(TL;DR version at the bottom, the very long full version of the story follows for those who want all the details.)
1.
I had to make a simple, yet crucial, choice: left or right?
To my left was part of the trail I thought I had been on before, but didn’t have any trail markers on it. To my right was part of the trail I didn’t remember going on, but that had multiple trail markers on it.
What do you do? The clock is ticking – you need to make a decision fast. Do you trust your instincts or believe what the trail tells you?
Think about it. And while you do, let me back up a bit.
I was out in the Caribbean on the incredible JoCo cruise (a yearly cruise named after musician Jonathan Coulton that is full of incredibly talented people; essentially a convention on a boat) and the port the next day was in Saint Kitts.
I wanted to go on a hike there– specifically Mount Liamuiga,an inactive volcano. The actual excursion to hike the volcano had beencanceled. But, not to be deterred, I looked up more information and it turnedout that you could just hike the trail yourself – you didn’t need a tour guide.
And so I hatched a plan to climb a volcano.
Now, I wasn’t alone in my desire. The boat docked and Ialong with two others – an older couple by the names of Kim and Garth – trekkedout to the volcano together. After about an hour long cab ride there, wearrived and began our ascent.
The trail was steep and full of dirt that had a bad habit of
mystically turning into mud when you least expected it – but fortunately there
were trail markers in the form of pieces of green tape wrapped around trees the
whole way up showing you where to go. And the hike was beautiful – gorgeous old
trees formed a thick canopy, creating an environment for monkeys to hop around
in and go about their daily lives.
It’s not every day you just get to
see monkeys in their natural habitat… doing whatever it is monkeys do.
The couple I was with were avid hikers – and while I hike a
fair amount, they were consistently ahead of me. They arrived to the top a few minutes before
I did, then I caught up with them.
The dense forest turned into a grassy knoll, and as the wind
blew tiny hints of sulfur wafted across from the volcano and into your
nostrils. Down below, there was a patch of hot springs. It seemed almost
prehistoric, like a scene straight out of a Jurassic Park flyer. If a
pterodactyl had flown overhead, I wouldn’t have been surprised in the
slightest.
It was stunning.
We ate lunch at the top and admired
the view. Then, Kim and Garth began to pack up.
“We’re going to go ahead,” Kim said. “Since you got here a
few minutes after us, feel free to take a few more minutes to enjoy the view if
you’d like – we have plenty of time.”
I both wanted to enjoy the view and figured that perhaps the
couple wanted some time to themselves. “Sure, I’ll leave in a few minutes and
meet you on the trail.”
What was the worst that could happen?
I finished my lunch, meditated a bit at the top of this
gorgeous peak, took a photo, and then began to follow them down. All in all,
about 7 or 8 minutes later.
Now, there’s something I hadn’t calculated in this. They
were faster hikers than I was, and I was leaving after them. And, though I
thought they were just slightly ahead of me the entire time – just around the
next bend – what was really happening
is that with every minute they were getting further and further ahead of
me.
To make matters trickier, going down had its difficulties.
Coming up the mountain, it was like playing a simple game of
follow the trail markers. Coming back down, it was more like playing through
the Lost Woods level in a Zelda game. The trail markers were less obvious from
the other direction. Where I had only noticed one path up before, they tended
to branch more often on the way back, splitting off into two or three different
routes every few minutes.
Eventually, I took a turn and hit a patch of spiderwebs – a
surefire sign I had gone the wrong way. It was time to call ahead and made sure
they knew to wait for me; I didn’t want to get lost from them.
“Kim! Garth! Wait up!”
Their named echoed through the gaps in the endless sprawl of
trees in front of me. I cocked my ear to the wind, waiting for a reply.
The grip of silence caressed my ear.
“KIM?! GARTH?! HELLO!?”
The branches rustled as I raised my voice to maximum.
Somewhere off in the distance – or perhaps nearby, it was hard to tell in this
forested labyrinth – a pair of monkeys screeched.
I waited for some kind of voice. Some sounds of humanity to
waft over the warm, tropical air.
Nothing came.
I mentally switched from “daintily hiking” mode, skittering
around mud puddles and lightly touching trees to avoid splinters, to “speed
hiking” mode, cutting back to the trail as quickly as possible. Time was of the
essence.
I walked for a little further, calling out for my hiking
partners every so often to no success, and that’s when I hit the fork in the
road.
To my left was where my memory said I should go. To my right
was where the trail said I should go.
Have you made your decision? Do you know what you would do?
I stopped for a moment and reasoned it out. My logic was
threefold:
Human memory is notoriously bad, even in people
who self-identify as having a “good memory.”
Things look different going down than going up.
The direction called “right” has got to be more likely to be right.
It made the most sense to go in the direction that has trail
markers. Besides, if it quickly proved to be the wrong way, I could just
backtrack.
I began on that part of the trail. I passed the junction. I
walked past the trail marker. I took ten… Fifteen… Twenty steps.
I looked around for an indication of where to go next. Ahead
of me just appeared to be a ravine, far below. Huh, that’s strange…
And that’s when I heard a gigantic, heavy crack underneath
my feet.
2.
Have you ever watched a disaster movie? There’s usually some
kind of scene where the earth starts wiggling underneath a character’s feet and
you scream at the television set, “step backwards!” but yet they don’t for some
reason and end up falling down. You know that one?
Well, let’s just say it’s a lot easier to scream at the television
than it is to actually step backward when it actually happens in real
life.
The ground underneath me split off and starting moving and I was, well, the word I’ll use here is
“surfing” – I was essentially doing an uncoordinated surf down the side of this
cliff, and these 15 seconds were some of the slowest and fastest of my entire
life: one big roaring blur in which I wobbled along, keeping my balance as best
I could until eventually I could balance no longer and did a combination of
accidental falling and purposeful jumping, sticking my arms out, backwards –
Right into a slick of mud, waiting to catch me.
