Costa Rica Part VI - Through the Canal

A man, a plan, a canal. Panama. I've heard this palindrome many times, but it had never occurred to me to think about exactly who the "man" was. I certainly didn't know that he was a fellow Brooklynite and that I was in fact very familiar with his name. George Washington Goethals was a U.S. Army general and civil engineer who served as the administrator and supervisor for the construction of the canal. The French spent decades in a bungled attempt to build a canal, and after they surrendered (so to speak) the U.S. took over and, under  Goethals' leadership, successfully completed the canal. Today, Goethals is memorialized by a bridge bearing his name connecting Staten Island to New Jersey. I have traversed this bridge (both the old one and the much superior replacement) many, many times without giving its name a single thought. In contrast, while we're on the subject of New York bridge trivia, I do know who Thaddeus Kosciuszko, he of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway bridge over Newton Creek (both the old one and the much superior replacement), was. Go figure.

Anyway, the Panama Canal was completed in 1914 and today is both a key component in the world's trade economy (some 15,000 ships pass through the canal each year) and something of an antique. It also appears to be something of a make-work program for Panamanians (as well as a big money-maker for the country). As I've already mentioned, when you want to pass through the canal the first thing you do is wait. And wait. Eventually, it's your turn and if you're a small ship like us you get paired up with another ship and pass through the locks together.

The Panama Canal is not a single long ditch like the C&O Canal. Rather, from the ocean a series of locks raise ships up into Gatun Lake, an artificial lake created for this purpose, which sits about 85 feet above sea level. Gatun Lake is large - it spans half a continent (OK, the continent is only 30 miles wide at that part of Panama). At the other end of the lake, ships are lowered by another set of locks into the other ocean. So, you go through locks at both ends but most of the passage through the "canal" is actually a traversal of a large, man-made lake. And the 2016 expansion of the canal just added new, larger locks in parallel with the original locks (like adding more lanes at the toll booth) - the rest of the traversal is the same no matter which locks you went through.

Here's an interesting factoid - the Pacific has a much greater tidal variation than the Atlantic, so "sea level" can vary by tens of feet from one side of the canal to the other. I always thought "sea level" was one particular elevation, but I guess it's not.

Line handlers come aboard

So, the process is as follows: as soon as you enter the canal area a pilot comes on board. He directs the ship through the initial approach to the canal. Then fourteen line-handlers come on board. I cannot imagine why a ship our size would need seven people forward and seven people aft to handle the lines, but like I said - I think this is a little bit of make-work for Panamanians. Oh, and the fourteen people don't all come on one boat. Our guys came on about five different boats (each easily big enough to hold fourteen passengers).

As you approach the canal you see the sophisticated signalling system - a big illuminated arrow pointing to the lane you're supposed to head to. They physically rotate the arrow and the angle of the arrow signifies what the ship is supposed to do (more on the arrows on p.80 of this document). As the ship approaches the lock two guys in a rowboat come out and toss over a line. Really, 15,000 times per year these two guys row out to toss a line to the incoming ship. This lightweight line is used by the line handlers to pull aboard the mooring lines, which are then used to tie the ship to the little electric locomotives (referred to as "mules") used  to guide the ship through the locks. Occasionally, as in our case, the line handlers (all fourteen of them) goof up - they dropped one of our lines and a tugboat had to come along and nudge us into place so they could re-do the lines.

The illuminated arrow

The rowboat guys

"Mule" locomotive

Once you are moored into place the locks close and fill with water. The locks fill in under ten minutes, which is surprisingly fast considering that they hold 26 million gallons of water. Then, under the command of the pilot, you start to move forward out of the lock. The ship moves under a combination of its own power and pull from the locomotives. Interestingly, there is only a one-way communication system between the pilot and the locomotives. The pilot gives commands over a radio, and the locomotive operators ring their bells to acknowledge receipt. Remember, this is not some small potatoes operation - 15,000 ships per year carrying 7 million TEUs (equivalent of a shipping container) of cargo, $2 million cost per locomotive, and their only communication method is to ring a bell, like the Trolley on Mr. Rogers. Do they not have Facetime in the canal zone? Skype? Voxer, even?

