The Costa Rica Theme Park, But Nice

We sailed out of the beautiful port of Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala the day before yesterday and along San Salvador and Nicaragua yesterday, arriving at Puerto Caldera, Costa Rica early this morning. This is one of the most stable democracies in the Americas—think about that one a moment, will ya—and has become very popular as an eco-tourism destination. That means that most of folks from the USA come here to take very scary gondolas over tropical rain swollen rivers amidst dark green volcanic mountains (if they don’t do the much more scary adjacent zip line descent which seemed to be generating very loud screaming this morning), or observe carefully cultivated “wild” flowers and beautiful foliage along carefully prepared paths after driving modest distances along scenic roads and across rustic one-lane bridges. The line handlers at the Puerto Caldera, the primary Pacific container port where a Doll banana boat was being loaded (really) were carefully sweeping the dock for our arrival this morning. The primary cruise port is a little West of here up the coast at Puntarenas. So we were spared the stalls full of imported arts and crafts and perhaps the sight of another but much bigger big white shoebox by docking here.

But today’s short visit to the Costa Rica rain forest today was very nice, including the buffet lunch of local goodies, fresh corn tortillas, and wonderful fried plantains. Also the Costa Rican “Imperial” beer. Now that I think of it, especially that. I don’t recommend a full vacation as they have now developed this place so well that now it seems the entire country has become a rain forest theme park. But nice.

My camera seems to be working ok. Vodka as well as identifying a bad battery seems to have done the trick. That is, the expensive vodka on the camera’s battery contacts worked well along with taking it internally to help me to diagnose the constant low battery indication I was getting with freshly charged AA cells. We sail in a few minutes for Manta, Ecuador after another very enjoyable sea day. The new cruisers are now being called to “muster” for the life boat drill. I’m exempt as having supposedly done it last week when I got on. I will post this blog now and walk up and back in front of all the new people who in their life vests will look like Teletubbies.

Black Sand and The White Rabbit

The otherwise as close to perfect shipboard service has been marred by the Tour Desk staff. The two assistants—two nice on the eyes young ladies, one each from Russia and Switzerland–add up to the IQ of paint but make up for that by being completely ignorant of the ports and also a bit arrogant. But the Tour Desk Manager, a 7 foot tall guy from Brazil who works out a lot, responds to all questions by immediately looking at his watch, grabbing a random clipboard, and running away into his office and abruptly closing the door in the questioners’ faces. So help me, I believe I hear him mumbling each time, “I’m late, I’m late, for a very important date” as he descends into this rabbit hole. From what I could tell, all three of them said to some guests that the port town in Guatemala was dangerous and for “no interest” but secretly cancelled the only tour that I was interested in, an exploration of a number of sights on the Pacific side of the country including the colonial town of Antigua, the 16^th Century “capital of the New World.” Last evening I chatted with at least a half dozen people who would have taken that tour had we known it was in jeopardy. No big deal, I guess, since I have almost a month to go on this odyssey and have booked many hundreds of dollars of tours. (They are not cheap.)

We arrived at Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala early yesterday, the largest Pacific port in the country but oddly enough surrounded by thick forest with volcanoes towering the skyline. Despite the multi-accented warnings of the tour staff, what I did end up doing yesterday was hiring a van, driver, and guide at the pier with another guest and visit the nearby town of San Jose, the town for which we were warned. Poo, poo’ing, is one thing, but we took no watches and had only a few bills along rather than billfolds. The town turned out to be clean, safe, and seemingly quite prosperous. Shops on the main (but unpaved) street abounded, many restaurants were being set up, and the local fish and produce market was huge, clean, and really fun to wonder in. The guide, Carlos, spoke perfect American English. A single parent of an 8 and 7 year old and fisherman at night, he had spent his single days in Washington Heights in New York City where he sold real estate part time in the evenings but worked full time from 4 in the mornings in a bagel bakery. (I told him he didn’t look Jewish. He looked at me and uncharacteristically didn’t say anything.) San Jose had an endless black sand beach. We (the other guest, me, and Carlos) wandered quite a distance as we watched women with fruit on their heads provide snacks to the early beach goers as the many beach side restaurants were not quite set up for the day’s business.