Thank you, mud.
I stood up, my pants and bag caked with earthly droppings.
(But my trademark newsie hat, fortunately, entirely unscathed.)
My first reaction was – and I kid you not – “Wow, I should absolutely take pictures of
this to post what I look like online when I get back home!”
My second reaction quickly overtook all instincts of my
first: “I need to figure out a way to make sure that I actually survive that
long.”
A bit shaken, I trudged down the ravine slightly further to
peer around a corner and see if anything was up ahead.
It was just more ravine for as far as I could see.
I sat down on a nearby outcropping, thinking of what the
best course of action would be from here. I yelled out for my friends several
times. Once again, no response.
Here is what I knew:
At this point, I was basically guaranteed to
miss my boat.
All I had were muddy clothes, my wallet, my
phone (which had no service – I checked), and my bag containing an apple core,
a banana peel, an empty water bottle, and *drumroll please* a Royal Caribbean
napkin.
I definitely didn’t want to be stuck on the
mountain at nightfall, only a few hours away.
I needed to keep going while I had energy – with
no water source, I needed to get back to town and find water.
I could probably bring myself to drink my own
pee if I needed to maybe?
The only way I could be guaranteed to make it back would be to
climb back up onto the trail. If I was definitely going to miss the boat then
my goal should simply be make it out alive, or at least without needing a
Search and Rescue team.
And so, I began to Indiana Jones my way up the incline.
Some areas I could just walk over. Others had huge
inexplicable holes I had to carefully dance around, like someone on Tatooine
trying to edge around the Sarlacc Pit lest you fall into the black hole of its
maw. But the vast majority of what I did was rock climb upwards.
It was just like the movies. Sometimes I would reach for a
rock, and then it would come loose and fall down, and then I would look down
and SERIOUSLY, NEVER LOOK DOWN. They aren’t kidding.
But, of course, it wasn’t just that. It couldn’t just be rock climbing and Sarlacc Pits.
Oh no. The Indiana Jones reference is the one I like to use because it’s
actually quite apt. Indy had Snakes as his foil. And there was a specific
insect I had to keep dealing with everywhere during this sojourn upwards:
spiders.
Spiders – why’d it
have to be spiders?
Now look. I don’t know much about animals. I’m not a
biologist or a veterinarian. I know even less about spiders. But I do remember
learning this: if something is naturally red and black in nature, you want to stay away from it.
And there were red and black spiders everywhere. They were crawling around underneath me. They were
hanging from webs nearby. There were
some on the very rocks I was trying to use as handholds.
I felt very glad to be wearing long sleeves and pants and a
hat that day.
After about an hour and a half of climbing back up, I had
finally reached… Back where I was in the first place. I was exhausted. My
shoulders ached. My lips were chapped. My clothes were muddy.
I took the apple core out of my bag, sucking on it to get
out the last drops of juice and sustenance it had. But there was no time to
rest.
Like a combination of mud monster and zombie, I lurched down
the other path.
Despite how thirsty I was, I talked to myself to keep myself
thinking and engaged in my surroundings. I began to murmur the word water to myself every couple of minutes to help sate myself,
until eventually, even the word water sounded too precious to waste.
After what seemed like an eternity, I reached the beginning
of the trail. It was around 5:30 PM. My ship had departed an hour ago.
I staggered out of the mass of trees. And somewhere in my
stomach, now that the slim threat of death was gone, in a debatably twisted
part of me, I felt the urge not to frown, or to panic or to sigh, but to do something unexpected. I felt the urge to smile.
So much of life is calculated and laid out, a sequence of
known unknowns. Now, I had literally no idea what was about to happen to me. It
was truly an unknown unknown. It was exhilarating.
I was on an adventure.
3.
I estimated it would be about another 40 minute walk into
the local, tiny town. From there, I could at least get some water and figure
out how to get back to port.
Fortunately, I didn’t need to wait that long.
Not long after leaving, speeding up in the other direction and kicking up dirt was some kind of black
pickup truck with writing on the side. I couldn’t make it out. People were
standing in the back.
It grew closer and closer. And that’s when I saw the words
on the side. “Saint Kitts Search and Rescue.”
As they got closer, people in the search and rescue started
double taking and looking at a piece of paper in their hand.
They stopped us.
“Are you Gavin?”
“Yes.”
Cheering erupted from the back. They had been sent to look for me. They were shocked - but relieved - to see I was entirely fine.
After some confirmation they were official, they had be get into their car. Now, this is what I’ll call the carbulance. It was basically
a truck – five people sat inside, while four more stood in the pickup part on
the back. They ranged from a kid who couldn’t have been more than twelve to
someone who was probably in his sixties. But the part that made it more than
just a truck is that they had buttons to make all the ambulance noises – and
that made everyone get out of our way.
We drove back to the dock in less than half the time the
taxi took. Thanks carbulance!
I was immediately greeted by people from Royal Caribbean who
questioned me on what happened.
The questions started simple and understandable. “Who were
you with?” “What happened?” Even “Do you suspect any foul play was involved?”
seemed reasonable.
But they quickly graduated into the more absurd.
“Why did you choose to fall off a cliff?” “Is there a reason
you decided to not get back on the boat tonight?”
“Oh yes, you know I
was just up there and thought, ‘You know, I’m kind of tired of this cruise and
this cliff looks nice, so how about I just skid down here and then trek back
into town in a few hours?” I thought to myself. “It was all an accident,” I actually said, my mouth translating my internal sarcasm to actual words.
