In order for a weekend trip away from the ship to truly qualify as typical, there are several criteria that must be met. They are as follows*:
- Just minutes after your departure, the driver will need to stop at the station, where you will have to...
a) Renegotiate the fare (which will have inevitably gone up from what you originally agreed upon)
b) Pick up a wingman
c) Sit around in the vehicle with all the doors open while the driver and the wingman exchange pleasantries with everyone else at the station.
d) Get gas – which, as a side note, cannot be done in combination with any of the above tasks.
- You will begin the trip in a mildly uncomfortable seat, sitting relatively close to one of your friends, with some degree of leg / breathing room. You will conclude the road trip sitting on someone’s lap (in the most ideal scenario, this someone is a wet stranger that you picked up along the road), unable to feel your legs, and with your arms either directly out in front of you, straight up in the air, or wrapped around one of your other twenty travel-mates.
- Numerous times along the way, the driver will pull over to the side of the road. The wingman will hop out of his seat (which is always conveniently located next to the one sliding door) and disappear under the vehicle for about 20 seconds with a bottle of discoloured water. Immediately after he resurfaces, the vehicle starts in motion and he hops back in. Nobody has ever been able to come up with an explanation for this one.
- When you arrive at the hotel, the first staff member you encounter at the desk will respond to your attempts to explain who you are with complete bewilderment. After a couple of confused minutes, someone else (usually of higher power) emerges and provides you with some reassurance that you did, in fact, make reservations. These reservations will most likely not resemble what you intended them to, but they do usually exist.
- You will then carry on to have a fantastically entertaining, re-energizing weekend with your friends in a setting that makes you consider throwing it all away and living in the jungle, under a waterfall for the rest of your life.
Thankfully for us this weekend, every single one of these criteria was met. Although it is always nice when things play by the rules, it was of particular importance this weekend, since Ali’s parents are on the ship right now, and she was committed to giving them a truly African experience. We had an incredible weekend marketing, swimming, eating, hiking, and playing in the waterfall. And, it truly did represent all of the things we love about
*this list is not exhaustive.