Day 9 – Puntarenas, Costa Rica – October 3

Pura Vida!!  That’s how the Costa Rican’s greet each other!  Pure Life!  Such a positive greeting.  The men are called “Ticos” and the women are “Ticas”.  They have no Army and don’t really care for their woman president.  Nicaragua continues to threaten them and they are not very comfortable about that.  The Costa Rican’s are quite dedicated to a “green” lifestyle and are very proud of all their national parks.

As of 9pm this evening we have sailed 2951 nautical miles from San Francisco and have 510 nautical miles till we reach the Panama Canal on Saturday.  We will be transiting the canal beginning at 5am and should be on the Caribbean side by 4 pm in the afternoon.  For anyone that is interested the Panama Canal Authority has live webcams that you can watch and maybe see our ship!  You’ll have to get up early, though, since 5am our time will be 3am Pacific and 6am Eastern.  Del, I don’t know what time it will be in New Zealand!!

Today was my first day off the ship since San Francisco and it was very enjoyable!  We had a tour booked to go to the rain forest and it did not disappoint.  We had a large group of us go:  Commodore and I, Michele and Tom, Betty and Don, Molly and Jim, Becky and Al, Barb and Joe, Gloria and Ed, Linda and George and Lee Ann and Patrick!   We had a bus ride for about 90 minutes and entered a pristine rain forest  location.  Pretty quickly we were boarded onto open air trams that slowly took us through the different levels of the rain forest!  We saw waterfalls, monkeys, macaws and one toucan!  It’s pretty amazing.  That ride took about an hour and then we were taken to a typical lunch with chicken, rice, beans, vegetables and plantains.  Once lunch was finished we were again broken into groups for a “nature walk” to the “serpentarium”.  About the time we got to the snakes the skies opened up and DUMPED torrential rain!  I have never been in such a downpour!  Well, needless to say, that ended our ramble in the woods and back to the “base camp” we went.  Everyone was drenched!  The gift shop made a few bucks by selling lots of dry T-shirts!!!

We got back to the ship about 3pm and agreed that we’d had a great day.  Our guide was very warm and informative and gave us a great overview of his country.

Tomorrow is another sea day and after two days of touring most are looking forward to a quiet time.

Just so you don’t think I have forgotten……I did go to trivia when I got back this afternoon and Les and I were a piddly team of two…….that came in first!  Again we shared first and lost the tiebreaker but a first is a first!  Yeehaa!

All for now.  We lose another hour tonight!

Looked all day for Dan to wish him a HAPPY BIRTHDAY but he eluded me!!  Stinker!

XOXOXOXO

M