Anyway, we started our traversal of the canal at about 7 PM. Everyone was out on deck. A bunch of us were on the foredeck at first, where we stayed until they kicked us out to make room for the line handlers. Then we all went out on a top deck normally open only to the crew. It was exciting to watch as we passed all the container ports, saw the other ships going to and fro (Panama has seen a boom in shipping, not just from larger container ships but also from an unexpected growth in the shipping of LPG and LNG - yay, fracking!), pass under the Rt. 1 bridge, and then traverse the Miraflores and Pedro Miguel locks. Then, as I had said, we were in for hours of cruising through the darkness of Gatun Lake, so we all went to bed. A subset of us who were totally into the canal experience set our alarms for 3 AM to be awake for our passage through the Gatun Locks. It's funny - the canal transit hadn't been a big excitement or "bucket list" item for me in advance of the trip, but I really got into it.

The lock doors close

Miraflores Locks building

It's a tight fit

Gatun Locks. Note how the mules go uphill with the locks.

After traversing the Gatun Locks I tried to get back to sleep but it was 4 AM and I was kind of wired. I went up to the lounge and made myself a decaf latte which I spiked with a healthy dose of Kahlua snagged from the bar (which they don't lock up at night). This did the trick and after tossing and turning in bed for a bit sleep finally came and I was able to get a few hours of rest before having to get up to get our bags out the door and show up for breakfast at 7:30 AM.

McGruff, the crime dog

Visiting the new locks

After disembarking from the ship (which was delayed a little while they had dogs sniff our suitcases - for drug or bombs I don't know) we made a quick visit to see the new locks and then drove back to Panama City. Panama City was unexpectedly modern. A little foreign, to be sure, but a big city feel familiar to city dwellers from anywhere. True, some third-world legacy seeps through, like the "red devils". Apparently, until recently Panama's public bus fleet consisted of end-of-service school buses shipped from the U.S. Individual Panamanian bus operators would paint the buses in wild color schemes and (my favorite part) put gigantic hot-rod style exhaust pipes on them. Today Panama has a more standard and subdued public transit fleet, but you still see red devils here and there.

A "red devil" in Panama City

We were dropped at a hotel downtown - typical, modern upscale hotel, where the cruise company had reserved some meeting rooms for both those of us ending our trip and the next group coming on board to hang out. We had about five hours to kill. This would have been enough time to go out and see a little bit of the city, but once Valerie hit the hotel I think she decided her adventure was over. Familiar-feeling surroundings, snacks, air conditioning, WiFi - she was staying put. I went down and strolled around the immediate area - shopped for a Panama hat but didn't buy one, poked my head into McDonald's (even though Panama uses the metric system they still sell Quarter Pounders), even found a Chinese restaurant. Since it was lunchtime I thought I could lure Valerie to the Chinese place so I went back to the hotel, but she wasn't budging. Instead, we sat. Slowly, our fellow travelers went on their way - to the airport or their next destinations. The new passengers headed for the ship. Eventually it was just us. When the hotel staff began to clear the room I suggested that we just head to the airport, which we did. That gave us a lot of time to kill at the airport, which unfortunately offered surprisingly little food (but lots of duty free shopping). We wound up eating sandwiches from Subway, then it was off into the skies, headed for home.

Costa Rica Part V - Which is Really Panama

By this point in our trip we had gotten to know just about everyone on board our 62 passenger ship. It's interesting - there are always a few people who keep to themselves, but in general you meet just about everyone thanks to the close quarters, open seating dining, and shared outings. Most of the people are who you'd expect - active professionals with the scratch to pay for a somewhat high-end trip. But it was interesting to learn that the seven year old son of some fellow passengers had already visited fourteen countries (for the record, I'm at sixteen - seventeen if you count the Vatican). And there was the world-weary seventeen year old who expressed his dismay at the unimaginative "plating" of our dinners. Really. Valerie acquired an acolyte - one of the grandmothers on the trip (a woman from Westchester) found Valerie to be a total hoot, particularly her frank sex talk. I would like to blame this on excessive drinking (Valerie drank alcohol on this trip! Once or twice she even had two drinks in the same day!), but it's just Valerie.

