Adventures We Chase

Part of our jobs onboard the cruise ships as Shore Excursions Staff was to go on the excursions and experience them ourselves. Getting paid to do expensive Excursions that guests pay hundreds of dollars to do? Hell yeah.  We both had only been onboard a short time, and our manager was encouraging us to go on the excursions while we were in port, and gave us the time off in St. Maarten to go on one together. After going through the brochure, we picked the funnest one we could find, ATV’s.  When we went on tours, we also went incognito, dressed in our own clothes. We didn’t want the guests on the tour to know we were with the ship, in case they wanted to complain or whatever. Sometimes the tour leaders wouldn’t know we were crew either, and we could see how they treat the guests.  So off we went on the ATV tour, and shortly after arrival, the tour leader starts talking about how the newlyweds... us. Obviously we didn’t want to tell them who we really were, but Ben went along with it... so I did as well.  So for the rest of the day, we played along and let everyone believe we were newlyweds on our honeymoon cruise. 

We drove our ATV’s across the island of St. Maarten over to the French side and the famous nude Orient Beach.  We saw a proud nudist standing tall, baring it all with no shame. We ordered Penis Coladas from the bar, we swam in the ocean, we laughed and got to know each other. 

When I first decided that I wanted to get a job working on cruise ships, I was desperate to get out of the life I felt trapped in. I felt lonely in a city that never really felt like home, bored at my desk working a 9-5. job. To be fair, I was working as a travel agent at the time, I got 6 weeks vacation time a year which I used fully, but I hated sitting behind a desk for the other 46 weeks of the year. I knew I needed a big change, and after a lot of internet research, I started applying for anything that would help get me out into the world.  It took an entire year of applying before I finally got the job, but when I finally did, it was exactly the one I wanted. I applied with every cruise line I could. I applied for different positions, multiple times throughout the year. I had one interview with P & O Cruises for Future Cruise Sales and Loyalty, but due to my lack of experience with a loyalty program, I didn’t get it. That was the only other interview I got with a cruise line.  I was also applying for other travel related jobs at the time, including tour leaders for adventure group travel companies. I actually almost took a position with Tucan Travel, leading tours in Africa! But I had to turn it down because they wanted me to fly out in May for an 8 month contract, and my sisters wedding was in July. At the time I was disappointed that I couldn’t take the job, even though the idea of taking that job was incredibly daunting, but it was because something better was around the corner, and it wasn’t meant to be.  Not long after that, I finally got an email for an interview with Royal Caribbean as Shore Excursions Staff. It was from a hiring agent out of Ontario. They are kind of like talent scouts for cruise lines, they find good candidates for them, and are paid a fee in return if they hire you, at no cost to you.  After my interview with the hiring agent, I had Skype interviews with 3 different Royal Caribbean people, and shortly after was offered my first contract. I was at work, it was a small office and everyone knew I was applying for these jobs. When the email came in, I cried. That was the first time I’ve ever cried tears of joy, but it felt like a weight had been lifted off of my shoulders. I felt like this was finally my opportunity to really get out into the world and have a different kind of life. Everyone came and hugged me and told me how happy they were for me. I called my best friend, and that night she came over, and we drank champagne and celebrated. 

It was my first contract onboard the cruise ship, and it had only been 2-3 months onboard, so I was still learning a lot. I was onboard Anthem of the Seas, and we changed ports and itineraries a lot, which was great for seeing new places, but difficult to remember all the shore excursions in so many ports of call.  On the first day of the cruise, the Assistant Shore Excursions manager is responsible for giving the “Destination Talk” in the Royal Theater. Basically giving the guests a rundown of what tours we offer that cruise. We usually got around 200-300 people attend. Our assistant manager was leaving for vacation, and we weren’t getting a replacement. My manager, who was kind of scary, asked me to do it.  I was absolutely terrified, but I said yes. I studied the slideshow presentation, I made absolutely sure I had the important information like docking times memorized, I printed off descriptions of the excursions I would talk about. I asked everyone on the team about the excursions if they had done them. 

On turnaround day, I had a knot in my stomach, I felt like I had to pee, even when I just went. I probably looked like a deer in headlights. When it came time to walk on stage, I prayed I wouldn’t trip. I prepared myself for 300 eyes staring at me.  I walked on stage, I didn’t trip, and I looked out in the crowd. Now, on one hand, 200-300 people seems like a lot of people. But when you walk onto the stage in the Royal Theater, a venue that seats over 1000 guests, 200-300 have it looking pretty empty, which I was not expecting. So I stood on stage, shaking like a leaf, trying to not-so-confidently speak into the microphone, listening to my own voice project through the half empty theater, reading from the paper script I wrote through myself, while staying in time with the slideshow project. I spoke to empty seats, looked for friendly faces in the crowd, saw my bosses scary face staring intently at me from the back, decided empty seats were the best way to go, and spoke as quickly as possible to get through the presentation. By the time I walked off stage, my heart was pounding a million miles a minute.  I did a talk that usually takes 25 minutes, in 15. I waited for my manager to come find me and tell me how terribly I did, but that didn’t happen. She told me good job, and we headed back to the office. 

