Today I found myself discovering bits of spring: the orange glow of flowering quince, yellow daffodils, fuchsia red bud trees, white narcissus, and a variety of reds, whites, and pinks covering the camellias which have burst into bloom with the cessation of freezing nights.
After the hurly burly of unpacking, laundry, and ironing, I have spent the afternoon reminiscing about our trip and enjoying the pictures we took.
After we arrived in Fort Lauderdale, we found an Italian restaurant just around the corner from our hotel where we watched the cooks toss the dough into the air as they shaped it for some really delicious fire pit pizza. We chose a simple cheese, basil, marinara pizza and we were pleased with the results. We walked back to the hotel enjoying the warmth of the early evening air and rested from our long drive down Florida.
Friday dawned cloudy in Ft. Lauderdale with cooler than usual temperatures. We took the hotel shuttle to the Port, went through the arduous immigration, security, and boarding procedure. There was one other ship loading at the same time headed to the Eastern Caribbean. One o'clock found us getting our obligatory boarding picture taken and we were on board. Our stateroom was ready, so we dumped our carryon, stashed our valuables in the safe and headed to the Lido deck for lunch. We were pleased with our room which was on the sixth floor and had a balcony on the starboard side. We were near the front of the ship which would make getting to a good observation point for the Canal easy.
Before we set sail at five, we unpacked and had our safety briefing. Our lifeboat was #1 on the starboard side. Under heavily overcast skies we watched Ft. Lauderdale and Miami slip away into the horizon. We had fairly rough seas until well into dinner. We dined in the Vista Dining room on the second deck where we encountered many of the same people working that had been with us in Alaska last summer. We had opted for open seating, so each evening we had new people to eat with. The first night we had a couple from Missouri (Tom and Sharon) one from Wyoming(Ken, a rancher and Tatiana, from Ukraine). The food was delicious (goat cheese and tomato tart, Caesar Salad, prime rib with veggies, and banana-coconut trifle for me; tart, Parmesan veal with artichoke ragout, polenta, and red velvet cake for Klep) and the conversation lively. Entertainment was short since the singers and dancers had just boarded that afternoon. We were happy to forgo any other amusement and were tucked in before eleven.We awoke to the steward delivering our breakfast at eight. We ate on the balcony as we watched Half Moon Cay get closer and closer until the anchors were lowered and the tenders began taking people to the island. The Niew Amsterdam, another Holland America ship shared the island with those of us from the Zuiderdam. The water was beautiful and we knew, even though the clouds were keeping the temperature down that we would have a lovely day on land. Soon parasailers were drifting through the sky over the beach and water with the light wind moving them about.
After our leisurely breakfast, we took the tender to the island, took off our shoes, and waded in the beautiful water. The water, a deep aquamarine, was shallow for at least 200 feet from the beach with the water cool but not cold. The beaches were already lined with sunbathers soaking up the warmth. We took a nature walk through lush foliage, marveling at the bright flowers. We saw one of the roosters as we headed to the barbecue where we ate lightly, already anticipating afternoon tea. We looked through the offerings at the straw market and decided to defer shopping for my hat until Aruba. I was in no danger from the sun. In fact, we were rained on as we returned to the ship and had an adventurous time moving from the tender to ship with the rough seas. We enjoyed tea, sailed away from Half Moon Cay, and headed south as we enjoyed dinner with a couple from Houston.Sunday morning we slipped past Cuba just about good light. We could see the mountains outlined on the horizon. We attended protestant service in a standing room only crowd followed by a kitchen tour. It takes a well equipped kitchen to feed nearly two thousand people three meals a day! Each cruise the ship takes on 18,000 lbs. of meat and 2500 lbs. of sugar. We lunched in the Vista and enjoy Dutch high tea later in the afternoon. Sunday night was the first formal night aboard. We went to dinner late since we had indulged at tea.