Weds 1/2

Wednesday we set foot for the first time in Panama (and as I have documented before, you're not really in a country until you set foot ashore). We found ourselves at the tiny Granito de Oro islet where the activities of the day were kicking back with watersports (and morning yoga, of course!). Pretty much every prior day had been about scheduled activities - "Group 2, be on the back deck at 9:40 AM to board the skiffs to take you to your hike!". Granito, de Oro, on the other hand, offered a much more relaxed, do what you want to do experience. They brought a bunch of kayaks and paddleboards ashore and everyone who wanted had snorkling gear, so over the course of the day you could just choose to do whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted, or choose to just sit on the beach and enjoy the sun and the sand.

As usual, we were not alone. Granito de Oro is a popular area within in Coiba National Park and there were lots of colorful little boats going to and fro, bringing people from the mainland. Interestingly, when I first sat down I was surprised to overhear the group next to me on the beach ... speaking Hebrew! Alas, they were packing up to leave and so I didn't get a chance to engage them, but I'm really getting the feeling that this part of the world is a popular Israeli expat and/or tourist destination.

Valerie and I started the day with snorkeling. Neither of us joined the expedition around the island and so we missed seeing sea turtles (waaahh!!). Instead we snorkeled over the coral reef that sits just off the island and saw lots of colorful fish and some eels.

Fish off the reef

Valerie snorkeling

We missed this by not signing up for the longer snorkel trip :(

Of course we had to all go back to the ship for lunch, which was Just Crazy. We went back to the ship, cleaned up and dried off, had a nice sit-down lunch in the dining room, changed back into our wet stuff, then took the skiff back to the beach. Really guys, a sandwich on the beach would have been fine.

After lunch we both knocked around on paddleboards. I persisted longer; Valerie switched to lounging in the warm water, chatting with fellow guests. Apparently I once again missed seeing a sea turtle as I was intent on paddling and missed one as it went by (another paddleboarder saw it).

Fun (though still a distant second to kayaking)

Valerie gamely tries paddleboarding

Valerie with J. J., one of the guides (and the only Panamanian on board) ... and someone photobombing

More of Valerie paddleboarding

I've always wondered just how hard paddleboard yoga is ... decided to try some asanas

The biggest surprise of the day was watching Valerie play frisbee with the teens. Now, just last summer Valerie bought an aerobie, which is like a Frisbee but with a lighter, ring shape, because Valerie said that she was uncomfortable catching something with the mass (and therefore the sting of the momentum when it hits your hand) of a Frisbee. But here she was, impressing the teens with her complex throws. Amazing.

Mad Frisbee

Also, you will notice how covered up we were. We are the king and queen of avoiding sunburn (in part because both of us burn so easily) and so both wore rather nineteenth century long-sleeved, long-legged swimming outfits. I made good use of a Buff that Teddy gave me to cover my head while snorkeling. I didn't feel self-conscious about how odd I looked with my little Buff bonnet because the crew, particularly the pangueros (the guys who piloted the skiffs), made extensive use of Buffs for sun protection. But my modest outfit would have paired well with bowler - or perhaps a Panama hat.

Me snorkeling

Valerie relaxing on the beach

Granito de Oro

Then it was back to the ship, where it was time for my massage. To show you how hard the staff on the ship work, the same crew member (Melissa, the Wellness Director) taught the sunrise yoga class, led the snorkeling group that Valerie and I were a part of, and served as my masseuse. It was like Melissa and my special day together.

Relaxed and refreshed from my massage, I went to happy hour where I enjoyed more Costa Rican beer thanks to Patience, our well-named bartender. In the evening there was an interesting talk about Panama given by J. J., one of the adventure guides who as the ship's only Panamanian was proud to represent her country.

