A flop

I like Busy  Signal, but being bored for an hour or two waiting for him to come on stage, is not my idea of an afternoon well spent!

Tamarac is well known and respected by adjoining cities for it's excellent festivals.  

But this was not one.

To begin, it was not held in one of the usual spacious parks, but in an chucked- up area where they have established an amphitheater. This place is so small that you immediately start to feel claustrophobic the minute you get there. 

Most of the people I saw there did not appear to even be patrons, but workers, volunteers,  vendors, security personnel etc. Up to when I left after a boring 90 minutes, the attendance was really poor. Obviously, unlike me, most people knew what to expect, so they stayed away!

Apart from using this, small inadequate place, there were no chairs available and to add insult to injury, we were prevented from bringing our own folding chairs on the shuttle bus!

There were lots of food trucks offering the usual wide range of delicious dishes they usually offer right there on the last Friday of every month, but wine? I only saw one small table offering tasting of the cheap, bad tasting boxed wines.

 Yuck.🤑

I hope those who paid $85 to attend got a better quality of wine to taste.

Stage and sparsely supported VIP area.

The entire affair was not only badly planned but also boring, for although there was background music being played by a DJ, I saw no other form of entertainment after spending more than an hour and a half there.

And I was not the only one who left early, disappointed at the offering, as there was a steady stream exiting, most  leaving with the food they bought.

And many grumbled.

Crowded sidewalk but noting spectacular happening. Mostly vendors.

Sparse attendance.

Before leaving I made sure to call a friend from Miramar whom I had encouraged to attend, to tell her not to bother wasting her gas to come up, as this festival was nowhere close to the standard of Tamarac festivals which we all love so much and enjoy.

Yup, in my book, this one was a big flop.

Being quarantined is no fun

As a joke, on the 21st February 2020, I put a post on my Facebook page asking if anyone wanted a free cruise. I was absolutely shocked by the number of persons who replied yes, considering that the horror stories about people being quarantined on cruises ships and ports of call refusing them landing, had started to surface.

I don't think anyone in the world loves cruising more than I do. Or just travelling for that matter.

I got my first cruise when I was 14 years old and was so excited about the experience that the first job I applied for on leaving high school was to work on a cruise ship.

Thank god I never got the job for I learnt later in life that working on these floating hotels is no fun.

For the workers seem to work almost 24 hours per day. Also, they live in cramped quarters on the bottom of the ship and have to be nice to all sorts of assholes.

Not getting that job was probably my best luck in life for apart from the horrible conditions under which cruise ship employees work, lots of them pick up dangerous viruses.

But back to quarantines.

I am claustrophobic so being quarantined is a fate worse than death.

 I have been quarantined twice and thank god it was for short periods of time.

The first time was when I developed a fever after returning to Jamaica from vacation in Guyana. On that trip I did the exciting trek through the forest by minibus over to Brazil.

When I went to the doctor after developing a fever shortly after returning home, it created panic with the damn doctor who swore I had developed dengue, malaria or yellow fever, mosquito borne diseases that were no longer in Jamaica at that time.

That's when she said I must be quarantined in a hospital, public or private.

At least I could go on my balcony

 I had never heard about the process before so called a friend who was a GP, to find out what would happen if I refused to turn myself in. He soberly advised me that they would send the police to bodily take  me in. That was enough for me so reluctantly I checked into a private hospital and was confined to bed under a mosquito net for three whole boring days.

It turned out to be a colossal waste of money as nothing was  wrong with me except some ordinary damn flu.

The second time was in 2018 when a group of us went on a cruise of the Canal zone. The  night before we arrived in Old Cartagena, Colombia,  I had gone to watch the show on board and had to comment how a man behind me was coughing non stop.

The next day we took a tour of the old city and after we had finished  visiting the square, I stood on the sidewalk waiting on my friends when Bam, I collapsed on the sidewalk. nearly bashing my head on raised section. Maybe I was temporarily out as when I came to, a crowd was standing over me with everyone offering to help. My friends secured my belongings and put me in a taxi back to the boat.

I had not been feeling ill but when  they took my temperature it was 104 degrees. Long story short, I was then quarantined to my room for two days. It was so boring. I did not really want to come off in Limon, Costa Rica as I have visited it quite a few times, neither did I want to come off in Colon as I had also visited that town once and did not like it.

That's all I could see of Colon from my balcony

But being confined to my room while everyone else was out having fun was a killer.
I later learnt that 40% of the passengers on that ship had gotten the flu and some even had to be airlifted off.

I recall all this as I listen to the horror  stories of people being quarantined on cruise ships for up to fourteen days during  this corona outbreak and I sympathize with them as I think I  would die if I was confined to a cabin for such long periods!

 I really love taking cruises and was looking forward to doing the river cruise down the Rhine later this year, stopping in Northern and central Europe on the way, but I think I might just give cruises a break for a while.

For while cruises are fun, quarantine is hell.