Eventually, someone else from the dock came out. To my
surprise, he handed me my passport. “Staff went into your room when we heard
you weren’t coming back, and fortunately this was sitting out in plain sight.
They left it here for you.”
“So, what are my options?”
“Well, we can put you in a hotel for the night. And then, we
can fly you to Puerto Rico tomorrow to recatch your cruise.”
“Oh, so you guys pay for that? How ni-“
“No no, sorry, what I meant is you can pay for yourself to
stay in a hotel, and then you can pay to fly to Puerto Rico tomorrow.”
Oh well – my own
fault, I’m fine paying for my own mistakes.
“Okay, that all sounds good. Oh, also one more thing – does
anybody else know about this? There are some people on the boat who know me,
and I wouldn’t want them to be concerned or start alerting people back home.”
My mind drifted immediately to my mom, who if she knew about this would likely
be twitching in horror at home.
“Oh, don’t worry.” He replied. “The only people that know
are the couple that reported you, us, and the people at the front desk on the
ship.”
“Okay, phew.” On a boat of a thousand people, not seeing someone
for one night was something that wouldn’t raise any red flags.
“Oh, and there’s one more person that wants to see you – the
cab driver is coming to collect his fare from you since you didn’t pay him for
the drive back like you promised.”
Internally, I laughed at the absurdity of the situation. But
I wasn’t about to argue whether or not I should still pay my fare back for a
ride I didn’t take at this point.
After paying the cabbie and a few more questions from them –
of both the normal and absurdist variety – they drove me over to a local hotel
and dropped me off so I could rest up for the night.
4.
“Did I hear that right? You missed your boat too?”
My neck snapped from the hotel’s check-in desk to the
British voice to my left. Standing there was a woman in her early 30s.
“I overheard while you were checking in just now.”
A much quieter voice chimed in from behind me. “Ah. Me as
well.” It was an Indian man, also in his mid-30s.
We began to chat. They both worked on a different cruise
line – they weren’t passengers like me – but due to flight issues they had both
also been in travel trouble and missed their boats. So, we did the only thing
that seemed natural: go out to dinner and talk together.
And there we were: someone from America, someone from
London, and someone from India, somehow convened together on the tiny island of
Saint Kitts to eat at an Indian restaurant. We relayed stories back and forth.
I drank three pitchers of water – my first swig of liquid in nearly seven
hours. The food was – to my surprise – some of the best Indian I’ve ever had.
(Even the gentleman from Mumbai remarked to the quality!)
“So – Gavin was it? – Gavin: what’s your plan for tomorrow?
Fly to San Juan?” asked Amy, the lady from London..
I nodded.
“Do you know which airline?” she asked
“It sounded like I was going to be on… Liat Air? I’ve never
heard of them.”
She laughed. “Ah, you’re in for a real treat then – I’d
fancy getting there early if I were you. Liat is the local Caribbean airline,
and it’s oft joked about that their name stands for “Leaves Island Any Time.”
She paused to take a sip from her drink. “You can expect a Liat flight to leave
an hour late… Or an hour early. Once I got there at 8am for a 9am flight and
the fight had already left.”
I drew a breath of the warm air. That was good to know, but
not what I wanted to hear.
We finished our meals, and parted for the night – three estranged
travelers who would never see each other again.
I retired to my room, which had wifi. I turned it on…
And my phone immediately blew up with social media
notifications.
Everybody knew.
People back home were worried I was dead or seriously
injured. Magic senior designer Mark Rosewater - a man with 40,000 Twitter followers - and my mom were talking. There
was a whole hunt for me that had been going on. (Which I was appreciative for - it’s nice to know the entire Magic community has your back in case anything ever happens to you!)
Wait – my mom!
I immediately made a tweet about being okay, then got on
Skype and called my mom.
The connection was bad. But I have never heard her so
relieved that I was entirely okay.
I spent about an hour doing a combination of following
social media (while simultaneously washing my clothes with a washcloth and water)
trying to figure out what happened.
You see, what Royal Caribbean told me was right. Most people
wouldn’t have known. Except that the couple reported me to the front desk of
the cruise ship.
And, as they were reporting, someone from the JoCo cruise just
happened to be standing there.
And, of all the thousand people on the JoCo cruise, he just
so happened to be one of the ones who played Magic and knew who I was and was
active on Twitter and knew which
Magic personalities to tweet at. He might have been literally the only person on the boat who fit all of those buckets.
But yet, there he was. And I’m certainly grateful for it –
if it had been something incredibly dire, I’m glad he got the chains moving on
it. In this situation though, it had certainly caused quite a stir.
I needed a breather.
Despite being late, I walked outside. The hotel was right on
the beach. It was a full moon and absolutely gorgeous – the light cloaked the
beach in a pale haze, the water reflecting a moonbeam streak.
Crouched down on the steps to the beach was a girl, hunched
over. Being in the middle of nowhere with nobody else to really talk to, I
decided to take a seat a few steps away from her.
“Beautiful night, isn’t it?”
And that opened a long conversation.
She had… Not been having the best of nights. A medical
student studying on Saint Kitts in an incredibly intensive program, she was
away from everything she held dear back home in North America and while I don’t
want to get into her personal story too much because it’s not my place, it was
one of those nights where she just needed to come out by the beach and look at
the moon.
She was from Vancouver, Canada. Of all places, she was from
somewhere that was three hours away from where I lived out my life. I was a
little reminder of something close to home, of a life that was hard to find on
a tiny island thousands of miles away from your home. I came at exactly the
right time.