When we got back to the office, of course she gave me some constructive criticism, but in that moment, I could tell that my mean old boss was proud of me. That was a scary thing to do, an not everyone would have stepped up and done it, especially on their first contract. 

Cozumel Mexico, one of my favorite cruise ports. It’s beautiful, has some great excursions, amazing food, and the tour operators are very hospitable for the Shore Excursions Staff.  We organized our crew, and the tour operator set us up with 2 Jeeps on an off-road adventure tour. We finished our tour dispatch in the morning, and set off for an adventure of off-roading, beaches and tacos. 

We set off on our convoy and drove along the beautiful coastline of Cozumel before turning down a small, bumpy road 

We bounced down the road, through the forest of palms, sometimes getting glimpses of the ocean through the trees. Our first stop was an old Mayan Ruin. 

It was a bit anti-climatic, if you compare to some of the incredible Mayan Ruins around the rest of Mexico, but this is Cozumel and this is about the best they have for ruins.  On the plus side, we were at the ocean! It was quite rough that day, and the huge waves were crashing up against the rocky shoreline, making for a pretty epic picture. 

Our next stop was the beach. We were all to busy eating tacos and guacamole to take any pictures. The ocean was too rough to swim anyways, so we sat under the shade, chatting away and enjoying the food. 

No tour in Mexico is complete without tequila, so on the drive back to the ship, we stopped off at a Hacienda for a tequila demonstration and tasting. After we were all feeling warm and fuzzy (except the drivers), we headed back to the ship to get ready for our evening shifts. 

It was an epic day with friends, and it’s the experiences likes these shared with your co-workers that turns them quickly from strangers to family. 

As part of the Shore Excursions sales team on board the cruise ships, our job is not only to sell the tours, but to experience them for ourselves, so we can sell them better. So we would often organize a private tour for our shorex team while we had time off in port. I know, pretty sweet perk of the job eh?  We had one member of our team named Michelle or Xiao Xiao. She was a Chinese girl, and damn if she wasn’t the nicest, most innocent girl you ever met. She grew up very sheltered at home, and this contract working in the Caribbean was the first time she had been outside of Asia. 

She was very shy, and was afraid to do anything remotely adventurous, but she never wanted to miss out. She’d often come along just to ‘observe’ and hang out, but would always sit and wait somewhere for us while we did the activities.  One such a time, a tour operator in the port of Costa Maya, Mexico was taking us all out to see Laguna de Bacalar (lake of seven colors.) 

The crystal clear waters and white sandy bottom of this lagoon cause the water color to morph into varying shades of turquoise, blue, and deep indigo throughout the day and in different depths.

Everyone brought their bathing suits, and were ready to dive into the magnificent water. Everyone but Michelle (does she even own one?) She told us to go ahead and enjoy, she just wanted to ‘observe’, and she sat on the boat while we all dove in. 

The water was incredible. It was crystal clear, if you dove down and opened your eyes, you could see everything. And it didn’t burn if you did, this was clean, fresh water. The water was warm on the skin, which was a relief from the cloudy skies and wind. 

The lagoon is 60-kilometers long, and is a series of waterways that eventually lead to the ocean. There are deep cenotes that make for excellent swimming holes along the lake, but many parts are only waist deep. 

Michelle had never swam before, or been in any type of open water. We tried and tried to coax her in. We had 3 dive instructors, 1 dive master, and 2 extras should anything happen, and the water was only waist deep.  After a while, captain said we were ready to head to our next stop. We drove the boat another 20 minutes or so to ‘the Pirates Channel.’ It’s a popular swimming area with an abandoned structure that people jump from. 

Finally, about 20 minutes before we had to leave, we convinced Michelle to come in the water, clothes and all! And if that isn’t the look of pure joy, I don’t know what is. 

She was terrified getting in, Bojan lifted her into the water in his arms, and she had hers tightly clinging onto him. Once she felt the warmth of the water touching her and she began to breath, she relaxed and let herself stand up and really experience this for the first time.