As yesterday’s was the last port day for the 1^st segment of the cruise, many of the guests will be leaving tomorrow in Costa Rica. This usually brings out the openness of expression among those leaving that includes my finding folks who haven’t said even “hi” beginning to chat amicably with me. One guy was sitting at the early “coffee corner” in the Observation Lounge yesterday at 6:15 am (we had switched to Central Standard from CDT overnight—so I am not back on the same time as Boulder for the next few days). This guy invited me to sit with him to enjoy my lactose free chocolate croissant and fruit Danishes. I asked him how he was doing. This was a serious mistake as he said he was miserable with a bad cold and was about to write the US Government about how the ship gave it to him by not sanitizing itself (!) since there was an epidemic onboard. I told him that he was only the 2^nd guests I had met in 10 days who wasn’t feeling good (well, except for the elderly gentleman who had a heart attack and passed away in front of La Terrazza on the 2^nd sea day on the cruise, but that’s another story). The other guest with a cold, a former executive with the parent company of the Henderson Mine that I had done so much work for and with whom I had a pleasant conversation about Haulage in the hallway, had been clearly exposed before he got onboard. So I mentioned to the guy at coffee that perhaps he should blame instead the person who probably sneezed on time on the plane to LA. He stormed away, saying that he was going to leave the ship “at the next port”. The coffee attendant and others in the lounge all made a sigh of relief. Later in the day I met a couple who told me that had chatted with a “guy who is going to sue the captain for making him sick but was ‘leaving the ship’”. I hope he really is leaving.

My other fun conversation yesterday was with a somewhat older (than me) couple who I had not talked to before. They asked me if I had been to Guatemala before. When I said I had—but only to the Mayan ruins at Tikal in the NE of the country—they asked if I travel a lot. I said I had been to 116 countries so far. The woman said, “We have been to 41, but that’s enough.” I asked how she knew that the potential 42^nd might not be even better than any so far. Her spouse started to attempt to say something, but she cut him off. So, the cruise continues….

I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s visit to Costa Rica. I’ve booked the “in-transit” tour (that is, for those of us who are continuing to the next cruise) to the rain forest where a gondola ride above the canopy and “a Costa Rican buffet lunch” are included. The latter should be nice as an alternative to the super but now quite familiar shipboard dining, and the former is a welcome alternative to the now popular rain forest cable slide. I don’t do cable slides, and some of you know an occasional misgiving regarding even gondolas and possibly local buffets, but it should be fun to see Costa Rica. All the ports (and countries) from now on on this cruise are new for me.

By the way, all the guests who took the $600 day trip via “single engine charted planes” to Honduras yesterday (to see the Copan ruins) came back ok, albeit a little green from the convection. When I asked them how were the ruins, the answer was to a person, “The flight was very bumpy.”

Regards from off the coasts of San Salvador and Nicaragua, 12 43N, 18 14W.

Leaving Mexico or Raining Parros y Gatos

After Cabo, the Silver Shadow headed south and east to Night of the Iguana site, Puerto Vallarta, lovely quaint movie set like Zihuatanejo, and today in big city Acapulco. We sail in 90 minutes from now at 7 pm in the tropical thunderstorm which has managed to increase the humidity to about 112% (according to the automated ship’s system. Perhaps that’s not correct, but it’s mighty humid). A brief summary of the Mexican ports about Cabo follows:

