Travel with Dale & Margaret

We arrived in Puerto Limon, Costa Rica and it’s a balmy and slightly humid day!  We are docked in highly industrial area but fortunately the tour buses are close by.  Today we are going on a group tour of the Tortuguero Canals.  These canals are known as Costa Rica’s Amazon because of the surrounding rain forest.  After a 30 minute bus ride, much of it along the coast, we arrived at a jungle-like covered patio that had some docks with a number of pontoon boats.  We boarded one of the pontoon boats and slowly motored along the canals spotting all kinds of wild life including both hooter and spider monkeys, egrets, herons, bats and butterflies!  We also saw two and three-toed sloths, caymans and crocodiles (actually…the crocodile turned out to be a log!) and even saw a tucan!

Here’s a stork and the elusive Costa Rican Cayman…err, well this was actually a log upon closer inspection!

After the canals we were brought to a banana plantation and saw how they grow and harvest bananas. There are daughters, mothers and grandmothers, in other words, three generations of sprouts on each plant at any given time.  They cover the banana bunches with blue plastic material to protect them from the birds and keep the temperature up to encourage fast growth.  Overall, it is a very manual process that involves the big companies bringing people into live in company housing on the plantation and work 12 hour days 6 days a week.  For this they get room and board and approx. $1,200 month.

On the way back to the ship the tour guide stopped at a roadside vegetable stand and bought some very fresh, very small banans and a yellow, hard shelled fruit that had some juicy and sticky pods inside.  Turns out it was raw cocoa.  He let us all smell and the more adventurous (like me) taste it.  Very interesting.  It actually smelled like chocolate but with a slightly bitter taste.

Back on the ship Dale went to a Yoga class on the top deck and then worked on cleaning up the pictures he took (he took a LOT of pictures on the canal tour!).  We also started preparing for tomorrow when we will traverse the Panama Canal!  Then, we had a nice time with martinis at the Observation Lounge followed by another “magnum” night (Antorini Chianti Classico that is) at Prime 7.

Lots of pictures today!

Costa Rica Picture Gallery: http://travelwithdm.smugmug.com/Travel/South-America/Costa-Rica-11710/25152630_mCHRJh#!i=2062550081&k=MZRpWnr

Today is Friday and this is Margaret — and I’m going to write today’s blog!  We got an early start this morning with breakfast in our room (I am being good — just yogurt, fresh fruit and coffee for the most part) — Dale enjoys scrambled eggs AND oatmeal every morning so far  (Post-Cruise Note: That switched to muesli in Coffee Connection shortly after).  So we are at the Roatan Island which is approx. 38 miles off  mainland Honduras.  It is surrounded by the world’s 2nd largest barrier reef.

We checked off another of my “bucket” list items at the Dolphin Encounter!  We docked early and were off by 9 am.  Took a bus over to the park where they keep the dolphins.  My expectations were low…we’ve seen other people swim with dolphins and while it looks fun, it’s usually in an environment that feels like a prison (at least to me…not sure how the dolphins feel about it!).  The place we went today was absolutely beautiful!  We were very impressed with the landscape, the cleanliness of the island and the friendliness of the people.

After about a 30 minute ride in a small-ish but nice bus/van on somewhat steep and windy road through lush terrain we arrived at a retail store that was also the staging area for the dophin encounter.  After a short wait we boarded a motorboat that held about 16 people and motored over to a small island.  The dolphin area was quite nice with a covered area that had changing rooms and restrooms as well as small beach areas from which the groups would go into a beautiful lagoon where the interaction with the dolphins took place.  We had an orientation session with a good looking orientation guy and headed for the water.

The dophin “cage” was a wide open part of the ocean that was hard to tell was enclosed as they use nets that aren’t visible above water.  Certainly seemed more dolphin friendly than a concrete and metal tank that reflect their sonar signals.  We went into the water from a beach and up to about waist high in groups of eight.  Our new friends Barbara and Fred were standing next to us and our dolphin “Alita” would float past us so we could touch her back and her fins and even her belly!   The trainer also explained how dolphins are trained and cared for and he showed us how she did some basic maneuvers with hand signals and a whistle.  She loved to get the fish treats!  While we were in this phase a photographer took pictures for the packages that would be sold later.

After the “training” session and dolphin petting we got to see Alita do her stuff!  We got to get our cameras to take pictures of Alita doing a range of spectacular Sea World-type dolphin tricks and we got some great pictures.  He was a bit upset that he didn’t bring his big Nikon because he thought that this “encounter” like the others we’ve been to would not allow you to bring your own camera.  Another plus for those that might try this on a later cruise.