“So, why are you here?” She asked
“So I was hiking this volcano today and – “
“Wait, Mount Liamuiga?” I nodded. “No, don’t tell me – you
got lost up there? Don’t feel bad about that – the locals get lost up there. Two of the leaders from my class went up
there recently after telling the entire class they were going to prove how it
wasn’t that bad… and ended up getting lost and being forced to stay the night
in the forest.”
Suddenly, I felt a lot
less silly for getting stuck up there for a couple hours. At least I didn’t
spend the night there!
Over the next several hours, we told stories and brightened
each other’s days all in the glow of the moonlight. It was a moment of two strangers meeting for
one time in their lives in an odd situation, exactly when they needed it.
Eventually, we parted from the beach, both much better for
having met the other. She had class in the morning… and I had a flight to
catch!
5.
“What exactly do you mean there’s no more room on the flight?”
I was standing at the ticket window along with somebody from
Royal Caribbean. He was doing the talking with the person working for Liat Airlines. We had been
assured the previous day there would be an early flight I could catch – and now
it had filled up in the past twelve hours.
“I’m sorry sirs, but the flight in an hour is completely
full.”
My Royal Caribbean buddy pointed his head away from the
table and toward the back of the airport. We walked away from the table and
close to where some of the private offices were.
“Wait here,” he told me, going inside.
The language they speak on Saint Kitts is English, but it’s
spoken in a very different dialect than what I was used to. Imagine Irish
smooshed together with fast French and you have Saint Kitts Creole. I couldn’t
make out much of what was being said inside, but it sounded like my man was
trying to convince the travel agent back there of something. His butt was on the line to take care of me –
I may have had to buy my own ticket, but they had to see to it that the plan
they had promised me would actually work.
He had been very helpful so far, and courteous towards me at
every turn. I waited, believing in him. Several minutes later, he emerged. “I
did it! Give me your credit card. You have a seat.”
Phew. Crisis averted.
They ran my card and I got my ticket.
I went through
security just fine.
I waited at the boarding gate for my airplane. I had to
take two flights, the first was a short 20 minute flight and then from there I
would hop to Puerto Rico.
I went up to board. I handed them my ticket. They scanned
it, and then looked at me, and looked back at the ticket, and looked at me
again.
“Err… I’m sorry sir, but this ticket isn’t valid.”
“…What?”
“Somebody with this same seat is already on the airplane. I
don’t know how you got this, but it isn’t valid and you can’t board.”
“I literally just bought this.”
“Please, wait here.”
I waited and listened to them talk, calling back and forth
between desks to see what had happened.
And that’s when I pieced together what had happened and
figured it out from what they were saying. Them coming back over to me
confirmed it.
The Royal Caribbean guy had convinced the travel agent to
kick someone else off the flight and put me on it instead. After all, he was accountable for me. He had to make sure
I was on the flight. But the person they kicked off had already printed their
ticket and gone through security – so they were able to board no problem.
“You’re just going to have to stay here and buy a new
ticket. Let me just go check a few things real quick.”
I sat down, a bit in disbelief, watching the plane. What was
I going to do? The ticket agent walked
outside and went into the plane – remember, this is a tiny airport – for
reasons I wasn’t quite sure of. I
watched the fuel tube get pulled back and everyone start to clear the jetway
for take off.
And that’s when I saw it. The ticket agent walking off the
plane – with one of the passengers!
“She agreed to give up her seat for you. Go quickly!”
I sprinted outside, the passenger who was walking away from
the plane beaming at me with a big smile. I’ll never forget her look from that
single glance: an older woman, dark-skinned, wearing a bonnet and carrying a
small suitcase.
I boarded the plane and taking my seat. It was a miracle! I
had somehow made the flight.
The flight pulled out, starting to take off. I turned to the
person next to me, an older lady with gorgeously kept dark skin in her fifties
or sixties. “What happened? Did you know her?”
“Oh, yes. We are siblings.” That made sense.
“Ah! Well, I’m sorry about all the trouble there. I didn’t
mean for her to lose her seat” The plane began going down the jetway to take
off.
And that’s when my whole view on the situation changed.
“Oh, actually, she volunteered. You see, we were both flying
to our mother’s funeral this afternoon, but after talking about it, she decided
this was the right thing to do.”
Every piece of my body froze up. I briefly wondered if I could
get the plane to land again and switch places with her yet again. I tried to
move my tongue, but it was stuck to the bottom of my mouth, lifeless.
Seeing the concern on her face, she continued. “It’s okay.
What we were flying to is about death. Though I don’t know what you are doing,
it must surely involve life. That’s more important.”
6.
My connecting flight to Puerto Rico was delayed by an hour. I was hoping we were going
to make up some time in flight.
We didn’t.
The flight landed. I turned on my phone and checked the
time, taking a sharp breath filled with hope.
1:40PM.
The cruise was going to leave at 2:00PM.
Now, often cruises leave a little late – they give you a few
extra minutes. But I was going to have to move through the airport quicker than
I had ever moved through an airport before.
San Juan had cell phone service, and I had a text from
masterful JoCo Cruise assistant and all around superhelper Drew asking for me
to update him on my status. I told him I had just landed and was going to try
and make it.
The plane stopped. The doors opened. I ran off the plane in
what probably was a hazardous manner. People stared, noticing my clothes (which
were still fairly dirty) and my mud-caked bag. I didn’t remotely have time to
care.
1:50PM.
I ran to customs. I was first in line. I practically threw
my passport at them. After two quick questions, I was through.
1:55PM.
I ran again to the taxi desk. I hopped in the first Taxi.
“Cruise ships, dock 3. I’ll pay you double if you get there in time for me to
make my cruise!”
He stepped on the gas and we were zooming out of the
airport.
2:00PM
I picked up my phone and texted Drew. “In a Cab. I’ll be
there in around ten minutes.”