The first time Ben came to Canada, we did a 4 week road trip around Alberta and British Colombia. We drove my little VW Jetta, packed up with all sorts of camping gear and road-tripped from place to place. When we weren’t camping, we stayed mostly in Airbnbs.  We planned to stay a few days in Kelowna, BC, to see a few friends, do a wine tour and enjoy the city. We searched hotels and Airbnbs, but there weren’t a huge amount of options.  We found a reasonably priced one, where we had our own private area. It was an add-on to the original house, so we had our own bedroom, bathroom, living room, and a small kitchenette. There was also a nice deck outside, with a hot tub. In the listing it mentioned there was an extra charge to use the hot tub.  It was a bit further from the city center then we hoped for, but for the price and what we were looking for, it would do. So I booked the Airbnb, and sent a message to the host, giving them the details of when we planned to arrive. 

Not too long later, I got the message. “Fuck off.”  “What?!? Oh my god, our Airbnb host just told me to fuck off!” I laughed to Ben. A little in shock, I wasn’t sure what to reply. After a few minutes, I sent back “Excuse me?” Well shit... maybe we need to start looking for a new Airbnb. 

Eventually she replied, and started apologizing. Apparently she thought she was getting a spam email, and was ‘annoyed at how much spam mail she was receiving’ so in her frustration, sent the fuck off reply. When the spambot (me) replied to her, she checked her Airbnb account and saw that she did in fact have a reservation and it was her guest that was messaging her haha. Apparently she is new to Airbnb Hosting.. 

As we drove to our new home for the next few days, we wondered what kind of interesting host we might be dealing with.. crossing our fingers she wasn’t a crazy lady. 

When we arrived, she was super friendly, and apologized profusely. The place was really nice, and she even let us use the hot tub for free during our stay. So it all worked out, and we have another funny story to tell. So far, we’ve been really lucky with all our Airbnb experiences. 

On Ben’s first trip to Canada, we were road tripping in my little VW Jetta, camping and exploring around Alberta and BC. 

We were camping not far outside of Whistler, and I had read about a really neat hike nearby.  The popular Train Wreck hike is an easy 1 km hike, to a unique site. We parked up, found the trail and followed an easy path until we came upon a suspension bridge over a creek. 

Across the bridge you’ll find multiple train cars, scattered about among the feet of the towering trees. 

It’s a strange place, because you see the train cars battered and spread out among the trees. The railway tracks are nearby, and you can hear the horn of incoming trains and their bright lights as they pass by. The trees all grow tall and strong around the cars, no damage or evidence of a derailment.

Before Whistler existed, there was just a train track going through this area. One day back in 1956, a train came through with a little too much speed, and the train derailed. A logging company came and moved the train cars out of the way, but it was too expensive and too much effort to remove them, so they were left to lay in the forest. 

So now, 60 some years later, the trees have grown all around the abandoned rail cars, and local artists have made it a unique, colorful place to visit.  There were quite a few other people here, as we came mid day, and everyone was crawling in and out of rail cars exploring the unique art. I had brought my GoPro, but was also using my phone to take photos, and Ben had his drone. 

We were in one such rail car, and I wanted to take this picture of Ben. I put my GoPro down on a ledge inside the car, and used my phone to take this panaramic photo to get all of the squid art in. Then we left and kept exploring. 

It wasn’t until hours later, we had hiked back, gone into town and had just sat down at a restaurant when I looked in my bag to check out the GoPro footage when I finally realized... I left it in the rail car. Fuck. 

We were starving, and it was summer in Canada so we had a few more hours of sunlight. We decided to have dinner, and then we would hike back out there and see if it was still there. 

It was not. 

I was speaking to an old friend of mine who was currently living in Whistler. We were trying to arrange to meet up, but we only had one day there, and she was working.  I had met this girl a few years ago while on a Contiki trip in Europe, and we stayed in touch through Facebook. I told her what happened, and she put a post up on a local Whistler Facebook group page. I wasn’t expecting much, and the next day we were heading to Vancouver. 

It wasn’t a long drive, so we woke up in the morning, drove into Vancouver, and checked in to our pretty sweet Airbnb. It was a big fancy 5 bedroom house with a sauna and pool tables, and only a few bus stops away from downtown. We had our own room with an en-suite bathroom. 

 We checked in, dropped our stuff off and headed out to explore. 

After a fun day of riding bikes around Stanley Park, we headed into the Gas Town area to find somewhere to eat. We had just sat down at a brewhouse, when my friend from Whistler messaged me. 

“I think someone might have found your GoPro! I’m going to add you guys both into a message together.”  Amazing! We already started figuring out when we would be able to drive back to Whistler to pick it up. 

