Our Costa Rica visit started early, for us, with a walk from the ship to the actual entry to the port where we found our guide and driver. Two sisters from Canada joined us. After an exceedingly bumpy ride we arrived at the Veragua Rainforest. We were the first group there and didn't see anyone else until we were leaving. Eric guided us down to the tram, or gondola, to the bottom which was extremely hot and humid!! Emphasis on the extremely. From there we traversed further down to a beautiful river and waterfall. Eric told us the monkeys hadn't been seen in about a month bc of their food search and we were not able to find any sloths.
Back to the van and on to the canal boat. Our guide was Randy Jackson and he was terrific. He made sure we saw howler monkeys, (see photo above), several birds, eagle eyed Dalna found a sloth coming down a tree for her weekly poo, and a baby cayman. Having only 5 of us was great.
Our adorable guide, Natalie, graduates in May with a bachelor degree in English translation. Her father is a tour guide so she learned English early. She is so proud of Costs Rica with its bio-diversity, its protection of all flora and fauna, its ecological sensitivity even though you are going through, what looks like to us, very poor and run-down neighborhoods.
The heat and humidity did us in and, after another superb really late lunch, Dalna and I were in for the rest on the day. Not wasted though - we watched the movie Barbie. Worth every single accolade in my opinion.
Today is Panama Canal Day. I was up bright and early to see us approaching the lock. Because of the drought in Panama they are not allowing as many ships to go through. To say we "inched" into the lock is an understatement. This is a very slow process. There are 3 locks that raise you up a total of 84 feet. You have to wait until the ship going the opposite way is lowered with that ship's water coming into your lock. After the 3 locks the ship crosses the man made Lake Gaton, to reach the locks to carry the ship down to the Pacific side. To give you an idea of the process we started at 8am. It is now 4:10pm and we are just now coming into the third lock on the Pacific side. I would love to say I watched the whole process but I'm still not acclimated to the heat.
Panama Canal facts:
Was first suggested in 1534 by the Spanish
1689 Scots Darrien Scheme
1707 England joined the Scots
1855 Panama Railway constructed to take goods across
1879 French said we'll do it as same as the Suez (ooops). The Suez was a flat trench. 22,000 die, finances collapse, government fails.
1890's. The US shows interest
1901 Teddy Roosevelt becomes President and is interested in a strong Navy and a global presence
1903 US backs the Panama Revolution. When Panama gains its Independence from Columbia, for 10 million dollars, the US got control of the 5 mile wide Canal Zone.
1903 construction began with 50,000 workers. 10%US. US Army Engineers were in charge. They cut through 9 miles of high ground and flooded Gaton Lake. It was finished early at a cost of $352 millions, worth 5 billion today. And"only" 5600 died.
Opened August 15, 1915.
I wish I could do this on my computer so I could upload more photos but the computer and the internet seem to have a problem connecting.
I am loading some Facebook Live videos and will post some photos on FB.
I'll try more now but I hope you'll be patient with me as I navigate a blog, a ship and new countries.
Loving your posts and pictures! However, the heat sounds very uncomfortable. It is cold and
snowy in Columbus !
you are doing great! Keep the commentary coming. Costa Rica is such a fascinating place. Most all their tour people are college educated. They have a lot of budget flexibility (no Dept of Defense) and are still working on getting the tourism income spread out to the people.