THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 14, 1996 TAG: 9601120060
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEPHEN HARRIMAN, TRAVEL EDITOR
LENGTH: Long : 249 lines
THE INDIANS are streaking toward us across the blue-green water with astonishing speed, furiously paddling their battered, weather-worn dugout canoes.
There are scores of canoes bearing hundreds of Indians - the men and boys hardly clad at all, the women covered nearly head to toe in all the colors of the rainbow.
I am aboard the SSC Radisson Diamond, a small luxury cruise ship, and we are creeping toward an anchorage near one of the San Blas Islands, sometimes called the Archipelago de las Mulatas, scattered like tiny beads of a broken necklace casually discarded on a flat, featureless, deep blue table.
It is said there are as many islands, here off the Caribbean coast of Panama, as there are days in a year. Only about 30 of them are inhabited, and it would seem that all of the inhabitants of this island our captain has chosen are out here in canoes that now seem to have surrounded our ship.
These Cuna Indians, one of the few exotic attractions in the heavily touristed Caribbean, and this event I am experiencing must be very much the same scene as when these people's ancestors spotted the approach of Columbus in 1502.
Or nearly so.
The Cunas may very well view this ship not as futuristic, but rather as some sort of great white sea monster, for it is quite unlike any other vessel afloat.
The Radisson Diamond is rather squat and snub-nosed with a large, square Cyclops eye (a two-story lounge window) that straddles the water on a pair of spindly, tapering pontoon legs. Below the ``nose,'' where the prow would be on any other ship, there is a vast open space, like a giant mouth, that extends from stem to stern.
It looks much like an enormous catamaran, but everyone associated with the ship hates that designation. ``Cats'' sometimes have a tendency to tip over. The Radisson Diamond is ``steady as she goes.''
This unique design called SWATH - nautical-speak for Small Waterplane Area Twin Hull - is a revolutionary effort to achieve stability, utilizing a narrow hull area in contact with the waves and computer-controlled fins to virtually negate the effects of the sea.
Think of it as a hotel built on a pair of submarines 26 feet deep in the water (its designation SSC means semi-submersible craft). In fact, that was the object. It is the first ``hotel-ship'' to hit the waves - or slice through them, as it were.
As the ship glides through the water (at a rather slow-boat-to-China rate of just 12.5 knots), waves hit only her narrow struts rather than an entire bulky hull. Water funnels between her pontoons. Inboard, rather than the standard outboard, stablizers counteract roll, heave and pitch.
Occasionally movement is perceptible - a slight vibration, a shudder or a surge - but only enough to remind you that you are not tied up pierside. A Diamond in the smooth.
It is, all in all, a rather elegant (and remarkably stable) hotel suspended, like a bridge, over troubled water.
Which is what we may have right here, right now.
I want to believe this frenetic activity below is a friendly welcome, and I am almost certain that it is. But looking down from my balcony at all those Cunas, I am thinking I remember reading something about cannibalism among these people. I do not know if it is true. They will just have to prove it isn't so by . . . well, by not eating me.
Apparently it IS true that fairly recently there was what is now termed a ``nasty incident'' when a vacation resort complex called Pindertupo Village on another island - I think another island - was totally wiped out by fire during an Indian raid.
This may be one of those nice-place-to-visit-but-you-wouldn't-want-to-stay-there sort of places.
Now the Cunas, every one of them in every canoe, have taken up a rhythmic chant: ``Money-money-money . . . money-money . . . money-money-money.''
I do not understand Cuna, a Chibchan language. They could be saying anything.
Maybe ``Your tuxedo or your life.''
Maybe ``Are you bringing any of those awful diseases like the Conquistadors brought?''
Or maybe they were simply saying, ``Welcome to our island. May we all live together in peace and prosperity. And we WILL as long as you bring plenty of cash. We don't take American Express.''
In any case, many of my Diamond shipmates have begun to throw coins over the side, and the Cunas are diving into the clear water to retrieve those that miss the canoes. One Cuna woman holds an umbrella upside down to catch the bounty.
This island of sand and coral and a few palm trees is called (I think) ``Cartidugtupo'' or Crab Island. It does not seem to be much larger than a football field. A Cuna man who operates his knock-off version of the San Blas Hard Rock Cafe - a hand-lettered sign in English reads: ``Cold beer & soda . . population was 1,000. He told a friend of mine 1,500. Whatever.