We docked at Puerto Vallarta within easy walking distance to a Sam’s Club and WalMart. The sight from the ship was therefore of the three pirate enterprises in close proximity. The greeter at Wall-Mart did not say “Aaargh” even though Talk Like A Pirate Day was only last week. The guys on the “authentic pirate ship” were speaking Spanish; so I don’t know what they were saying. I bought batteries and retired back to the ship as I had been to PV long ago, and it wasn’t any better for the time past as I am. Relaxed and finished another book. Zihuatanejo was another matter. The anchorage was most lovely (no picture above since it looked a lot like any other tropical paradise. Write me for a pix if you don’t know what they look like.) I took a tour entitled, “Countryside”, visiting a “coconut farm” where a guy whacked coconuts upon the tour guide’s count of uno, dos, tres. He (the guide and the whacker) did that a number of times until all of us drifted away, mostly to get distant from the half coconut labeled Tips. Then we went to “an authentic fishing village” where we couldn’t see the water for the hundreds of empty tables set up for the tourists, of which our minibus was it. A few of us walked some distance up the road to what turned out to be a very nice little town. It really was a real fishing village, but all the women of town were busy circling the remainder of us offering various trinkets. Came back via a nice beach, actually a pleasant tour. Went back into Zihua after lunch and had a Dos Equis with a cardiologist and nursing professor wife from the ship. Pool barbeque for dinner was best so far on Silversea as we sailed very slowly along the Central Mexican coastline.

Today was a full day in Acapulco. I woke up rested and remarkably ambitious to beg a last minute ticket for the LEGENDARY ACAPULCO 4 hour tour from the ship. I will never get the $78 and 4 hours of my life back, but did see the world-famous cliff divers, the famous hotel that “all the movie stars have stayed at” (apparently while they were being filmed), and took the obligatory picture of the ship in the harbor. I was trying to get a picture of the pink pyramidal Princess Hotel made famous in the film “10”, the somewhat more risqué retelling of the much better Somerset Maughn, Of Human Bondage. The guide started with a long lecture on the importance of tipping in the economy of Mexico, before we even pulled out of the parking space on the dock, and then proceeded to point out every McDonalds, Starbucks, and Planet Hollywood. Then the tour and traffic get worse. The view from the gigantic cross on the hillside was nice, and it was nice to see the cliff divers even if they mostly just stood around. Most of us got lots of pictures of where they had been before they would dive without warning every 5 minutes or so. We did see them up close when THEY explained to us in person the importance of tips in the Mexican economy. I got back to the ship in time for a wonderful lunch of calamari and Pinot Grigio and then the rains came.

Beginning to find friends onboard to dine with, all of whom are leaving in Costa Rica it seems. (Story of my life.) Oh well, I’ll always have the pool barbeque and earlier the dinner with a new acquaintance a couple of nights ago in The Champagne Room. This is the only cost extra facility, a 6 table private dining room with a dedicated chef and very expensive wine. There were no other guests there, just me and him plus a head waiter, a waitress, a sommelier (to advise on choosing the most expensive wine, of course), and a busboy. My benefactor is traveling all the way from LA back to LA but his girlfriend isn't joining him until somewhere along the way. He eats almost every night by himself in the Champagne Room he said. As F. Scott Fitzgerald said, the very very rich are not like you or I. So far, that evening and an anti-Semitic crack by a little old lady have added some spice to the trip.

A sea day awaits tomorrow and then a stop in Guatemala at a port where the trip excursion brochure advises that it is not recommended to visit town. All the tours are long full day excursions. The “Active Volcano Climbing” offering seems fraught with weather vagaries. Among the other choices is the 9 hour trip to Copan, “The Paris of Mayan Ruins”. Unfortunately, this trip costs $595 and involves chartered private small single engine planes to a grass strip at the Eastern border of Guatemala, a four wheel drive well into Honduras and most scary of all, “A lunch in a local restaurant.” I guess the $595 saved will go towards my lost $78 from today.

More from Central America as we sail east and set the clocks back.