One of our last sunsets at sea

Thurs 1/3

Today we began to get within the orbit of the Panama Canal and so our activities began to be structured around getting to the right place at the right time to get through the canal Friday night. The day was billed as a lazy day on the ship, with brunch at 1000 instead of the usual 0730 breakfast, and only one slow-paced activity (beach visit with short walks and open snorkeling) rather than the usual schedule of both morning and afternoon outings. Having gone to sleep super early, I woke up early as well (I’m just not good at sleeping in). I initially popped awake at about 0430 but through a combination of listening to podcasts and tossing and turning managed to doze/rest for about an hour and a half. While I was up and out of bed in time for yoga, I was taken with the lazy spirit of the day and skipped both the 0615 class and a special class given by Meghan, our activity director, at 0900 (which was billed as more challenging and super hot, being out in the tropical sun on the top deck - and which by all reports lived up to both). Instead I had early bird breakfast and coffee in the lounge, read my book and chatted with the other early risers as we cruised along the Panama coast. Our path near the coast afforded cell phone connectivity, so I made a quick check of email, headlines (“Trump turns Cabinet meeting into a whirl of insults, boasts and falsehoods”) and the stock market (down another 2%).

I usually eat light breakfasts and had by this point somewhat reached my fill of both big American (eggs, toast, potatoes) and Central American (eggs with rice and beans, tortillas and fried plantains) breakfasts and so ate lightly at brunch as the menu was a combination of both of the above, plus, of course, all the yummy breakfast pork I don’t eat - bacon, sausage gravy, and the like. Sitting around for hours had made me drowsy and so we actually rested a bit in the cabin before heading over to Iguana Island.

“Iguana Island?!”, you say. “Is it really an island full of iguanas!?!?!” Well yes, it is. Just like the monkeys and raccoons who greeted us at Curu, at Iguana Island the beach area was teeming with lizards. Oh, happy day! We immediately forgot anything else we had come over to do and focused on watching, photographing and posing with the little darlings. I’m sure the iguanas are used to being photographed, but probably not with the paparazzi-like intensity with which we attacked them. Only after the camera’s memory card was stuffed with lizard photos did we move on to other activities. I went for a walk on one of the island’s short hiking trails while Valerie sat with a cool drink and took in the view. Along the trail I learned that the island offers an interesting combination of fragile coral reefs and unexploded ordnance (UXO) left over from American WW II bombing practice. Why they used live bombs in practice is beyond me, but apparently they did and as recently as the 90’s a left-behind bomb detonated, blowing a big hole in the coral reef. Iguana Island is also home to perhaps the world's most disgusting outhouse - and I've seen some pretty bad ones.

Making new friends

Hello, little iguana!

Not even scratching the surface of our lizard pix

Five stars for the lizards, one star for the bathroom

Once we had had our fill of the heat we stuffed a couple of iguanas into my backpack to smuggle home (kidding!) and headed back to the boat, where we got cleaned up and relaxed in the lounge.

 Last, I think I have this on the wrong day, but I'll place it here because I don't remember which day it was. One night at dinner they recognized all the people celebrating life events on the cruise - birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, and so on. The elder couple of the group of eleven were celebrating their 60th anniversary, which is pretty amazing. Off by a factor of two, we're still not too shabby at 30 years.

Prematurely celebrating our 30th anniversary

Fri 1/4

Friday was all about positioning for our canal transit. We spent the early morning cruising towards Panama City - a day of relaxing on deck, reading, and beginning to pack our things. Once we reached the vicinity of Panama City (which is bigger and has more skyscrapers than I had expected - the results of collecting lots of big dollar canal fees!) we went ashore for a quick visit to the quaint town of San Pedro on Taboga Island. San Pedro was settled in the 16th century (it's always a surprise to be reminded how loing the Europeans were knocking around Central and South America before they turned their attentions northward) and is home to a church of the same name - said to be the second oldest church in the Americas. Paul Gaugin spent time here, and the town is said to be the place of conception (!) of Saint Rose of Lima. This latter fact will be of little interest to you unless you're a fan of saints and/or grew up in my old neighborhood in Brooklyn, where there is a St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church.

Anyway, we visited the church and strolled the town. I skipped the opportunity to do a strenuous hike up to Cerro de la Cruz, the highest point on the island. The weather was quite hot and once again I was skittish about strenuous exercise in the tropical heat.

San Pedro on Taboga Island

Chancel of San Pedro church

In San Pedro church

The bells are said to be original

Bell tower

The town, seen from the bell tower

Perro de Taboga

Here we are at the Taboga sign (yes, this is a tourist town)

After our visit to Taboga it was an afternoon of "hurry up and wait". We anchored off of Panama City, surrounded by other ships waiting to go through the canal, and waited for our turn. To kill time the ship offered distractions including a galley tour.

