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Welcome from Day 10 of our Panama Canal/Pacific Riviera cruise on the beautiful MS Norwegian Star.
Recap of previous days:
Day 5: Panama Canal transit. We spent most of the day on our balcony until the late afternoon sun drove us inside. The 'party line' is "don't see it all from one spot because there is so much to see", but we chose to miss a few things by being in one place (the new gates at the Atlantic end) rather than miss some things because we were inside moving around OR jockeying for position at the rail. It was a partly cloudy day and that allowed us to stay outside longer than if it had been baking sun the whole day. The passage was not what I expected, before I started to research - my whole life I thought the Panama Canal was something like a trench! In fact, more than half the distance is sailing across a big man-made lake (and a smaller lake)! There are three locks UP to the large lake (Gatun), a lock between (DOWN) the large and the smaller lake (Miraflores) and two locks DOWN to a bay on the Pacific. There was narration by a local expert broadcast over the navigation channel AND the bridge camera channel all day.
Day 6: Sea day, overcast all day. Knitting, reading, napping… it all becomes a blur! We ate at one of the "extra charge" restaurants, the Ginza , for nominally Asian food. The food was quite tasty but not very Asian!
Day 7: Puntarenas, Costa Rica. Mostly cloudy, again a good thing! It was quite humid and if the sun had been baking TOO, it might have impinged on enjoying the tour we took: the Bus, Boat, and Train Experience. The boat was on the Tarcoles River, in an area replete with crocodiles - which our driver fed chicken by hand. I kept my hands INSIDE the boat, thank you very much! We saw several unusual (to us, not to the Costa Ricans!) birds, such as ibis and spoonbills. After the uneventful train ride, we walked along the Paseo de Turistas (a gauntlet of shopping booths) and the street beyond it, until we saw an open-air dining room with sign for WiFi. We had a nice "tipical" lunch of seabass and lomo (beef) and made a little contact with the world outside. We went back to the ship with a little time to spare as it had gotten hotter and the humidity was oppressive. Between the food we had eaten and the heat, we napped (in the air-conditioned comfort of our stateroom) right through dinner and turned down "turn down" by our steward - so no towel animal tonight!
Day 8: Sea day. Mostly sunny, but moderate temperatures outside, in the low 80's. I finally made it to the Knitting and Crocheting Social Hour at 9:30am. Several attendees were fascinated with the two coasters I had finished on the cruise, a lizard and a bighorn sheep in the technique called double knitting which produces two layers of fabric with positive/negative images. R amused himself at a seminar on self-hypnosis! Lunch outside at "The Grill". After lunch I finished another coaster; each one is less imperfect, but I can see the mistakes! Oh well, they are still useful as coasters!
Day 9: Puerto Chiapas (Puerto Madero on some maps), the nearby city of Tapachula, and the archaeological site of Izapa. We signed up for the earlier tour including the ruins at Izapa and the Archaeological Museum in Tapachula. The ruins get mixed reviews because they are not impressive like the Mexican pyramids or Machu Picchu (hey, that's why they're called RUINS!), and the museum where most of the carvings and all of the "small goods" like pottery are displayed was very nice. It was NOT overcast today, which proved how fortunate we HAVE been at the other ports and the first half of the Panama transit - it was EXTREMELY humid and hot! which I really expected at least through day 10 at Huatulco. At the ruins they had large "golf" umbrellas for free-loan (probably got tired of carrying turistas out on stretchers!), and I had my own light tan umbrella thanks to an on-line review by someone who *didn't* have one and wished he had. We got back to the port/souvenir market with plenty of time to shop, and R was a good sport about letting me browse a couple booths, but the sweat was running off both of us so we soon went back to the ship for a quick burger at The Grill - which happens to be outside on Deck 12! I apparently had not kept my hydration up enough because after lunch back in reasonable temperatures of the room, I became hot-and-cold and achy and listless. I dragged myself to dinner of salad and onion soup, and drank glass after glass of cool water, and am now (9pm as I write) feeling much better.
Day 10: The forecast was much as yesterday: no rain and 97F, but there is a nice breeze off the ocean so it is not as oppressive as yesterday (of course it is only 11am!). We spent the morning on a scenic drive and city (really a cluster of named neighborhoods, it seems) tour. We thought there would be a cybercafé (or cyber taqueria) near to the ship (at Marina Santa Cruz) - but they acted as if no one had ever asked for such a thing! So when the nice young lady at a travel agency couldn't find out about a cyber-anything, she volunteered to let us log on off her office's wifi, which reaches outside where there is a nice (small) patio and filtered shade.
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