It is wall-to-wall people and dirt paths and mostly bamboo huts with thatched roofs and a scattering of low, nondescript concrete block structures. Occupancy 100 percent. No room to build anything else.
I haven't seem anything quite this crowded except maybe the infield at Churchill Downs on Derby Day.
The Cuna are really quite a sight. They are sort of like miniature people with squarish, flat faces. The women, gaudily garbed in native costumes, all seem to be about four and a half feet tall, barefooted and with gold clips in their noses and bracelets on their arms and ankles. The men are slightly larger, and they tend to dress much as we do, since many of them have worked at one time or another on the mainland, mostly at the Panama Canal.
The children are, well, cute, like children everywhere. Interestingly, the first words they seem to learn are ``Money-money-money.'' It's often spoken behind a shy smile with hand extended.
I managed to learn a few words of Cuna during my brief visit.
If you say, to a woman pounding grain in a hollowed-out log with a wooden pestle, ``May I take your picture?'' she responds, ``Wun dolla.'' (I'm guessing at the Cuna spelling.) I take that to mean ``yes.''
If you place your hand on a piece of cotton cloth hanging on display - the wonderfully decoratively sort of fabric in which the women wrap themselves - and ask, ``What do you call this?'' they respond, ``Fiv dolla.'' So that must mean dress.
The Cuna word for T-shirt seems to be ``ten dolla'' and their word for their beautiful, multi-colored, Mola-designed blouses, hand-stitched in reverse applique, is ``twintee dolla.''
The Cuna's strongest tradition is a firm commitment to cash.
Most of their income would seem to come from shiploads of tourists taking photographs. They assume the position as shamelessly as a Hollywood celebrity. The kids provide the most adorable photo ops, albeit contrived.
There's a little boy with a pipe in his mouth and an iguana on his head . . in a tin tub . . . a little girl with two green parrots . . . three girls shaking gourds and singing. I come back a few minutes later and the kid who had the pipe in his mouth is now taking a bath with the iguana still on his head.
Yes, I suppose the Cuna civilization has become, in a way, a caricature of itself, but I leave thinking that there aren't many places quite like this left in the world. And I'm glad I saw it.
For one thing, the San Blas experience is so totally different from the lap-of-luxury life aboard the Radisson Diamond.
The 20,000-ton, 350-passenger ship is the most high-profile of the three vessels in Radisson Seven Seas Cruises' elite fleet that was voted the world's No. 1 cruise line by more than 30,000 respondents in Conde Nast Traveler's 1995 Reader's Choice Awards.
Life aboard the Diamond is casually elegant, relaxed and low key. It is part American country club (the majority of the guests seem to come from that environment) and part European resort.
The officers and most of the crew are Finnish. The hotel is almost entirely young Scandinavian women dressed in the French-maid fashion: white apron over gray during the day, over black after six. Hotel director Fabrizio Caviglione told me he thinks the women are better groomed and more reliable than men. The informal Vito's Grill specializes in Italian cuisine. The well-stocked library includes books and videos in several languages.
There's open seating in the dining room, so you can arrive within mealtime hours when it's convenient, sit where you like and change dinner companions and views as often as you like.
There were two formal nights on my nine-day cruise. Most of the men wore tuxedos, and comfortably as if they actually owned them. Most of the women did not wear dresses with a lot of little sequins on them. Otherwise, the costuming for the cruise was quite casual.
Staterooms, outfitted with large mirrors that make them seem even more spacious, have either a private balcony with chairs and table or a large picture window. All have a separate sitting area and offer a choice of queen- or twin-bed arrangement. There is a TV, VCR and a minibar stocked with all sorts of complimentary goodies. The marble-accented bath has both shower and tub, although anyone more than three and a half feet tall would find the tub rather confining.
There's also a swimming pool, jacuzzi, beauty salon and health and fitness spa, jogging track and - when the seas are very calm - a marina that can be lowered from the stern. Once, when the conditions were right off the island of Bequia, we were able to swim and scoot over the water on wave riders and small sailboats.
