Nassau

We met our guide, Zhivago, on the pier at 10:45am. At 11am, on the dot, we walked toward town. We had headsets, which made it easier to hear him. He said he was our conscience. 😀. We walked across the new port, which had its grand opening yesterday. Very new! There was a marching band playing--all in very fancy uniforms. From there, Zhivago pointed out a water tower on a hill and told us that is where we were going. It looked far, but he assured us it wasn't. (Sounds familiar...) We walked through the shopping area and he pointed out statues and buildings. The colors of the buildings mean something. I remember that green is law enforcement. He talked about governors and Queen Victoria. She freed all the slaves in 1823 and is revered.

As we neared the water tower, we entered a cavern-like walkway. It was dug out by slaves in the 1700s and took 6 years to complete. At the end was the Queen's Staircase. It has 66 stairs, which was how long the thought Victoria would rule. But she only made it to 64 years. We climbed the stairs, which wasn't too bad. At the top was a fort and the shopping area. Heather and I sat in a shady area for the 15 minutes of shopping time.

From there, it was all downhill. We stopped to talk about the indigenous people, the Arawaks and Caribs. After Columbus, they all either died or became slaves. He kept saying, "left is right and right is suicide." Mostly because they drive on the other side, therefore tourist's need to be careful!

He left us at the entrance to the port. We walked down a few streets, and I found a Starbucks and bought a mug. We debated having lunch in town, but the food is already paid for on the ship, plus it looked like rain. It started sprinkling just as we got to the ship!

The title of this post refers to that they call everyone "family! "Okumaya devam et