We’re back… safe, sound and grateful for every minute of our Southern Caribbean cruise aboard the beautiful Celebrity Equinox.
For 11 days, I woke up every morning in a state of eager excitement because I knew every day was going to be a fabulous adventure.
In Grand Cayman, my husband and I snorkeled at 7 Mile Beach and on the way back we bought a local fruit drink called “Swinkie” from a tall, friendly man with large earrings hanging from his lobes. (Ignore the fact that after drinking “Swinkie” I had an allergic reaction and my lips swelled up like slabs of raw liver. It was still delicious.) It was so hot that by the time we got back to the port, we stopped at the Rum Cake Factory and bought 2 cold locally-brewed beers. As we were walking out, the cashier told us that in Grand Cayman, you can’t drink our beer outside unless you cover the bottles. To my great amusement, we had to drink our bottles out of brown paper bags.
Before the trip, we had already decided we were going to buy coffee from every place we visited, but only in local (not tourist) markets. Somehow, our mission evolved into a quest for coffee AND beer in every port.
So in Cartegena, Columbia, after walking about ten miles in blazing heat to see the Fortress of San Felipe, visit the fascinating, but creepy, Inquisition Museum and walk along the walls of the Old City, we found our way to the local supermarket, where everyone was so surprised to see tourists that security officer with a walkie-talkie followed us through the store.
In Panama, we traveled by bus and canoe for several hours to visit the remote Embera village where the wonderful, mostly naked, and highly tattooed indigenous people danced and fed us fried fish and plantains in banana leaves. Walking through the jungle, the shaman’s son showed us fire ants and medicinal plants in the jungle, including what the interpreter described as “Viagra” plants for both men and women.
On the bus ride back, we stopped at a little roadside market and bought coffee and beer from the Chinese proprietor.
In Costa Rica, we tasted bananas, pineapple, and raw cacao at a local fruit stand, visited a Del Monte banana plantation, saw sloths, monkeys and iguanas in the trees lining the canal and stopped for lunch at a beach restaurant that was playing the Steelers game on ESPN. 
Our tour guide, Jesus, even went into a Puerto Limon market with us to show us the best coffee to buy. We also met a cacao bean farmer who sold us roasted cacao seeds. Upside: these potent, crunchy bites of pure chocolate pleasure have changed my life. Downside: now I don’t know how I will ever live without them.
After floating down a river in an inner tube, going through an amazing limestone cave and coming out to the sight of a lush verdant jungle lining the river, I decided that Belize is one of the most beautiful places on earth. Huge regret: our waterproof camera broke and WE HAVE NO PICTURES of cavetubing in Belize. Dang!
Although our bus driver was kind enough to accommodate our request to stop at the “market” on the side of the road, when we asked the girl in the store for Belizean coffee, she kept pointing to freeze-dried Nescafe, so we ended up buying coffee outside the port, which involved mild haggling with a little Belizean woman who called me “Sweetie.”
According to my Fitbit, we walked 15 miles in Cozumel. It was a spectacularly beautiful day and we walked to and from San Miguel along the beach. When we decided we were running out of time to make it to the Mayan ruins at El Cedrad, we quickly changed plans and hoofed it through the streets to the local Sam’s Club, just so I could take a picture of my husband in front of his “happy place” in Mexico. (See? Look how happy he is.)
We sat on the beach, drank cold Tecates and shared a delicious piece of pina colada-flavored candy called Bubu Lulu.
I knew it was coming even while I was still on the ship. Disembarkation…the end…the inevitable passage from warmth, sunshine, new friends, and invariably cheerful crew members who make my life so easy, to the cold winter ahead in a world where I have to wash dirty dishes and sort laundry into piles of whites and darks.
But it’s okay. It’s always good to come home… especially when I realized how much I missed my DOG. (I’m happy to see you, too, Sparky.)
Now as we get back into our usual routine, we are comforted by the wonderful memories of our trip… and coffee…AND roasted cacao seeds.
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Ann K. Howley is the award-winning author of Confessions of a Do-Gooder Gone Bad.
Please visit her website at http://annkhowley.com/#about-ann
