Dean & Ginny's excellent adventures...  Main Adventure Page

Panama Cruise--2012: << Part 1  << Part 2   Part 3  Part 4 >> Part 5 >> Part 6 >> Part 7 >> Part 8 >> 
Part 9 >> Part 10 >> Part 11 >> Part 12 >>

 

There were lots of birds, like this brown booby. >>

 

The day after our canal passage, we did a scenic cruise of Golfo Dulce (Sweet Gulf), a picturesque bay. We did our slow loop into the bay, but it was foggy and rainy, plus the ship did not go very close to the shore. So the scenery was muted. Yes, there was jungle and we could see some remote resorts and our travel guide had a running commentary, but most of our photos were unremarkable.

 

 

And so we make our only stop in Costa Rica: Puerto Caldera. We signed up for a shore excursion for a tram & zipline tour. 

   

 

We're to meet our group at 6:20am, so we had an early breakfast and watched a brief sunrise before the clouds closed in. Our flags from left to right are: Holland America, yellow fever (we are healthy), Netherlands (Holland), and Costa Rica.

  

Our guide Roi provided the introduction and showed us a video on the hour-long bus ride to the rain forest. And as you can see through the bus window as we entered the park, it was raining. Roi told us that whether we wore rain gear or not, that we'd be thoroughly wet by the time we were through, so we embraced the rain as part of the experience.

 

Our gear was laid out for us.

 

Roi explains that we are to sit down in the harness and how the double pulley system provides extra security.

The tram is like a ski lift and we will ride it to the top of the mountain. As each car comes around, the attendants dump the rain puddles in the roof and then they wiped off the seats with a towel. There are eight people in each tram.

Roi pointed out some of the plants with good details and at one point we saw a troop of white-faced capuchin monkeys not far away from the tram, but they moved so quickly and in the midst of the trees that we did not get a good photo.

We hear water running the whole way up to the top of the hill. In some places we could see through the jungle to see the waterfalls. 

There is a guide at each stop to hook us onto the cables. There were ten zip lines in all and the longest one was over 1000' long. Some of the lines had more slope than others. In the photo below, I had stopped before I reached the platform, so I was pulling myself hand-over-hand up to get there. Sometimes the next zip line left from the same platform where we had just arrived, others zip lines were a walk through the woods. After one of these small hikes, a Toucan lit in a nearby tree while we waited for the guide to arrive. It was a nice moment. 

 

We loved the adventure of the zip lines and we received the full experience because rains fell the whole time we were zipping down the mountain and, as predicted, we were thoroughly soaked. After we were done with the zip lines, Roi walked us through the herb and edible garden.

A sealing wax palm with its red stems reminded us of the Singapore Botanical Gardens where we saw it earlier this year.
A little stream through the garden is flowing quite vigorously because of the rain, which had stopped by now. 

Did you know that ants can't read? They were crossing the sidewalk in a different spot--not the one marked for them.
We loved the iridescent beetle on the heleconia flower.

They served us a colorful lunch. The tables were all adorned with models of the traditional oxen carts.

After lunch we continued to wander around the area and Dean decided to record some of these beautiful hand-painted tiles that were part of the table tops.

 

Then is was time to board our bus and head back to the ship. All in all, an interesting adventure, but we really needed that hot shower and dry clothes when we got back to our room.

On to Mexico... >>

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