2:05PM
I took out my phone and messaged one of the many people on
the ship who had been wondering what my status was, “If you have ever wanted to
tackle the captain of the cruise ship, now would be a great time.”
I looked at
the text, and then added a smiley face emotion to help remove any culpability
in case they took me seriously.
2:07PM
I know it isn’t right
for them to delay an entire cruise of people for one person, I thought,
rationalizing the situation. But if they,
you know, happen to just this once… I certainly wouldn’t mind.
2:12pm
We were just about to turn the corner to get to the dock so
I could see my fate. My phone began to ring. It’s Drew.
“Are you on the boat yet?”
I knew there’s only one reason why he would open the phone
call with that. Don’t say what you’re
going to say, please don’t say what I think you’re going to say.
At this exact moment, we turned the corner to the dock and I
saw what was ahead of me.
“I’m sorry. We did everything we could.”
A man of my word, I did not pay my cab driver double.
7.
Do you know the feeling when your bus or train home pulls
out of the station just a moment before you get there? Well, take that feeling
but amplify it by a hundred and toss in the sense of wearing the same clothes
you fell down a cliff in yesterday. That’s about where I was.
It’s okay. Maybe I
would just be able to catch the boat tomorrow. After all, being stuck in San
Juan wasn’t the worst…
I went up to talk to one of the cruise officials at the
dock.
“So, I missed my boat. Who can I talk to?”
“Wait. Can you explain what happened?”
“Well, I actually missed it yesterday in Saint Kitts and
then again just now here.”
“Seriously? You
missed your boat twice? Seriously?”
I nodded.
“Fine, wait here. I’ll get someone for you to talk to.”
After waiting around, eventually a man in his mid-20s from
Royal Caribbean came to talk to me. He walked me back to their back office.
“So, what are my options?”
“Well, you can either fly back to Fort Lauderdale and wait
for your cruise to finish and catch up with it there to get your things, or
spend a few nights here and then fly out to meet the cruise in Fort Lauderdale
and collect your things.”
“Wait, wait. Can I just fly into the port and get on the
ship tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow’s
destination is Labadee, Haiti – a private resort. There isn’t an airport
there.”
I tried to desperately think of a workaround. “Okay, well, could I hitch a ride on another cruise ship
there and then reboard tomorrow?”
He looked at me exasperatedly. “No. The area is owned by
Royal Caribbean and the next Royal Caribbean ship doesn’t go there.”
“Is there any way for me to get there then?”
“No. It is absolutely
impossible to catch up with the boat again. It can’t be done. You’re either
staying here or flying to Fort Lauderdale. Do you want American Airlines’s phone
number or something?”
I declined, and walked away. I needed time to think and figure
out what my plan was. I went to a local restaurant, checking in on wifi,
figuring out my plan.
I let my friends on the ship know I wouldn’t be rejoining
them.
I posted in the Facebook group saying I was going to try and have a good
time in San Juan.
I made a tweet about looking for a place to stay in San Juan.
If I was going to be here it, I was going to make the most of it. An island paradise isn’t the worst place to
be stuck, I told myself with a smile cheering myself up.
And that was that. I was staying in San Juan.
This will be fun, I’m sure. I just really wish I could get
to Labadee, Haiti to catch up with my boat. Alas…
Labadee, Haiti…
Labadee, Haiti…
Labadee comma Haiti…
Labadee… Haiti…
Haiti…
Haiti…?
Haiti?!?
HAITI?!?
8.
I bolted back down to the cruise dock. I needed to talk to
someone at Royal Caribbean again.
“Hey, do you work in
customer relations and information here?”
“Yes, I do. How can I help?” She looked excited to help and
positive, though potentially newer.
“Okay, so I missed my boat in Saint Kitts and again here and
–“
“Seriously? You missed your boat twice? Seriously?”
I waved my hands in the air. “Yes, yes, I missed it twice.
Never mind that. Look, if I was able to get to Labadee, could I reboard my
ship there?”
She took a moment to reply, twisting her neck and rubbing
her temple. “Um… Maybe? Like, I don’t think that’s a thing people do. But, yeah, I guess I don’t see any reason why
not.”
“Okay! What kind of problems would I face getting there?”
“Uh… Well, you’ll have to go through Haiti to get there,
which has its own state of affairs… And at the gates of Labadee, they have
like, I think, armed guards and they,
uhh, don’t like people very much? But I don’t think they’d just shoot you or
anything.”
“Yeah, and you guys would make sure I was safe if I went
there, right?”
“Well, actually, Royal Caribbean is not liable for any
injuries or otherwise you were to sustain on your trip there. So you’re kind of
on your own.” She creepily beamed as she said that, in a tone that was a combination
of ‘Here’s straight legal text from a manual’ and ‘no, you definitely can’t sue
us.’
It looks like I had something to think about.
I left and headed to the hotel I had just booked. It was
this tiny place in a residential neighborhood you walked through a garden to
get to. I checked in, walked through the entrance and heard wind chimes,
trickling water, and birds chirping.
Called Dreamcatcher, it was (unbeknownst to me) a relaxing retreat that was incredibly zen. It was billed as a vegetarian hotel and had quiet hours with Yoga
class under the stars in the evenings.
It is one of the most relaxing hotels I have ever stayed at. There was a literal
hammock in my room with a view out the window. This was exactly what I needed.
I sat on my phone in the hammock, listening to the shrill ring of windchimes, running through my options.
If I wanted to fly
to Haiti, there was a tiny airport in a town called Cap Haitian that was about
a 45 minute drive from Labadee, where the cruise was. I could – theoretically –
fly in there, take a cab, and, provided I could get past the armed guards, get
back onto the boat.