More Pelicans than Tourists

Spent the morning in Cabo San Lucas, the first stop after two days at sea from Los Angeles. There are no tourists here, the worst season “ever” according to a young local tour boat, fishing guide, cable TV, bartender, phone card, 28 year old entrepreneur who was sitting on a bench on the dock. I felt sorry for the locals and got another cruise passengers to join me and a dance host from the ship on a local boat ride in the bay where the Pacific meets the Sea of Cortez. We circled the calendar picture Cabo arch where the Sea of Cortez meets the Pacific, lots of pelicans, and a bunch of sea lions doing very little. The boat ride was a great bargain at $11 per person. I'm sure the pay for the two glass bottom boat crew members, the hawker, and the fuel were not covered by our fares. I took the first tender back to the ship where a Filipino bar steward poorly disguised as a Mexican circumambulated the pool area making margaritas, but there were very few takers as most of the passengers were doing a very fine imitation of the sea lions. The few guests who were awake were complaining about the heat. After all summer in cold and wet Alaska, the crew members are not being very sympathetic. We will dock at Puerto Vallarta tomorrow, an overnight stay before heading down the coast of Mexico to Zihuatanjo and Acapulco along the ridiculously named Mexican Riviera. Cruise most be going well. I’ve been saying to myself, “Oh no. Only 35 days left.” Maybe it was the lactose free crème bulee yesterday.

 

 

The Ship's Newsletter Says "The Journey Begins"

It’s 3 pm. I’m sitting in my cabin (we call it a “suite”) trying to keep awake until tea time. Sat outside since my two breakfasts reading. 1^st was lactose free chocolate and raspberry pastries made by the pastry chef Ann Marie Milk (!) who was on my last cruise last February in Asia. She made me a dairy free chocolate soufflé last night. The 2^nd breakfast was a light repast of herring and bacon. (Ya gotta have enough salt when on the sea to ward off scurvy or is it rickets?) I read the first half of Last night at the Lobster, had lunch, and just finished the book. I really enjoyed it once I got into it. The author, Stewart O’Nan, thanked his family in for “putting up with a year of Red Lobster talk”. I guess the family of a professional author has to put up with a lot.

 

Sail out yesterday evening from Los Angeles was fun. A large container ship appeared to be coming right at us as we exited the sprawling Los Angeles/Long Beach complex, the brochure says it is the busiest commercial port in the USA. A seafood restaurant on the ship channel bleared a greeting from their PA system wishing us a bon voyage message, or maybe it was the theme from the Titanic. It was hard to tell, but the LA Port Police onboard waved their machine guns at them. The Brits onboard ran up and back pointing out what they believed was the Queen Mary. They actually were looking at an abandoned fish processing plant. But with big smoke stacks.

 

Ship at 250 guests and 350+ crew is kind of empty except for an army (or is it navy) of bar attendants who prowl the ship offering “drink, sir?” incessantly. I believe there is one assigned to look under toilet stall doors to ensure that nobody is thirsty. So far there are no people on this segment who look like particularly good companions, but it’s early in the trip. I suspect the Mexican itinerary does not get particularly interesting folks—some are signing up for a “walking tour of Cabo San Lucas” or “Swimming with THE dolphins.”, but the next segment in Ecuador, Peru, and Chile should have a more interesting group I’m sure. Today is the 1^st formal night, and I’ve been invited to dine with the Captain. This is the senior captain on Silversea. He is very stern Sicilian who brooks no informality—although about 10 years younger than I am seems like he’s older and wiser—but who on the last time I sailed with him started to call me professori and invited me to join him on the bridge as we sailed into Venice. I guess it’s a big deal to be one of the 5 invited to his table on the 1^st formal night even if, as the say, I have to eat with the staff. OK, as long as I don’t have to drink any grappa and I can put up with the others asking questions such as, “Does the ship make its own electricity?” I remember some years ago I was invited to join a soon to retire captain for dinner. He spent the entire evening explaining the Italian retirement tax laws to the 6 of us who slowly nodded and nodded off. I guess that was on his mind. We drank a lot of wine.

 

Another day at sea tomorrow and then a half day in Cabo San Lucas.

 

The Long Short Trip Day to San Pedro

Long short trip from Boulder to San Pedro. Hotel is about 5 minutes from cruise port and someone has already ordered an 10:30 am shuttle for Silver Shadow tomorrow morning. Must be another one of those uppity 250+ day people. I'll look in the bar later and see if I can spot them.