We were hungover. Last night was our final night living on the little island of Gili Air. A diver’s paradise in Indonesia that we had been living on for the last 4 months. Thankfully, it’s only a short ferry ride (5-10 minutes) away from Lombok. 

We were with Alqi, our bartender turned dear friend. Whenever we needed a night out, we would head over to Star Bar Bungalows where we would chat, play games, make bets on football, sang karaoke, smoked crappy weed and in between orders of beer Alqi would poor us drinks mixed with his homemade rice wine, which is popular among the Indonesians. When it’s mixed, it’s a bit strong, but not that bad. Alcohol is expensive on the islands, since everything needs to be imported. 

Alqi lived on Lombok, and would sleep on the restaurant couches during his working days, and take the ferry home on his days off. A lot of the locals working on the Gili Islands come over from Lombok to work in the Tourism Industry of the Gili Islands.  We planned to spend a week exploring Lombok, before heading back to Bali. For our first day in Lombok, Alqi took the day off, and was going to take us on an adventure.  We took the local slow boat across to Lombok, where Alqi had his motorbike waiting for him. It was a new, sleek red bike he was really proud of. And instead of letting us rent a bike, he borrowed one from a friend for us to use that day. 

He said he knew a good guest house we could stay, that was close to his village. We drove over there, but when we got there, the guest house was full. The owner was very friendly though, and between him and Alqi, they found another guest house that said they had room.  When we got there, it was a pretty cool property. They had all these kind of treehouse cabin type of rooms, which we soon found out were all full.. but they did have a spare room in their family house that we could stay in, which was super kind. They included breakfast and gave us coffee and water and juice. The room was basic but we had our own bathroom, and separate single beds. 

The older couple who owned it were very friendly, and we drank coffee with them and had a long chat. We told them we were interested in going to see the Sendang Gile waterfall, which was a bit of a drive from where we were. They told us they knew of a better one which was closer, that they had visited only a few days ago. This one was found on a farmers land only around 4 years ago, it was pretty far drive into the jungle but it was amazing. They had driven themselves and their 2 children on one motorbike to get there!  They showed us pictures, and it did look beautiful, so we were sold. Although they warned us that the road to get there was not very easy, but if they could do it with 4 people on one bike, then we could do it too. They gave Alqi the directions on how to get there, as he had never even heard of this waterfall. Thankfully we had him to find the way because without google maps, I am useless.  We packed our bags, filled the bikes up with gas, and stopped at a little shop on the side of the road to pick up some snacks. Then I held on to the back of Ben on the motorbike while he followed Alqi through villages, winding uphill roads, and eventually turned onto a dirt road, where I was surprised that there was actually a sign for the waterfall. “Can’t be that hard to find it if there’s a sign for it!” 

Onto the dirt road we went. And on.. and on.. uphill, downhill, some sketchy parts, winding paths. We would come to a fork in the road, and Alqi would stop for a minute to think, and then seemed to know which way to go, so we kept following. Some parts of the road seemed to have just been dug through, with tall dirt walls surrounding you. 

After almost an hour of driving through the jungle, I was beginning to wonder if we were totally lost somewhere in the jungles of Lombok, when we finally found another sign for the waterfall. Hallelujah we made it! 

A little further down, we found a spot to park the bikes. Then we started the walk. It took us another 15-20 minutes to hike down towards the waterfall. It got pretty steep, especially when you are hiking in flip flops... but there were somewhat of stairs that were dug into the earth, and eventually a hand rail, and then a platform. 

It was one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen, the pictures don’t even do it justice. 5 different, beautiful waterfalls in front of me, a beautiful canyon to swim in, it was heaven. 

After the first platform, there was another platform lower down, where you could leave your bags. It wasn’t totally well kept, there was a fair bit of litter left behind, the wood was pretty wet and a bit broken, but they did just have hurricane season.  We left our stuff there and climb down to swim in all it’s glory. 

When we arrived, there were about 5 local Lombok guys there. There was a big rock you could jump off, and one of them had lost their GoPro when they jumped in. Luckily, Ben being a dive instructor/fish, brings goggles with him whenever we go on adventures. They told him what happened, and it took him a few tries of diving down, and he found their GoPro! They were super stoked. I think moments like that are what give us good karma for other stories, like when I lost my GoPro in Whistler, BC. 

The time passed way too quickly, and even though the water was still warm enough to swim in, the sun was going down, and it was a long road out of there. After a steep hike back out, we got on the bikes and began the not so easy road home. Thankfully Alqi seemed to remember how to get us out of there again.