Latin American Cruise Experience Essay

One of the first instances that I can remember concerning cultural shock, was when I took a Western Caribbean cruise with friends. I was naïve and in my early twenties, traveling with three other females for spring break. We spent three days on the beaches of FL, and then took a four-day cruise that stopped at multiple Latin American destinations.
This was my first vacation traveling without my parents or school personnel (band, chorus, etc.). The four of us only packed bikinis, shorts, tank tops, dresses, and flip-flops because we thought it would be appropriate and our destinations were all in hot climates. When we arrived at our first destination, which was part of Mexico, men catcalled, made kissy sounds, thrust their pelvises, made licking motions with their tongues, glared and stared, and proposed marriage. Everywhere we went we received unwanted and unwelcome attention from young men (teenagers) and old men. At first, we kind of laughed it off and ignored it, but by the end of the day, all of that attention was extremely obnoxious. I’m going to backtrack for a moment to say we weren’t dressed any differently than the other native women or other females that were visiting. This experience was entirely new for us. The four of us just spent all that time in FL wearing similar clothing, yet we did not have a similar experience.
He was cute and we appreciated that he was “protective” of us so we agreed. By the way, our guide was correct, we received stares and some catcalling, etc., but it was significantly less when we were in the presence of a male. I must mention though, that at the end of the day when we needed to go back to our ship the guide begged one of us to marry him. When we said that we all had boyfriends, he said that we didn’t have to love him he would be happy to just get a Green card and live the “American