Checked in about 1/2 hour ago. Long but nominal (for United Airlines) trip since I left the house at 9:00 am and got to the hotel here about 5:30 pm (6:30 MDT): 2 minute for security, 2 hours at Red Carpet, plane sat for an hour while they changed the starter motor on the APU (honest), short wait for exactly 46.5 lb. bag (hooray when it arrived down the shoot), 15 minute wait for Supershuttle which circled airport twice--and LAX is a big airport--but had a nice group to talk with (including a 60 yr old lady who is on the board of of the Catholic Fellowship for Gay and Lesbians) on her way to a week meeting at the Queen Mary, 45 minutes in traffic to San Pedro, and then encountered a line of about 100 people checking in at the hotel here. I went to the front desk and said, "I don't want to wait an hour. Can I just check in now rather than wait in the long line?" The clerk said, "Sure", and I did. The group was some church group that had just arrived, and not being one of them was a real plus. I looked back as I got the key and found a dozen people who weren't in the group who saw what I did and left the big line and followed me. No one told them they didn't have to wait. The three clerks not checking in the group were just standing there. (The church group were all very athletic young black guys. The others were neither.) LA is a big annonymous place. No one helped at the hotel. But asking is not stealing came through again.

Took picture out the window of beautiful LA Habor small boat basin. Of course, the beautiful small boat merina is surrounded by the huge LA/Long Beach container port. You can see the gigantic cranes in the background. Kind of creepy view at a distance, especially at night. My wonderful camera seems to dislike recently charged batteries. Possible problem with batteries, chargers, or most likely camera. Oh poop. Room is a "view" room. I asked if a non-view room was cheaper. The always helpful clerk said, "Yes, but we don't have any of those." $9.95 for Internet in the room but free on the computers in the lobby. Go figure. Maybe wifi is free here too. About to find somewhere to eat. Last defrosted birthday bownie and three Red Carpet Sun Chips aren't enough.

4 Days to Go

Preparation for the cruise is going pretty well. (Click on the above for the high resolution graphic which shows the ports, lat/long, time zones, etc.) It always feels like I'm "settling my affairs" (if that were only true) before these long trips, and this one is longer than most. I'm charging the camera batteries and weighing all those 3 oz shaving cream cans to see which one has the most stuff in it.

It looks like the weather here in Boulder and in Los Angeles and down the coast shouldn't be a factor for the start of the trip. Now, it's up to United Airlines, but I'm watching the TV about all the scary weather in the Gulf. I almost feel sorry for the 24 hour news networks having to fill up when their editors have decided that a slow moving storm is their only story.

I just heard one of the CNN reporters talk about “the center of the eye of the hurricane touching land.” Since the eye is a patch of no weather, he was talking about a geometric calculation rather than an actual thing or even an event. I guess it would have been awkward to say, “the moving mathematical point half way between the eye cloud walls will be calculated to be over the actual coastline”. At any rate, don’t the networks have waterproof cameras they can put out on the beach so that they don’t have to get people to stand in the rain and lose their hats?

The reporters are interviewing each other about their experiences covering hurricanes. Sometimes it’s multiple reporters interviewing multiple other reporters about multiple hurricanes. They also compliment each other a lot. It’s hard to love that 24/7 news. I miss the old 11 PM 15 minute newscasts I’d watch when I was a kid with an old print journalist reading the copy that he had worked on carefully for hours before the broadcast. The evening news usually was just the talking head with no graphics except for a short clip from a newsreel, usually of a “flood in China last week”. The only other person on the program was the weatherman who was as creepy as the newsman was serious. Or maybe it was just that the weatherman couldn’t hold his alcohol as well as the newsman.

Excursions

I leave in 10 days (but who's counting) for Los Angeles and then onto or is it into—we call that embarkation or maybe it's maize—the less than 400 passenger m/V (or is it M/v) Silver Shadow on Wednesday 9/17.

