Welcome to Cadiz

From the ship’s navigator record " after dropping off pilot, we then exitted the breakwater and set north-northeasterly courses overnight in the North Atlantic Ocean, passing Gibraltar Straits again, but passing clear and making way towards Cadiz. Early this morning we rounded the Cadiz Port breakwater, passing through Bajo las Puercas before making our approach to our berth ". Indeed our Princess ship docks itself in Cadiz harbour by 6.30am Monday June 2nd but not after a somewhat rough seas we go through last night. All of us can feel unsteady walks on board and this is even felt when we are watching the shows. Thank goodness it does not go to the extent of making us sea sick, something that always dreads me when it comes to sea sickness when I would vomit and experienced prolonged headache for days afterwards. This was the experience I had when I was a young kid in the early fifty when my late dad took me to a night fishing trip with the local Trengganu fishermen. Whilst my elder brother Tunku Faisal had a great time all the way, enjoying hot drinks and breakfast on these small fishing boats, the first sight and smell of the hot coffee instantly made me unashamedly vomit ! Thus I continue to have a phobia when it comes to sailing in small boats, be it in the river or sea.

Mention Spain and the images that inevitably spring to mind are images of Andalusia - shadows falling across the bullring, the staccato rhythms of flamenco, the waft of orange blossoms from a Moorish garden. Indeed we all get familiar with Spain through its oranges which are exported to all parts of the world. The Seville or Valencia variety are well known to us back home.

Cadiz is the gateway to this storied land and the city of Seville - made even more famous with the recent movie " The Barber of Seville" which is a horror musical on morbid revenge by a mad barber on the people who murdered his wife and family. As early as 1100 BC Phoenician merchants from Tyre established a trading post here, which grew into a city called Gades. The fruitful Guadalquivir plain has always been an excellent place to grow grain, olives, and fruit; high-quality grapes and wine are especially well-known. The Phoenicians grew wealthy trading here. Centuries later, their cousins the Carthaginians drifted into conflict with the Roman Republic, and several important battles of the Punic Wars took place in Spain.

Romans took control of southern Spain beginning 218 BC , and developed it intensively. Their administrative capital at Cordoba became an important centre for wheat, oil, and wine. To this day, the snowy white walls and cool patios of Spanish houses betray their Roman roots. Two of Rome’s finest emperors, Trajan and Hadrian, were natives of Italica, near Seville. A third, Marcus Aurelius, had Spanish parentage, although he was born elsewhere. After the fall of Rome, Vandals and Visigoths occupied Spain for a while. But one of the most brilliant periods began with the Moorish invasion of 711 AD

Originally, the primary motive of these North Africans was spreading their Islamic faith. Their momentum , fueled by religious zeal, took them beyond the Pyrenees, and allowed them centuries to build a new civilization. The Moors lost northern Spain rather soon, but their influence in the south lasted much longer, especially in Grenada, where they ruled for 800 years. Andalusia still flaunts buildings, literature, and traditions that are a strong blend of the Roman and the Moorish. The Umaiyad dynasty founded a brilliant civilization that lasted long after their military and political power declined.

The three most beautiful cities - Seville, Cordoba, and Grenada - flourished as cultural centres. Cordoba, still the capital, became the most refined city in Europe by the 10th century. The Muslim Caliphs promoted literature and science, as well as libraries, and schools for philosophy and medicine. A couple of years ago, the four of us, Aziz, Jalnah and us two had the opportunity to visit these three famous cities and witnessed the ancient buildings and ruins of the past glories of the Moorish civilization there. When you visit these three cities you cannot help feeling that Islam had indeed made its impact on the local people by introducing so many new things that help to make their life richer culturally. The fall of the Moorish conquerors was due to their decadence lifestyle later which made them corruptibly lavish to the point of forgetting their original Islamic mission and their continued subservient to Allah. This is a true reflection of what Allah repetitively mention in the Quran that when a civilized nation forgets Him, that nation will eventually go down the drain and self-destruct by ways He only knows the determinate period and time.

