Title: Schwann TravelBlog: Once in a Lifetime: Chapter 7 - Canary Islands - Las Palmas

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Wednesday 17th Day 11: Today I did breakfast but it didn’t matter because even though we could see Las Palmas from 9.00 AM in the morning they kept us waiting for a pilot until nearly 10.00 PM, by which time I’d gone all around the ship taking what photos I thought I may have missed but probably didn’t. Although I am not in a hurry to get off the ship, but after 11 days at sea I’m also looking forward to being ashore, so this is a bit of a contradiction. Consequently, I did some serious pacing, standing on the bridge with my binoculars and making the Captain nervous enough to actually offer me an explanation for why they were making us wait, something to do with regulations, and a ship that got there before us. I knew he should have kept us to 20 knots and knot reduce speed to 17 knots because although we were supposedly ahead of schedule at the time, the final result was that an insignificantly small tramp freighter beat us to it and we had to wait until it deigned to vacate our parking space. By the time we got the gang plank down it must have been 11.00 PM, and by that time I’d been ready to go for more than 12 hours. I think everyone wanted me to stay on board for another night but there was no weigh. I made it quite clear that I was disembarking whatever, and consequently found myself on the dock some hour later being escorted to a waiting taxi by my steward Russel and the ship’s agent, Eric, who gave the taxi driver instructions on which hotel to take me to and also paid. Without further ado I was whisked into the city of Las Palmas, via the police station in the harbour where they summarily stamped my passport.
Thus did Schwann arrive incognito in Europe.
After arriving at the Hotel Concorde, at midnight, I dumped my stuff and made for the streets, being somewhat starved of dry land. Unfortunately, my pacing up and down the bridge for a day had taken its toll on my feet and energy, so, after being offered ‘a quiet place’, then dancing girls, by Moroccan banditos, I elected to return to the hotel and check my hotmail account, which was, of course, at 99%!f(MISSING)ull. I had mostly good news, except for a nasty post from John Shirley, who enclosed his phone number but told me not to call him because he is pissed off with South Africans again. Maybe he doesn’t know that I know that African politics is Shiite, but American politics is uber-Shiite - sigh. I aim to mail him for coherence and will report back. I get to bed after 2.00 AM, knowing that tomorrow is going to be even longer than today.

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Comments

[me]

great!
Gran Canaria!!!!IT´S THE BEST PLACE IVE EVER BEEN!!!!!! :D