Finally I received the cruise credentials—actually a one page letter with a dashed line that says “cut here” that passes for the official documentation for entry to a costly trip on a luxury cruise ship—and am spending time this weekend reading the excursion books for this extraordinary 37 day cruise. This will be the longest cruise I will have taken. The itinerary has 18 intermediate stops (we call them ports) usually with as many as 3 to 6 possible tours offered in each one. I spent Thursday and Friday enjoying the tour book for the “Eastern Mediterranean” which was actually the book that Silversea Cruises sent with the credentials. Unfortunately, that isn’t where the Silver Shadow is going. FedEx brought the correct book late yesterday. Hope the cruise line will check the propellers, life boats, and especially the ship’s stores (primarily the whisky locker) better than they do their passenger mailings.

Although I can wait until after I’ve gotten on, uh, embarked the ship, I've decided already on an all day trip to 14,765 foot high Lake Chungara in northern Chile, (“right at the Bolivian border, high in the Andes") and an all day stay with an “included barbecue lunch” among the creepy moai on Easter Island. There are no formal tours offered at Pitcairn Island although I intend to go into town and ask for Mr. Christian. When they tell me that most of the 50 folks there have that name, I will say, "No, that's not the right ones. Do you have any others?" The excursion book mentions conspicuously, "Landing at Bounty Bay (off The Hill of Difficulty) is subject to sea, wind and weather conditions. Access to Pitcairn is difficult and often impossible due to adverse wind and sea conditions." It also says that the population on Pitcairn reached 233 individuals in the 1930s but now is down to four dozen or so. Immediately after that is the note, “Most of the islanders are Seventh Day Adventists; so there is no making or consumption of liquor.” Wonder if the Adventist missionaries first started converting people there starting in the 1930s. Spoilsports.

I remember that when I got into amateur radio in the late 1950s there was a famous radio ham that everyone worked on Pitcairn Island. I think he's name was Christian. If we can land there, I will definitely buy a tee-shirt and a stamp. Stamps from Pitcairn are a big deal as the book says they are, "eagerly collected by philatelists worldwide." No doubt this is because numismatists aren't nearly as interested in collecting stamps and also because Pitcairn has no post office to mail letters from. I guess you go there and end up collecting the stamp because YOU CAN’T USE IT to mail a letter with. The tour book lists two attractions on Pitcairn Island: 1) The remains of the Bounty which "are still visible on the seabed", and 2) Fletcher Christian's Cave “but heavy rains often make visiting it impossible.” Looks like you need to make an extra effort to see the attractions on Pitcairn if you can actually get there. No wonder people bring back stamps, if for no other reason to prove they were there. As I read the excursion books, it appears to me that the "glass bottom boat adventure" in Bora Bora will be more of a sure bet—after I take the tuk tuk to the Hilton Hilton and have pu pu's there before my mahi mahi light meal snack.

The itinerary for the cruise pictured below. The appeal of this trip obviously includes the stops. While the Mexican ports are very familiar—probably my touring in Mexico will be limited to getting off the ship and having a cerveza before the taxi drivers and trinket salesmen molest me as I try to avoid the crowds from the other (and much larger) cruise ships that invariably stop there—the remainder of the ports on the way to Tahiti are quite exotic. The description of Antofagasta, Chile includes, “The area surrounding Antofagasta is renowned for having the highest solar intensity in the world. It’s archaeological zones, desert and mountains make it a sought after place for travelers looking for unusual destinations.” Of course, knowledgeable world travelers know that the last phrase is code for don’t expect to be buying many souvenirs or stocking up on toothpaste here. This is borne out by the excursion book’s entry for shopping in Antofagasta. It gives the location and hours of the small shopping district but says only that, “the local currency is the peso.”

I’ve not been to any of the ports after those in Mexico and have only been to Tikal far from the ocean in Guatemala. If the ship actually stops at all the places listed, I will come back from the cruise having upped my lifetime total of 125 countries visited. See my earlier blog at http://cbup0.blogspot.com/ for an explanation of how I’ve been counting countries visited.

I will attempt to add entries directly from the ship if the satellite link's latency issues isn't a problem as it was last winter from the sister ship m/V Silver Whisper. Check back here for updates. I will send gang e-mails if possible when I add a major entry.