Monday morning we began Valentine's Day watching a lovely sun rise as we headed toward Aruba. We attended a Secrets of Sodoku class and listened to a talk on the history and sights of Aruba and Curacao. The gangplank was down shortly after noon and we were welcomed to the Island of Aruba. We had booked a shore excursion which
started at a butterfly farm where the people actually raise endangered butterflies from other places. They are kept inside a screened area and they are cared for from the pupae stage, cocoon stage, and then the adult stage. A very pregnant young woman gave us an excellent talk. We enjoyed watching them dart around and land on us. The most beautiful one was a large brilliantly blue one, but they were all beautiful with some shades of red and orange.
Our next stop was an aloe plantation and manufacturing place. We passed the old windmill, moved from Holland to Aruba in 1960. Unfortunately the aloe workers were not working at the factory since they had no orders for that day. We watched a demonstration on how to get the good part out of the aloe. This was followed by a
fairly long bus ride to the other side of the island where we found a rocky coast with waves crashing into the coast. The larger natural bridge at this place had caved in, but smaller ones had formed. With the bus ride we were able to see how most Arubans lived which was in sharp contrast to the large hotels near the wide white beaches in the tourist area.We found me a hat. Although we had applied sun screen lavishly, there was little need for it since we had little sun in Aruba. We decided that we could forgo the sun screen at the next stop.
After a lovely Valentine's dinner with Bill and Judda from Ontario Canada, we went to date night movie in the Vista Lounge. The crew had difficulty with the movie about half way through, so my boshee and I called it a night after listening to a swing group for awhile.
We arrived early in Willemstad, Curacao which is one of the oldest settlements in the Caribbean. the name means heart in Portuguese and it is a sweet place! Easing into port I felt as though it were a movie set or a theme park with all its multicolored buildings built right up to the water's edge. A pontoon bridge connects the two sides of the harbor, swinging open when ships enter or exit the port. Ahead of us we could see the soaring Queen Julliana Bride crossing the channel high above the water.Our "Fascinating Curacao" shore excursion left early. Our guide told us that Curacao has four major industries: Oil, dry dock (largest in the Caribbean), container harbor, and tourism. It is only 42 miles off the coast of Venezuela. After traveling over the highway and winding through the streets passing the ubiquitous McDonalds and Kentucky Fried Chicken, we arrived at the Bloemhof Estate with its plantation house, gallery, and Roman bathhouse. This was actually a water plantation. They caught water, boiled it, and sold it in the city. Our next major stop was Dinah Veeris Botanic and Historic garden. We were shown over 300 herb species including trees. It was a lovely, serene place. We saw the Calabash tree and learned that the Calabash is used for a lot more than just maracas. The larger fruit are dried, but open and used for bowls. Calabash is used in shampoo and for other uses. We learned about a plant used for laxatives and other myriad cures. The stoki plant was once sold in the markets to be used like toothbrushes.
Part of the garden had different types of cottages which were built on the island, one from corn stalks, one from sticks and mud, another from old oil drums.
The tales and traditions of the island shared with us by our guide helped the plants come alive for us.
After the gardens, we finished our tour of the multicolored island. Our guide shared with us that at one time the governor decreed that all buildings would be white. He found, however, that the white buildings reflected so much light that they made his migraines worse. He then decreed that they should be painted in the lovely pastels that we find today. It is also strongly believed that he had bought stock in a paint company.
A ferry crosses the channel. We took it from the ship to the shops. We spent the afternoon browsing through shops along the streets. Along the water we found the fresh market where farmers and fishermen from Venezuela bring in their boats and sell their vegetables and fish in the open air. We walked back across the channel to the ship on the pontoon bridge, feeling a slight sway as we crossed. Everyone was aboard by 4:30 and we set sail soon after.
Leaving Curacao we headed on a north-westerly course and passed between
Aruba and the Paraguayan Peninsula. Early the next morning we switched course and headed south-westerly toward the Panama Canal. We enjoyed The Social Network in the screening room for entertainment.