Just a point of interest, Spain has approximately 194,901 square miles, slightly more than twice the size of Oregon USA. With a population of 40,448,191 its official language is Castilian Spanish, Catalan, Galician and Basque are regionally spoken. Its capital is Madrid, currency the Euro and its government is Parliamentary Monarchy. Spain cannot fail to bring to my mind the many famous tennis players that have brought fame to their country. Most prominent of these is Rafael Nadal who is recently the Number one player in the world after overtaking Roger Federer in the circuit points. To me Rafael Nadal’s feature and physics must be a replica of the ancient Spanish warriors who must have been ruggedly handsome then. Indeed if you look at all the Spanish tennis players such Carlos Forrero , Tommy Robredo and others, they all bear these same features, which accounts for their resilience in the game by producing so many past champions.

Since our ship is anchored at the jetty which is almost at the very edge of Cadiz, we decide not to go for a conducted tour but instead the six of us, Dr. Bahari, Aisya, Wahab , Noni and the two of us, simply walk over to the nearest bus terminal and board a bus for ten Euro each. The bus takes us on a drive round the city centre where we get a glimpse of this splendid city. With its open roof top open view sitting where I decide to be whilst Ainul remains in the bus itself, I cannot help but enjoy the splendid view of the harbour and its seaside buildings and gardens, but at the same time make me feel almost frozen with the cold wind that happens to sweep across the city on this very clear but slightly cool morning. After that frozen trip I am ready to rush back to our ship to have a quick Pizza at the Pizzeria on board. Indeed that is our first pizza on this cruise and we both enjoy it.

Back at the ship I cannot help noticing the various fresh flowers display at all the outlets, a feature which makes the ship very pleasant indeed to feel relaxed. We are informed that the full time florists Jimmy and Roy are constantly at work creating and freshening floral displays and tending to the many hundreds of plants aboard. They also produce beautiful arrangements for orders direct to the stateroom if you so wish but of course that is not for free though !

Tonight’s after dinner show is a comedy show time of the Comedian Jim Mc Donald which gets us into stitches with laughter whenever we can catch his jokes. He has very strong cockney English of some sort which makes it quite difficult to understand at times. Watching his show cannot but bring back to mind the Alaskan Cruise we had when both Aziz and Jalnah joined us then. That’s the trip too when we had the full presence of John and Farah, Sabri and Nuruiani, Jalil and Aini, Mahatun, Farabi and Shahrizan . At one of these comedian shows we caught Aziz dozing away oblivious of the enjoyment everyone had with the comedian ! The cruise always bring back fond memories.

The other night’s entertainment is the production show " Shake , Rattle & Roll" which cannot but bring back sweet memories of the early fifties and sixties rock and roll music of Bill Haley, Elvis Presley, the Beetles, Pat Boone, and many others.

Of noteworthy this is the night when I go to the "Crazy Karaoke" at the Explorers Lounge I get to meet and be acquainted with the Canadian couple Larry and Joys, whom we meet earlier at an afternoon tea at the Michaelangelo. Of course by this time Ainul has gone to bed. They both take me to their favourite haunt which is the onboard casino better known as The Atlantis Casino. This casino, situated on Deck 6 forward, presents you with an array of high tech, state of the art features. Designed around Caribbean theme, many of the signs and displays are unique to the casino having been custom designed in Las Vegas. It features one of the largest casinos afloat and offer the latest additions in slot technology and featured machines. The tables have also been custom designed to a larger size to offer maximum comfort to the players with space at an optimum. It offers an assortment of table games that would likely be found on any Las Vegas casino floor and the rules too correspond accordingly. The Casino Bar allows the slots player to sit in comfort enjoying a cocktail while trying their luck on the bar top machines.

My new Canadian friends are avid casino players who has never won anything really big to become richer although they have been players for many years and nor have they lost too much to make them paupers but they say it is the rule of the game - win some, lose some ! They take me to The Atlantis Casino to demonstrate how to play the slot machines and I am able to see that it is all purely luck after all since the slot machines are no longer hand operated but fully computerized. I cannot see how anyone can develop any skill in it apart from knowing when to pull out when the going is good. Ironically to the avid gambler, it is the cardinal rule never to pull out when the luck is in. BY pulling out at that time will mean that "lady luck" will shy away the next time around ! Well, on this night Larry lost $50 but his wife Joys wins $200 ! However they decide to stop since they feel like having a good supper on Deck 15 at the Amazon Buffet outlet. So, I join them there where we chat away till nearly one am when we all decide to call it a day.

( TO BE CONTINUED )