There was exactly one seat left on a flight that left at
6am the next morning I could take to get there.
Alternatively, staying in San Juan for a few nights sounded
pretty good too. It was gorgeous and relaxing, the food was delicious, and it
didn’t involve going to Haiti. I ran the math and – assuming I could get on my
boat in Haiti – it was going to cost me roughly the same either way.
So, I started Googling around. Every webpage I viewed had me
oscillating back and forth.
Read one webpage. It’s about how Haiti is a pretty
reasonable place to visit…
…The next webpage.
Ohhhhh, right, Haiti has mosquitos with malaria. I really don’t feel
like getting malaria…
…Run Googlemaps again. It’s definitely in driving range. I
could pull this off…
…Read another webpage. Ohhhhh, right, the political situation
in Haiti is really bad right now.
If there was ever a night for yoga, it was this one. I hadn’t done yoga consistently
in over a year, and all I had were the same jeans I had been wearing, but I
didn’t care. Yoga under the stars sounded like a perfect way to focus and think.
And so I did. I let the options float
around in my mind for the entire two hour class. And at the end, I had a decision.
It was clear: I should just stay in San Juan. There was no
reason to risk my life for a cruise. Though yes, the risk wasn’t super high,
any number of things could go wrong and, at the end of the day, I generally like to
keep the things that could potentially kill me as low as possible. (Especially considering the past 24 hours.)
So I went for a walk on the beach. Ate some delicious local
food. Then, just to keep her in the loop with what I had been doing, I called
my mom because I’m sure she was concerned about me.
I laid out my options and what I had thought about and
worked through. I wanted to make sure she had seen that I had made the smart
and logical choice here. I explained my various options to her.
Her reply: “So, you’re going to Haiti, right?”
I am generally a tough guy to leave speechless. And yet, another time in this story, something
happened that I couldn’t quite believe or properly respond to. My mom, who has
actually never told me to do a dangerous thing in my entire life and who was
frantically concerned about me just 24 hours before, is now telling me to go to
Haiti?
“Look,” She began, “There’s a bunch of people on that cruise
ship who really care about you and are rooting for you to get back on it.
They’re people you don’t get to see very often. And yes, there are some
dangers, but they’re small and I know you’re a smart kid. If you don’t get on
the ship, you can just come back to the airport, get on a flight, and go home.
You should absolutely go.”
I got off the phone. I retired to my hammock under the
stars.
I pulled up the flight on my phone. There was still exactly
one seat available.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this.”
Purchase.
9.
Dawn of the third day.
At this point, it might be worth bringing up that I have a few major character flaws.
First and foremost is that I am a writer, and as a writer I
always want to have a compelling narrative with a good ending. I also like
writing about my experiences.
Conversely, as a writer, I hate most bad beat stories. They’re all just complaining put into story form – and up until this point I had
basically experienced one gigantic bad beat story. I knew I would write about this
experience in some fashion, and I certainly did not want to write about something that was, basically, just a bad
beat story unless it was a really
gigantic bad beat story. Perhaps “I missed my boat twice and then got Malaria”
would do.
Another trait of mine is that I am incredibly persistent and
optimistic – which is a gigantic double edged sword. This can be great when trying
to find solutions and workarounds to problems. I can often see the way out of a
situation where others can’t. The downside to this is that often I have to be sure
that something absolutely isn’t possible before I’m willing to admit it’s not possible, which
sometimes gets me going down optimistic paths that blind me to the best
realistic decisions.
Finally, I love adventure. There is a huge part of my
subconscious that I am starting to believe tries to constantly sabotage me on
purpose for the sake of having adventures.
This is the part of me that makes me smile after I’ve fallen down a
cliff and missed my boat. You could claim that this causes me to
make sequences of bad decisions, but I don’t know if that’s fair to say they
are “bad decisions” because they has certainly made my life a lot more
interesting and exciting.
It was mostly a combination of these three things that put
me in Miami airport in the early morning on Friday, waiting for my connection
to Haiti.
I’ll let that sink in for a moment. I was flying to Haiti
via Miami, a quick jaunt from where the cruise would dock two days later.
I might have been being a little stubborn here.
In the airport, I armed myself just in case things went awry
in Haiti. Drinking the water there is a bad idea because of Cholera, so I
filled up two water bottles. I picked up food. I bought a scarf to cover my
face and neck as much as possible to protect against mosquitos.
And – for the finishing touch – I used my Royal Caribbean cloth napkin I had been carrying around this entire time to wrap around some open
parts on my neck for an extra layer of protection. I’m sure I looked
ridiculous, but I didn’t really care.
I was ready. Or at least, I hoped.
My flight took off.
I thought for a long time on the flight. I still couldn’t believe I was on my way to Haiti like this. But, there I was. I formulated a plan in my head, going over the maps I had saved on my phone the night prior.
The flight landed.
I looked out the window, and this is the
first thing I saw. This is what Cap Haitian airport looked like.
And suddenly I realized where I was. I had just flown into a
third world country where literally all I knew was:
Everything I Googled the previous
night
That “The Haitian” from Heroes was from here
That’s it. If I wanted adventure, I was sure getting one this time.
I got out in the
airport and looked for a taxi driver. The more common mode of transport, in
Haiti are taptaps – slang for riding on the back of a truck with tons of other
people – but that wouldn’t work for where I needed to go.
There was just one taxi driver around. Wearing a bright
yellow shirt with a mess of hair and a very well kept mustache, I approached
him “Can you take me to Labadee?”
He leaned in and indicated he didn’t really speak English.
“Labadee?”
He nodded. “One hundred.”
I shook my head. “Forty.”
“One hundred.”
“Forty.”
“Ninty.”
“Forty.”