We entertained ourselves on Wednesday at sea with two Panama Canal presentations, a movie in the screening room (Morning Glory starring Harrison Ford), trivia, walks around the deck, reading on the verandah, and meals.It was still dark as we approached the canal. In the breakwaters we could see the lights on the pilot boats and on shore. We were easing toward the first lock by six and we joined the group on the bow of our deck. At seven we were at the first lock
on the Atlantic side which has three. One by one we watched the water rise so that we could move into the next level. By nine we had risen 85 feet into Gatun Lake which was the largest
manmade lake in the world when it was flooded in 1914. We were both glad that we had read David McCollough's book The Path Between the Seas. We had a much greater appreciation about what an engineering fete this "Big Ditch" was.
At nine about three hundred of us boarded buses at Gatun Lake, formed by the damming of the Charges River, that would take us to a ferry for the rest of the way through the canal. On the bus we passed an old cannon in the jungle, grey herons, white egrets, a large affluent Arab settlement complete with mosque, colorful flowers, lush green jungle, teak plantations, bananas, palm trees, mansions, and some poor high rises with peeling paint and laundry drying on the verandahs.
It was almost noon when we boarded the ferry on the Panama Canal again to traverse the last three locks down to the Pacific. We passed between Gold Hill and Contractor's Hill and the Continental Divide. We went under the Centennial Bridge and into the Pedro Miguel Locks. It cost our ferry $1,800 to make the trip. The Zuiderdam had to pay over $200,000.
A lunch including local pineapple was served on board the ferry. About three we were through the Miraflores locks and were in Panama City with its high rises and showy architecture. We saw Donald Trump's museum and a Frank Gehry designed museum being constructed which was quite interesting.
After we left the ferry, we rode through the streets of the former American area, alongside part of the Canal, then through the jungle on a rather good, new road, and to the free port of Colon (very rundown; very poor) where we rejoined our ship in time to set sail. It had been a long day. I fell into bed and Klep found dinner.
The Panama Canal had been my main motivation for taking this tour although Klep thinks I go on cruises primarily for the food. Costa Rica, therefore, was an unexpected surprise. The day dawned with a beautiful deep blue sky with floating white clouds. We set out on our daily excursion early and traveled through Puerto Limon (another poor city) to board the train for a tour of the eastern side of Costa Rica. The train could have been straight out of an old western movie. We swayed along through lush vegetation, banana farms and the coastline of the Caribbean sea on one side. We passed little villages (school, church, soccer field, store, bar) and little shacks on stilts out in the middle of the jungle with lots of little children waving at the train and a dog in the yard. We passed chocolate trees, sloths hanging from the telephone wires, beautiful birds, and monkeys in the train. When the train engineer saw something interesting, he would stop the train so that we could all see it.
At one time this train was used to get across the country, but it isn't any longer because of damage to the track from an earthquake.
After we got back to our bus, we went to a canal where we were able to see the green lizard that walks on water, more sloths, more birds, more monkeys, iguanas, herons, and egrets. We also got to smell the blooms that are harvested to make Chanel no. 5.
An island band entertained us with music while we had local fruit and drinks before moving on to the Banana Plantation where we got a good view of the harvesting and packing of bananas for export.
This Del Monte plant processes about 200,000 pounds of bananas a day. Since Costa Rica is educating their kids, they are now having to open their borders to get workers to do the bananas. Most are coming from Nicaragua.Nearing the cruise ship, our tour bus blew a tire, but we made it safely back. We did a whirlwind shopping trip to pick up some postcards, Costa Rican coffee and some trinkets for the grandgirls since this was our last port of call. The weather had been perfect. We only wished that we had more days in Costa Rica so that we could get into the mountains and across to the Pacific side.
Two lovely days at sea filled with movies, shows (including a wonderful steel drum band and the original Christine from Phantom of the Opera), Captain's brunch, activities, meals, naps, reading brought us back to the United States. We opted to leave the ship in the last group which gave us time for a leisurely Dutch breakfast before we breezed through customs, grabbed a taxi and found our car at the Crowne Plaza parking garage. Our trip home was uneventful which is always a blessing.
We met Canadians from Prince Edward Island, Ontario, Manitoba, and Alberta. We met people from England and Scotland. From the states we met folks from Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Tennessee, Missouri, Wyoming, California, Oregon, and Texas. The one thing we all had in common was that we were glad to get away from cold weather!
