Day 6, Friday April 28, Cartagena Day, Part II
Music Recommendation: “Wipeout” The Surfaris
Feeling like we had truly experienced as much as one could process in a single day of exploring a new city, we met our group in the Plaza de San Pedro Claver and returned to the ship. We liked Cartagena a lot, and we may return here someday and stay for a few days. Another thing I liked about our excursion: at 5 hours long, we were left with some extra time to enjoy the ship’s amenities while in port. In fact, when we returned to the ship, we managed to check another must-do item off our list - The water slide!
The air conditioning on the bus back to the ship was struggling to keep up. With the heat and humidity of Cartagena bearing down on us, we hurried back on board and quickly changed into our swimsuits. it seemed a perfect time to take advantage of this refreshing activity. As hot as it was, there was no line for the Twist & Spout water slide. You gotta love port days. We walked uninterrupted up the stairs, all the way to the top. When we reached the summit, we saw that there were 2 children, a girl and a boy, waiting for their turn near the entrance of the slide. There's no lifeguard attendant at the top. Instead, there is a red light / green light system indicating when it is ok for the next person to proceed down the slide. The light turned green and the little boy, probably about 8, climbed in the mouth of the yellow chute and sped down slide. The little girl, probably about 7, looked up at DW and me and asked us if this was our first time. DW told her, "Yes, and I'm a little scared!" The little girl sweetly responded, "Don't be scared. It'll be alright. It's fun! Just don't step over that yellow line until the light turns green." As the little girl had indicated, about 3 feet back from the mouth of slide there was a bright yellow line on the non-slip surface leading up to the chute entrance. This sweet little girl had given us this caution with such sincerity and conviction, I had to ask, "Why should we not step over that line until the light turns green?" And with a very serious but quiet whisper she told us, "Because if you do, that man will yell at you," and she pointed to a speaker above the red light / green light assembly. That's awesome! This sweet little girl was telling us the rules, and trying to save us from a humiliation that she had evidently already suffered. There was obviously a closed circuit video monitoring system so that the lifeguard at the end of the slide could keep tabs on what is going on at the top, and he would give the green light when he was ready for the next person to proceed down the slide. We thanked the girl for her help, the light turned green, and off she went into gravity powered liquid enhanced plastic fabricated fun.
DW was on deck now. "Don't step over the yellow line," I chided her. We looked at each other and laughed. But you know what? The temptation to put a few toes over the line was palpable. How far could one push the yellow line limits, before an electronically amplified, disembodied voice would scold you? The temptation was so great that even DW pretended that she was going to put a toe over, but at the last second, she diverted her toe a different direction. DW was just about to stray down the wayward path of a hardened water slide criminal, when the light turned green and saved her from her reckless self. She disappeared into the maw.
Of course, that left me up there alone. All alone. Nobody but me, the closed circuit video camera, and that bright beautiful yellow line that I was feverishly trying to ignore. Oh, the temptation was excruciating! I like to think I'm the kind of guy who pushes the boundaries, rebels against the bureaucracy, sticks my thumb in the eye of "the man." But on this day, on this insignificant water slide, I gave myself over to the apathetic embrace of discretion, and I shrunk back from the yellow line; my life story in one sentence. Maybe I was still smarting from the verbal lashing the nun had given me. Or, maybe I'm not the rebel I like to think I am; I dunno, I can't quite work it out. My silent introspection was jarringly interrupted by the red light switching to green. I assumed the corpse pose and took off.
Wow, I wasn’t expecting it to be so fast! It was terrific! They key to water slide speed is distributing your weight with more skin, less fabric touching the slide. Fabric surfaces such as my swim trunks, only add friction and slow you down. Knowing this, I had taken my shirt off. That's why you're not getting any pictures; NO ONE wants to see that! I arched my back slightly, lifting my swim trunks a few centimeters off the surface of the slide. Freed from the fabric friction, I accelerated into the winding turns, and I could feel the centrifugal force pushing me partially up the side of the slide. I had a serious head of steam as I sped toward the splash down area where the water slide ends. This splash down area consists of a straight "runway" about 15 -20 feet long, that is filled with about 12 to 14 inches of water. It is designed to quickly and safely slow people down to a stop, through the natural friction of standing water.
Momentum is calculated as mass times speed; and I pretty much rocked both sides of that equation by the time I hit the splash down runway. And when an unstoppable force (me) hits an immovable object (the water), something has to give; in this instance, a giant wave of water. Have you ever been to Sea World and seen the wave that Shamu generates when she breeches and then splashes back down? It was like that.
The lifeguard even gave it a "Woah!" as he skipped out of the tsunami's destructive path. Dude! You don't have to make it seem like it's the biggest splash down ever! And yet, I extracted a certain amount of satisfaction from the lifeguard's explicative "Woah," and his Dorothy-like skip to avoid my wake. Take that, Bureaucracy, here's a thumb in your eye! Heh, maybe I am just a little bit of a rebel; I'm a Shamu splashing tsunami generating rebel! I saw DW waiting for me. "Can we have nap time now?" I asked. She smiled and nodded affirmatively, and these two rebels retreated to our anti-establishment hideout in stateroom 7530, for our rebellious afternoon nap.
