New Caledonia. Another place that I never expected to see. But, after breakfast with Panama and Amy, we saw it. The city, anyway. I am sure there is much more to the country than what we saw in our walking tour, but we are being very frugal – we still have over 4 weeks to go – so walking around suits us.
This seems to be a nice city. We saw some homeless people and quite a few vacant stores so it doesn’t seem like the economy is booming. But it is not “third world” either.
We did a lot of window shopping a walked up a small hill to a pretty cathedral. And I had a beer at the port. But one of the reasons I got the beer – other than to slake my thirst – was to get access to the internet. New Caledonia was the first place we have visited on any cruise where our T-Mobile plan didn’t give us internet access. Phone calls were also VERY expensive – $4.19 per minute. Text messages were 50 cents each. I sent a few text messages before I realized how expensive they were. We certainly didn’t call anyone.
We were back on board by mid-afternoon. The rest of the day was quiet. I did some reading. We played some cards (I won both games – a rarity).. And, of course, we visited the casino (lose $40, down $810).