Diamond cruises also offer what are called ``enrichment'' lecturers. On my cruise they were given by the engaging Tony Wilson, a former British army officer turned adventurer-writer-photographer-sailor and since 1989 United States citizen. His subject was ``Man and the Sea.''
The Diamond's itinerary is as different as her design. The Trans-Panama Canal route we followed from Barbados to Costa Rica avoided many of the tourist-clogged ports-of-call, taking us across the southern Caribbean to. . .
Bequia in the Windward Islands, some of which got together a few decades ago and decided to form a country and join the U.N. just like the big guys. They call themselves St. Vincent and the Grenadines, which is better at least than Hootie and the Blowfish. Bequia is like St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands was 30 years ago, which is to say much like you'd want a tropical island to be - rustic, with great beaches and developed only to the extent that you can get something to eat and drink there. Tourism will eventually change it if not ruin it.
Curacao, Netherland Antilles (sometimes called the ABC Islands, as in Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao), 35 miles off the coast of Venezuela. A Dutch settlement since the early 1600s, Willemstad looks like a small Netherlands city painted in kaleidoscopic Caribbean colors, complete with thick-walled stone fort, a 1769 Dutch Reformed Church, the Mikve-Israel-Emanuel Synagogue, the oldest Jewish synagogue in continuous use (since 1732) in the Western Hemisphere . . . and the Royal Dutch Shell refineries in the background, busily processing Venezuelan crude.
Cartagena, Colombia. A modern city that has grown up around a 16th century Spanish way-station for ships looting the New World. Lots of interesting Iberian-style architecture in the Old City, dominated by the enormous San Felipe de Barajas Fortress. It was erected to intimidate pirates - also called privateers if you liked them. Young Simon Bolivar came to Cartagena in 1812, looking to loose the provinces of New Grenada (Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador) from Spanish ties.
I didn't see any drug cartels - I don't even know what they look like - nor did I see Juan Valdez and his donkey. But I did sip wonderful Colombian coffee at the source, and I bought some to bring home.
San Blas Islands I've told you about.
Panama and the Canal (see story, above).
Costa Rica. This is one of the trendiest destinations on the planet. Everyone from eco-tourists to surfers. I'm told the country has 15 volcanoes, five of which are active, and 110 volcanic peaks. I wanted to see the sort-of-active Paos Volcano (last eruption 1956), which is supposed to have the second-largest crater in the world. I'll have to take their word for it. It was so foggy and rainy I could hardly tell I was at at the edge of the crater, except for the fence.
Another time.
Is it for you? The Radisson Diamond has eight more Trans-Panama Canal cruises scheduled (one leaving Monday from San Juan) - five of 10-day duration, one of nine and two of eight - before its repositioning trans-Atlantic cruise to the Mediterranean and Baltic.
Prices for the Trans-Panama Canal and Costa Rica cruises start at $3,595 per person, double occupancy, and include air from East Coast gateways and a two-day deluxe hotel program in Costa Rica. Discounts may be available.
For detailed information contact a travel agent or call (800) 333-3333. Reservations can be made only through a travel agent. ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
STEPHEN HARRIMAN
The Diamond must've looked like a sea monster to Cuna Indians who
crowded the ship in canoes during an island stop on the Trans-Panama
Canal cruise.
Graphic
STEADY AS SHE GOES
The Radisson Diamond's SWATH (Small Waterplane Area Twin Hull)
design is a revolutionary effort to achieve stability, utilizing a
narrow hull area in contact with the waves and computer-controlled
fins to virtually negate the effects of the sea.
The ``hotel'' superstructure is built on a pair of submarines,
where the engines are located.
As the 103-foot wide ship glides through the water, waves hit
only her narrow struts rather than an entire bulky hull. Water
funnels between her pontoons. Inboard, rather than the standard
outboard, stablizers counteract roll, heave and pitch.
The design, however, is not perfect. ``To make it
hydrodynamically better,'' said a bridge officer, ``this ship should
be six feet wider. But if it were, it couldn't pass through the
(Panama) canal.'' Maximum allowable beam for canal passage is 106
feet.
- Stephen Harriman
Photo
The Trans-Panama Canal route includes Cartagena, Colombia, home of
San Felipe de Barajas Fortress.
by CNB