different sea birds that make their homes in the dense, unusual tree growth.

The last port stop was Havana, Cuba, our second visit to this fascinating island nation in the last 2 years. The temperature was near 90-degrees the day we spent in Havana, but we still had a wonderful time, retracing the island life of famous author Earnest Hemingway, who spent the last 25 years of his life there. We took a ship-sponsored (highly recommended) 4-hour

excursion which included visiting his large estate and home outside Havana, along with visiting the famous bar he called his 2nd home in the downtown area of the city. Of course, we also purchased souvenir Cuban cigars. legal to bring back into the USA now, just like we did in 2017.. We were also again thrilled to see the many beautiful pre-1960, brightly-colored, vintage, American automobiles all over the local city streets on this vibrant island.

Returning to Miami's port to disembark our vessel, because we had a late afternoon flight west to Dallas/Ft. Worth, we took a popular, double-decker, hop-on-hop-off bus, around Miami and Miami Beach for several hours. The trendy, art deco South Beach area was certainly interesting to drive through again, as it has so many unique-looking structures.

On the jet plane rides back to Our Town, I reflected on all we had seen during this "Latin American Week". It really made me feel deep down. just how fortunate I am to be an American citizen.