The pastry chef's work area (yes, we were roughing it)

The servers' secret cheat sheet. I am erroneously labelled as vegetarian, but that's OK.

Panama City skyline

Awaiting passage

Costa Rica Part IV - To Sea!

Sat 12/29

Basically a wasted day in between the land tour and the sea-based portion. Having spent most of the previous day sitting around I started the day with a quick workout on the elliptical, had breakfast, then packed up and checked our bags in for transfer to the ship. Valerie and I took a walk and browsed in a really cheesy souvenir shop then continued across to a shopping mall. The mall was pretty dismal - at least half vacant - but walking around was something to do. I thought about getting my hair trimmed, as at 1/8 inch long it was getting pretty unruly, but the barbershop charged 6,800 Colones (about $11) for a haircut and I was just too cheap to pay that kind of money to have someone spend 60 seconds buzzing my head with the clippers.

We ate lunch at the food court, where I impressed Valerie with my ability to order her a personal pan pizza combo in Spanish. My Spanish is very limited, but I do pretty well in restaurants. The conversation is very structured with a lot of context and my food vocabulary is pretty good, so I can generally make it through. Though I have to admit, when I ordered my sandwich at Subway I had to point at some things rather than asking for them because I didn’t remember the words for some of the veggies (cucumber? mushrooms?). Google has a really cool translation app, but a fast food order line is too fast-paced for me to be able to fumble with an app. Still waiting for the Star Trek Universal Translator - which may not be far away at this point.

Back at the hotel all the cruise passengers gathered in the lounge. One of the high points of any trip for Valerie is meeting new people, so she began to make the rounds. We met one family from LA, whom we immediately suspected were also Jewish. As I’m sure I’ve noted before, we have a minor obsession with spotting other Jews (which is not at all unique to us - I think that as a small minority it makes us feel a little less alone in a sea of goyim to encounter other members of our tribe out there). It turns out we were 2/3 right in this case - the wife and her mom were Jewish and they’re raising the kids Jewish but the husband and his brother were not. Plus, their son is named Jesse. In fact there were two Jesses and two Jessicas out of the 65 or so passengers. Very unusual and sometimes a little confusing when we gathered for daily outings from the ship (“was that Jesse cabin 219 or Jesse cabin 217 you called?). These Californian semi-Jews were just one of a large number of family groups on the trip, I guess because it’s school break week. There was a kind of rednecky (but it turns out quite accomplished and also quite fun) group of 11 from that corner where Delaware, Pennsylvania and top of the Chesapeake Maryland come together; parents and their three 20-something daughters from Chicago; and grandfather and grandson from Orlando (it turns out the grandfather is in the modeling & simulation business - we know people in common from when I was in that biz), the three generation family of six who were on our land excursion, and more. There other couples without extended families on board (the New Zealanders, the bicoastal Charlottesville/Oakland couple, etc.) but it felt like we couples were the exception rather than the rule on this trip.

All of us - families, couples, whatever - headed out at 2:30 PM for the ship. As I mentioned earlier, the previous day the ten of us who had done the land extension had driven several hours back to San Jose, driving right past Punta Arenas, where we would be getting on the boat. I guess mustering everyone at one hotel in San Jose was convenient for the cruise line, but it was damn rude to make those of us who had spent extra for the land add-on retrace the very same route back to Punta Arenas. All told, a waste of about half a day spent on buses negotiating Costa Rica’s winding mountain roads. Perhaps it was because we were on a bigger bus, or maybe it was that this driver wasn’t as skilled as Marco, our previous driver, but navigating the endless switchbacks on the way to Punta Arenas left all of us a little woozy. So our heads spun a little bit when we realized that we needed to transit via small Zodiac boats for a bouncy ride out to the ship. Valerie really wasn’t prepared for this. In Alaska, the skiffs had been bigger, with bench seats inside, whereas these were smaller skiffs where you just sat on the edge, feeling with every wave like you were about to get pitched over backwards into the drink. Fortunately, we made it to the ship unscathed. We boarded the ship via our first experience with the swim platform, a motorized contraption at the fantail of the ship which lifts the skiffs (or kayaks, or whatever) in and out of the water - no launching required.