After the brief boat ride back to the “mainland” we took a 20 minute ride to a touristy beach resort where we were to stay for a couple hours, lounging on the beach and drinking mai-tais.  Sitting on the beach in the sun isn’t my thing these days so we had barely stepped foot off the bus, took a look at the beautiful beach when we decided to take an offer to catch an early bus back to the ship.  Forty minutes later we were shopping in a nice modern shopping center dockside.  Dale got a $10 watch to wear off the ship in “riskier” places like in the water and Forteleza.

Back on the ship I worked on some work stuff — had a conference call and caught up on the day while Dale relaxed in the hot tub!  Not sure what he does up there on the pool deck other than drink Pina Coladas, enjoy the beautiful sunsets and meet interesting people.  Hey, that actually sounds better than working!

We are getting ready to go to dinner — don’t have any plans but it seems we figure something out each night!  You get spoiled pretty quickly with so many great choices and the always available backup of eating a great meal right in your room.  The last few nights we’ve had dinner with new friends and neighbors.  Hard to believe it’s Friday — we’ve been on the ship for 5 full days already — only 60 to go!

Honduras Picture Gallery: http://gallery.me.com/travelwithdmcontent/100132

We docked at 8 am this morning in Santo Tomas, Guatamala under gray skies and a touch of rain.  We had breakfast in the room followed by my heading out for the trip to Quirigua Archeological National Park which is a UNESCO World Heritage site for having well preserved Mayan ruins.  Margaret stayed “home” to work on RFP’s and conference calls.  It was a 90 minute bus ride through town and then down Highway 9 which connects the East with the West.  While you could see poverty throughout it was pretty clean and the people seemed pretty happy.  Hard to take pictures going 50 mph (I need to figure this out…) and with the bus about six feet from a fuel truck in front of us half the time.  Nice air conditioned coach with a water closet however.

We drove to the park and then walked for about an hour with the tour guide telling us about Mayan history.  Inhabited since the 2nd century A.D., Quirigua had become during the reign of Cauac Sky (723–84) the capital of an autonomous and prosperous state. The ruins of Quirigua contain some outstanding 8th-century monuments and an impressive series of carved stelae and sculpted calendars that constitute an essential source for the study of Mayan civilization. In practical terms, it turns out this area was taken over about 700 AD by a guy who, after becoming their fearless leader, felt that he needed to reinforce that he really was a great leader.  So he made a number of tall stone monuments that have pictographs covering them on all four sides.  Each one tells a story but, in the end, it is one big political advertisement telling his followers that he is a great leader.  “If you don’t believe me, just look at these stone billboards I put up all over town”.

There were interesting trees, a couple interesting birds and an upper area that you had to climb very tall and slippery steps to get to.  I had to really watch my step coming down with my camera gear.

We walked back to the bus and took off for the 90 minute ride back to the ship.  Just outside of the park there was a banana plantation.  We heard about how the US fruit companies< such as United Fruit, came in and took over large parts of their economy, infiltrated the government and then instituted a CIA-backed coup when the government started to crack down on them in the 50’s.  They had a metal contraption that they put across the road to mechanically transfer stalks of bananas from one side of the road (where they grow them) to the other side where they get them ready for distribution.  They open it when cars line up, sort of like a drawbridge.  Bananas and other fruits are a big export item for Guatemala with most going to the US.

The park had a number of well preserved examples of Mayan calendars which, as it turns out have become very controversial due to publications and movies about their predictions.  Our tour guide, Princess Sandra (seems like everyone wants to be a princess these days!) told us that the story about the Mayan Calendar ending in December 21, 2012 causing lots of catastrophes is BS.  It will just be the start of the next section of their calendar but it is misinterpreted that the world will be ending.  So relax.  Everything will be OK.  The weather turned out to be nice with beautiful blue skies and puffy white clouds.

Back at the room Margaret is doing another conference call and I’m going to a Yoga class at 5.  No plans for tonight so it will probably be Compass Rose.  Tomorrow it is Honduras for the day and seeing the dolphins!

Santo Tomas, Guatemala Picture Gallery: http://travelwithdm.smugmug.com/Travel/South-America/Guatamala-Jan-14-2010/25152491_rH9MJZ#!i=2062537632&k=zhd9Wpz