“Eighty.”
“Forty.”
About five minutes later, I had him down to 40.
We went outside. It was a scrum of people, all packed as
tightly as possible. We got into a car – I wouldn’t call it his car because he
didn’t seem to know how to operate it and he had to get someone to explain it
to him – and we were off.
Right into the city of Cap Haitian.
There are a lot of things I could describe about the poverty
level of the city. I could tell you about some of the scenes there. About how
the thing that so vividly sticks out in my head is this overturned cart of
fruit on the side of the street, that had multiple goats eating out of it.
About how everywhere you see people wearing T-shirts that have the designs which, presumably, didn’t sell
well in the US.
But I don’t need to. You can look at any picture on a quick
Google image search and see what poverty in Haiti looks like.
What Google can’t show you is the smell. It was not that I
hadn’t ever smelled this before – it was that I hadn’t smelled so much of it so
strongly. Imagine in your nose the smell of garbage, smog, and a new York
subway all rolled into one. Then amplify it to three times its normal strength.
That was the persistent smell in the city. That is the part that surprised me
the most.
I’ll admit, I didn’t take many pictures of the city. It felt oddly
exploitative. I didn’t really feel a need to show them, “See! Look
how poor all these people are. Gosh, being an American sure is awesome.” But I
will say that after being there and seeing it with my own eyes, I’m donating money to help people in Haiti. There’s something about physically being
in a place that makes you feel things pictures of it just can’t.
But here is what I want to stress. Yes, the city may be below what we in the US consider our standard of living. But it is still
beautiful in its own way. And, moreover,
the country is still beautiful. It’s not the cleanliness of the city that
defines the country. To thousands upon thousands of people, this is the world they call home.
It was at about this point that my cab driver reaches over
to put on his seat belt. That’s when I knew things were going to get bumpy.
It was like the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland in real
life.
We drove past ramshackle houses and beggars on the street.
And as we were getting closer and closer, I realized I needed to tell my cab driver
something very important.
You see, there are two Labadees. There is where the cruise
ships dock – a gorgeous, Disneyland version of Haiti I had been to before where
everything is perfect and food abounds –and the actual Haitian city of Labadee
which is more of a fishing village. I wanted to go to the first one and
definitely did not want the second
But he didn’t speak any English other than numbers.
“Parlez vous Francais?”
He looked over at me shaking his head. Of course, of all the
cab drivers in Haiti where one of the the
national language is French, he doesn’t speak French. I started trying to
think of other ways to communicate.
“Sprechen sie Deutsch?”
Nothing.
“Espanol?”
He nods slightly.
“Los barcos gigantes!” (The
giant boats)
He nodded enthuastically. Who knew this is where my Spanish
would come in most handy of all the places
I visited this adventure?
We drove for a little while longer, and eventually we passed a
clearing and I sawthe cruise ship off in the distance. I was so close to getting
back on the boat that I could practically taste that mediocre Caesar salad the boat could
serve me for dinner.
We got close to what looked like an establishment of some
kind about a minute or two walk away. The cab driver stopped the car, looked over at me and popped open my door, rubbing his hands as the universal sign for “pay me.”
I pulled out my money and look at him quizzically.
He opened his mouth, moving his tongue around to the corners to take his time to come up with the right English words. Eventually, he says: “They no
like us here.”
I get out, and the cab driver drives away.
I begin to move forward toward where the fence and armed
guards are.
This is it.
Everyone looks at me funny. What is this white guy with two
day stubble and muddy jeans and a bag doing here?
Someone wearing a bright blue shirt comes out to speak with me.
“Can I help you?” he barks
“Hi! I’m looking to get onto Labadee.”
“Sorry, you can’t get there today. There’s a ship in port.”
“I know – it’s kind of an odd situation, you see I’m
actually supposed to be on that boat and –“
“It doesn’t matter. You can’t get through here. Unless you
work there, nobody gets through here. I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to go
back.”
10.
It is at this point that terror began to creep in a little
bit. What was I doing?
I was just dropped off in the middle of Haiti, past all
kinds of areas I really don’t want to walk through. I came all this way here,
and I have no transport back.
The environment wasn’t helping. There’s something you’ve
probably never noticed if you’ve been to Labadee. From the port side it is gorgeous and cheery, with cute bamboo huts and beach chairs. But from the other side, they really want to keep any
unwanted locals out. Not only do they
have armed guards, but the Disneyland-esque paradise of Labadee is separated
from the rest of Haiti by a barbed wire fence and a tall, ~15
foot white wall. It felt like being at The Wall in Game of Thrones.
And I needed to somehow get through that wall.
I slowly pulled my passport and seapass card – my ticket to
get back on the boat – out of my pocket. “No, see, really – I am supposed to be
on this boat.” I handed them over and he looked them over. He examined my plastic
seapass card very closely, both front and back. He bend tests it. He thinks it’s
a fake.
“Sorry, you can’t get through here.”
“Look. I am supposed to be on that boat and I have no way
back. People on the boat can vouch for me. If you call someone who works on the ship, they will
understand.”
He whispered into his radio and I waited for a while. Eventually,
someone came out on a golf cart.
“Is there a problem here? Can I help you?”
“Hi! I’m supposed to be on that boat, see – here are my
documents.”
Similarly, he was incredulous. “You really can’t board here… but I’ll call Global and see what I can do.”
He took my documents, drove back on his golf cart, and
goes to presumably call someone.
I take a seat on a bench. I’m sitting next to some local Haitians,
presumably those who work on this resort. The one next to me couldn’t be older
than 16.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Gavin. And yours?”
“Anthony. “
“What is it you do out here Anthony?”
“I craft things for the store. And you?”