Safely aboard, we found our cabin, settled in a little bit, then went to the lounge for a group welcome, abandon ship drill, cocktails and buffet dinner on the upper deck. Valerie was feeling the motion of the ship a little bit and so retired early. I wasn’t being affected as much (I actually think that time spent out on the water kayaking, while a very different kind of motion, gives me a certain degree of “sea legs”) so hung out in the lounge a little bit and had a cup of coffee before going to bed.

 

Here's our cabin

Preparing to abandon ship

Preparing to abandon ship

Oh, coffee! The lounge of the ship had a fancy-schmancy coffee maker which on demand would brew coffee, lattes, and cappuccinos - and it had decaf as well as regular! I was saved! That was, in fact, an indication of another difference between ashore and at sea. On land we were more immersed in Costa Rica. The food we ate had a Costa Rican flavor (as I’ve mentioned, rice and beans at every meal), and while the tourist industry accommodates English speakers, you were in a country where Spanish was the primary language and I felt obliged to sputter things out in Spanish when I could. Once we were aboard ship, the experience changed - this was an American company catering to American tastes. Rice and beans and other Costa Rican foods were largely gone from the menu. The crew, while partly local, spoke excellent English and there was never any expectation that you had to know any Spanish. And there was decaf coffee!

Sun 12/30

UnCruise ships offer a small wellness program including morning yoga every day (and massages!!!). Doing yoga at sunrise out on deck of a ship anchored in a beautiful location is a wonderful experience. Trying to balance on the rolling deck of a ship is another story ... as one of the instructors said, the ship is a great equalizer, as experienced yogis and novices alike were stumbling in and out of balance poses.

 

AM yoga on deck

Our morning activity was kayaking! Yes, sit-on-top doubles (though unlike in Alaska, they indicated a willingness to rig them as singles), but kayaking nonetheless! The group (about eight boats) didn’t have a formal leader, but the crew was out providing safety boat the motorized skiffs out and they pointed us into a the mouth of a small river. The river offered some really amazing scenery with otherworldly tree roots growing in weird directions (like bald cypress - but more so!). As we paddled back out of the river we spotted a large iguana basking on a tree branch above us. Lizard watching by kayak - is there a better way to spend the day?

Wild trees

Lizard spotting!! (see branch above Valerie)

Kayaking scene

Once we got fairly close to our the beach which was our ultimate destination Valerie decided to see if she could fall out and get back into the kayak. Without hesitation she heaved herself over the side into the water. I was just starting to instruct her in how I thought she should attempt to re-enter the kayak when one of the guys in the skiffs showed up and encouraged her to just climb up the ladder into the skiff to be ferried to shore. We got the feeling that they didn’t have a lot of patience for goofing around in the water attempting self-rescues and so Valerie accepted the ride and I paddled the boat solo in to the beach.

Valerie in need of rescue

Once on the beach I realized that we were at a well developed and fairly busy national park. The scene at the beach was in part familiar to anyone who has visited a national park - picnic tables, bathrooms, even a small gift shop (not expecting to be in a developed area, we hadn’t brought any money - so no Curu tchotchkes for us). What was most immediately distinctive, though, was the wildlife. The place was teeming with capuchin monkeys and the most fearless raccoons ever. The monkeys and raccoons had clearly figured out that the picnic tables meant the possibility of food and other interesting items and were constantly trying to sneak in and make off with stuff. The raccoons (in groups!) would brazenly walk up right in front of people and try to grab stuff. Only loud clapping and shouting caused them to back off. The monkeys kept  a little more of a distance but given the chance would scavenge stuff as well. All of us kept a close eye on things. In the U.S. raccoons, while highly opportunistic, keep their distance during the day. Here the intermingling of people and wild animals made it feel almost like a Disney movie. I expected toucans to start circling over our heads and burst into song (probably something by Alan Menken). Anyway, what's most important is that Valerie rated kayaking in a striking tropical environment with lizard spotting as a “20 on a scale of 1 to 10”. This made me happy.

Critters everywhere!

I think part of Valerie's 20-out-of-10 rating was that she was just happier with the sea-based portion of our trip. The ship, unlike the land portion, offered choices. On land, we had one guide and each day had a fixed activity. On the ship, there was a whole “adventure” staff who each day offered a range of activities at different levels. Also, being on the ship meant no more unpacking and repacking, and no more bus rides. Plus, as mentioned earlier, the ship meant pampered American tourism with just a smidgen of exotica rather than total immersion in a foreign land.

One of the few things I don't like about the way UnCruise runs their operation is that you always go back to the ship for meals. This can waste whole bunch of time. Nonetheless, we returned to the ship for lunch then it was back ashore in the afternoon for a “moderate” nature hike. Well, “hike” turned out to be too grand a word. Really, it was a gentle wildlife walk. The group meandered along, stopping frequently to look at animals. It wasn’t strenuous, but it was just what the group wanted; with the heat none of us wanted to walk very hard and there was just so much to look at - scarlet macaws, trogan, agouti, deer, iguana, long-nosed bats, hummingbirds, howler monkeys, capuchin monkeys, and more! But again, this wasn’t deserted wilderness. For most of our walk we were walking along a road rather than a trail and we had to keep ducking out of the way of cars.

Wildlife spotting at Osa Conservation area

Agouti (not my picture)

Howler monkey

Little deer (see Bergmann's Rule)

Someone else's picture of a (male) howler monkey

Emerald toucanette

Scarlet macaw

Yeah

I'll also mention that every day there were multiple activity options of various difficulty. In the past I always would have signed up for the most strenuous, but since my surgery, and with the heat (remember, it was exercising in the heat which brought on my cardiac symptoms) I opted for "moderate" on this trip. There were a couple of hikes I'm sorry I missed, but I'm just too tentative these days about over-exerting myself to go gung-ho for the hard hikes in the tropics.

By the end of the day (and after a beer at cocktail hour and wine with dinner) I was tired - could have gone to bed at 8:30! But I stayed up reading. Then I poked my head into the lounge for the evening’s talk, which was billed as being about photography but which turned out to be more about bird identification. That was a disappointment, as the guide giving the talk had been the leader of our hike where he had demonstrated a great ability to use a spotting scope with people’s cell phone cameras to get some pretty good wildlife pictures. He did seem to know about photography. At about 10 PM I gave up fighting my tiredness and went to bed.

Luis doing his trick of taking cell phone pix through a spotting scope

Capuchin

Iguana - there's no such thing as too many lizard pix

Mon 12/31

My New Year’s Eve day started once again with sunrise yoga. Then it was a slow morning. We visited the bridge where we spent a long time chatting with Sasha, the boat’s second mate. We opened the conversation by telling her that Valerie and I had met designing shipboard navigation systems and by the time we left the bridge we had heard how she met her (same sex) partner, her work history (mostly cargo and cable laying ships - she’s new to small ship tourism), discussed the history of shipboard navigation electronics, compared the bathroom break challenges of manning a bridge and teaching, and learned of the rivalry between New York Maritime Academy and the Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point. And more. While this is not atypical for a Valerie conversation, I also think manning the bridge is a lonely job without a lot of opportunities for conversation.

After leaving the bridge Valerie went to the free swim off the fantail. I meant to join her but by the time I finished shaving and brushing my teeth (my first chance to do so since I had been up and out of bed early for yoga, then straight to breakfast then the bridge) the first swim time was done, so I worked on my travel journal for a bit then caught the second swim time later in the morning. I didn’t swim for long; I actually have a fear of the water and don’t enjoy just floating around. Then I worked on my journal some more while Valerie got a massage.

In the afternoon I went ashore- this was at the Osa Conservation Area, home to Corcovado National Park. I got momentarily excited that maybe this is what the Antonio Carlos Jobim song Corcovado was named for, but eventually realized that the song was named after a different Corcovado, (and this makes obvious sense for a bossa nova) a mountain in Rio de Janiero. I went on the (once again "moderate") waterfall loop hike at Drake Bay, which was a nice outing - enough of a hike to feel like a real hike, more dense jungle looking scenery, and a nice waterfall as a destination. Yes, you could jump in. No, I didn't.