And it’s at that moment I realize I don’t even know how to
describe the details of what I do to him. I mean, I make a recreational card game
a half a world away. I’m so far away from home - what does that kind of job even mean? “I make games.”
He put on a smile. “I like games.”
At that moment, the man in the golf cart comes pulling back
through. He taps the empty seat next to him. “Get on. You’re coming through.”
I hope on the cart. We drive past the barbed wire fence.
Past the tall white fence. Past all signs of an outside world. And suddenly, we
are into mojito-and-zipline land, a tropical paradise.
“Haiti is dangerous. Global couldn’t believe someone was
here. But since you made it here, we can let you on. Just don’t encourage
anybody else to do it.”
Hear that? If you’re ever on a cruise, whatever you do,
absolutely DON’T miss your ship and then fly to Haiti to try and catch up with
it. I know you were planning on this for your next trip, but I’ve been told to
tell you not to. Sorry about squashing your plans, reader.
He dropped me off at an office in Labadee and directed me to
the people in charge there. I told them my story and they were in shock.
“I’ve been working as a manager for 20 years in places like
this. I hear everything,” said one of the women. “You are the only passenger in
the entire history of this port to ever board the ship here. The. Only. One.
She laughed. “You’re either really crazy or really special.”
I smiled. “Why not both?”
I filled out a bunch of paperwork, then they let me back on
the boat. I entered my room.
All of my suitcases were packed. Everything was put away.
They had presumed there was absolutely no way I would be back on the boat
again. All that was left out was a towel monkey hanging from the ceiling one of the staff had made and not
cleaned away.
That was all the celebratory greeting I needed.
Aftermath
Before taking a nap, I did one thing. I logged onto the JoCo
Cruise’s social media system – cleverly named Twit-arr – and made a post that
said exactly this:
“Boy, will I have a story to tell my grandkids some day.”
Rumors spread like wildfire. To quote bestselling author and
internet persona John Scalzi in his post about the cruise (which is a great
summation that you should read here),
“Gavin Verhey became as unto a god by being left behind on St. Kitts and
somehow managing to get back on the ship in Haiti.”
So this is the part where it begins to get a bit surreal.
That night for dinner, I dressed up in a suit. For one,
because I missed formal night the day before. Also, I had been wearing the same
clothes ever since the hike in Saint Kitts and I wanted to wear something nice.
The side effect was that nobody immediately recognized me
that night as I walked into the hall. And as I waded through our gigantic
dining area to find a seat, I heard whispers around me.
“Did you hear he’s back?”
“Does anybody have an idea what the story is?”
“How did he do it?!?”
This is not hyperbole. This was actually the topic of conversation at several tables I just walked
past in passing. I felt like Harry Potter or Gandalf or… something. I had
returned from sure “death” despite all odds!
During the major musical event in the theater the next day,
Paul and Storm – the famous and dynamic musical comedy duo who help run the
cruise – announced that I was back on the boat… which was met by deafening
claps from the thousand people in the room.
The strangest part is that even the staff of Royal Caribbean knew who I was. I had to go to
one of the help desks at one point and when I gave my name was asked, “Wait –
are you the volcano guy who got back on in Labadee? You’re famous now!”
And, in this strange universe, that’s not too far off. Many people told me I had become the most famous person on the cruise. And while I don’t know if I’d go quite that far on a boat with Wil Wheaton and Patrick Rothfuss, I was certainly constantly surrounded by people who wanted to know what happened. I told the short version of what happened at least twice per hour I was outside of my room for the rest of the cruise.
Here are just some of the things that happened afterward:
Everybody wanted to know the story. So much so
that there was an entire event set up for me to just tell the story of what
happened to people – which then had an encore presentation for the people that
missed it.
I was knighted by the Monarch of the Seas at dinner and
given a coveted royal position (It’s a JoCo Cruise thing - just roll with it)
Matthew Inman (the writer of The Oatmeal) drew
this (Stunningly accurate) rendition of my adventures for me:
I was asked by multiple people if they could
tell my story again next year so that the legend would live on
After the cruise, it still hasn’t stopped. I was sent this
picture a few days ago that my friend Katie doodled.
Or, in what is perhaps my favorite piece of all this, this
Facebook message:
And that’s just some of what happened.
It was like nothing else I’ve ever experienced or probably will experience again.
You know, there’s this well known psychologist I followed named Richard Wiseman. He’s done a lot of research on luck and what makes a person feel lucky or unlucky, culminating in a report called “The Luck Factor.” (Which is well worth a read.)
My favorite test he ran was this. He tool a huge group of people who either considered themselves very lucky or very unlucky. He posed them the following question:
"Imagine you’re waiting
to be served in a bank. Suddenly, an armed robber enters, fires a shot, and the
bullet hits you in the arm. Are you lucky or unlucky?"
Those who identified as
the former tended to say that they were lucky: they were only shot in the arm. In contrast, unlucky people
viewed the situation as a disaster: they were unlucky to be shot at all.
So, was I lucky or unlucky?
Objectively, this looks pretty unlucky. But in individual circumstances, I feel pretty lucky that nothing bad happened: I wasn’t injured, I eventually made my boat, and (to my knowledge) I don’t have Malaria.
Maybe I’m crazy for saying I feel lucky. That’s probably just my character flaws talking. But it’s not every day you get to go on a journey like this, one I’ll remember for the rest of my life.
TL;DR version
I fell off a cliff in the Caribbean and missed my cruise. The next day, I flew to San Juan to catch my ship but my flight was delayed and I missed my boat again. After initially being told it would be impossible to get back on, I came up with the idea of flying to Haiti, was told it could work, and flew through Haiti, took a cab to the port, and became the first person ever to board at that stop.