Waterfall hikers 

And then it was New Years Eve at sea! After dinner everyone gathered in the ship's lounge, which had been done up with lights and decorations. There were also some party hats - but I had brought my own (the old-fashioned cone kind, purchased at Ayers and flattened out for packing). It was a good time (have I mentioned that open bar is included on the ship?), but we adventurers are not a late night lot and by general consensus we agreed to celebrate the turning of the new year at 9 PM, after which people started to turn in. My understanding is that a few people stayed up until actual midnight, but we were not among them.

Getting ready to ring in the new year

Last sunset of 2018

The ship's crew made it festive (that's the captain in the middle)

Party in the lounge

This adorable lizard (which, unfortunately, I didn't see - someone else's picture) has nothing to do with New Years. But lizard pictures improve everything!

Can't have too many sunset pix.

Tues 1/1/19

Today was by necessity a half active, half restful day, for the afternoon was spent pier side to clear Panamanian Customs and Immigration as well as take on additional supplies and fuel. Upon awakening we found ourselves at Golfo Dulce, one of only two fjords in South America, though apparently whether it qualifies as a fjord is debatable depending upon one’s strictness of definition thereof - it is the right shape and has the right depth profile (as I’m sure all readers will already be aware, fjords are shallow at the entrance and then deeper inside), but was not formed by glacial movement. Which leaves up for debate the question, “Have you driven a fjord lately?” 

In any case, being protected waters it was dead calm - none of the rocking to which we had grown (somewhat) accustomed. We headed out by kayak to explore the extensive mangroves of the area. Once again, Valerie and I enjoyed paddling together.  Valerie sets a good even rhythmic cadence and so it’ easy for me, seated in the rearward stoker seat, to stay synced with her. We have little of the clanging paddles so common among inexperienced double paddlers. Plus, whenever she needed a break I got to get some serious paddling practice keeping u with the group while paddling solo. At one point Valerie said she wanted to be up closer to the front of the group with the guide; I impressed her by sprinting us up to the front under solo power - years of paddling muscle memory at work. 

 

I love paddling sit-on-tops! 

The mangroves were another cool experience. Different than our previous exploration (and sadly, no lizard sightings), but also really cool and alien looking formations of plants. Our paddling trip ended at a couple’s private estate (the Saladero Ecolodge), where there is a small shop and snack bar. This was the second time we unexpectedly ran across a gift shop while exploring, though neither time had it occurred to me to bring money, because, I mean, heck, why would there be anything to buy in the wilderness?!

 

There's the ship

Ashore at the ecolodge

The ship’s kitchen provides some pretty good food but occasionally wanders into odd territory in the service of novelty, such as today’s lunch of coco moco, a Hawaiian dish consisting of a burger patty topped with a fried egg over sushi rice. I took the vegetarian option, a veggie burger coco moco, though still having the fried egg garnish it was only semi-vegetarian.

After lunch we sailed for a bit towards Panama then paused to wait for a harbor pilot to take us into port. Tired from a morning of paddling, I tried to go on deck and read (too hot), then kept borderline dozing off while reading in the lounge and so I retired to our cabin for a quick nap. I awoke and looked out the window to see the unexpected sight of truck wheels. While I had slept we had docked and I found myself nearly face to face with the guys refueling the ship. Being the modern connectivity junkie that I am I realized that pier side probably meant cell phone connectivity and took the opportunity to dash off New Year’ wishes to Teddy and David as well as check the headlines (apparently Trump is currently sparring with General McChrystal, another Iraq War hero - McChrystal said Trump is immoral and Trump responded that the general has a “fat, dumb mouth” or something like that).

I went back up to the lounge to read, work on this journal and drink a somewhat well-earned beer.

The evening was spent underway, heading towards Panama. I think it was this evening that I first discovered stargazing from the fore deck. Out at sea at night it's pretty darn dark, and so when you walked out onto the dark fore deck of the ship at night the first thing that struck you is that you couldn't see a damn thing and felt like you were going to perhaps walk over the side and into the water. However, as your eyes adjusted you began to be able to see a blazing collection of starts. Sitting out on deck, with the motion of the ship and the sound of the bow crashing through the waves, looking at the stars - amazing! Also, if you looked into our bow wake you could bioluminescence - like the water was sparking as we went through it. Very cool. On that first evening there were dolphins swimming alongside the bow too - though I got only a brief glimpse then saw their bio-luminscent trails as they broke off.