They're Back!!!!

Yes, Dear Readers, Agnes and I have returned from our nearly-three-week extravaganza of travel, relaxation, sightseeing, relaxation, overeating, relaxation, and ... did I mention the relaxation part? I should be able to go back to work next week and be happy, cheerful, and productive for at least ... oh ... twenty minutes or so before getting all sour and pissed off again!

But now we're back and adjusting to the realities of everyday life ... nobody to make the bed and put little chocolates on it for you ... nobody to seat you at the dinner table and put the napkin in your lap ... and this washing your own dishes thing is a drag, too. Sigh.

But anyhow, we are back and we had a wonderful time. Between us we took over 2,000 pictures*, but you won't have to look at all of them. Here are a few samples ... those of you who want to see more can check my Facebook page in a day or so, and I'll put up a larger album.

We started our vacation in Los Angeles with a visit to our son Matt, who works for the LA County Museum system. We visited the Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits, which is a lot more interesting than it sounds ... you don't just get to see bubbling tar ...

You might also get to be only the fourth person in more than 40,000 years to handle the left rear thigh bone of a dire wolf (canis diris) who met his unhappy end stuck in the ancient tar ...

Agnes also took a picture of Matt and I with a giant ground sloth in the park outside the museum. We'll be revisiting the subject of sloths on Sunday, when we get to the part about our visit to Cartagena, Colombia ...

On Thursday, September 20th, we boarded the good ship Coral Princess and set sail for the Panama Canal and nearby places.

Our first stop after five relaxing days at sea was Puntarenas, Costa Rica. We took a tour to the Tabacon thermal spa located at the base of the Arenal Volcano, three and a half hours by bus from Puntarenas over very narrow, very twisting, largely very poor roads. The volcano was shrouded in low clouds as we piled off the bus and immediately changed clothes to dive into the hot springs, which were beautiful and very relaxing, consisting of a series of pools and waterfalls threading through the dense rain forest ...

Many of the pools featured benches on which we could sit while the hot water poured down over us. Agnes found it to be very soothing ...

We even got to see one of the resort guests lounging by the pool, stark naked ...

By the time we left the spa after the too-short visit, the clouds had mostly cleared and we were able to see the beautiful and imposing Arenal Volcano ...

... before boarding the bus for the 3-1/2 hour drive back to the port by way of a "butterfly farm" whose butterflies were all, alas, asleep by the time we arrived in the rainy gloom of the late afternoon.

After another day at sea, we arrived at Fuerta Amador, Panama, for a short visit before beginning the transit of the canal. At Fuerta Amador, we visited the Soberania Baru National Park and the Gamboa Rain Forest Resort, where we rode an aerial tram up through the rain forest canopy ...

to a 30 meter-high observation tower ...

from which we had broad views out over the Panamanian rain forest and a large section of the central (Gatun Lake) portion of the Panama Canal.

Although the park and the associated rain forest is said to be home to hundreds of species of birds and animals, the largest thing we saw (other than a lonely iguana sunning himself at the side of the road) was the ubiquitous termites and ants that seemed to infest every other tree ...

After the tram ride, we had an hour or so to see other displays in the Gamboa Rain Forest Resort, including a display of tropical fish and reptiles, a "serpentarium," a butterfly farm (there are butterfly farms all over the place in Central America ... I think it's a legal requirement), and an orchid garden. All interesting, but not as exciting as the tram ride. We ended up back at the port and had lunch at a local restaurant before riding the tender back out to the Coral Princess ...

The next day was our transit of the Panama Canal, which was about as fascinating an experience as I've ever had. We were scheduled to begin the transit at the first (Miraflores) set of locks at 7:00 AM (a bit early for a vacation day, but what can you do), and so I was up early, liberally smeared with sunblock and ready to see all the action ...

The upper decks of the ship were crowded with people who appeared to have been in place since midnight to get the best views of the transit. I went up to the highest open level on the ship (Deck 15), squeezed under the rails, and shot between the panels of colored safety glass in order to get my pictures. In this one, the Coral Princess is lining up to enter the left-hand side of the Pedro Miguel (second) locks on the Pacific side, as another ship passes out of the right-hand side ... you can see the gates of the lock starting to close on the right, and the difference in the depth of the water between the two sides. Once in the lock, the water would be pumped in to raise us to the next level so we could move into the next portion of the canal ...

Here, the level has been equalized, and the locks are starting to open so the Coral Princess can sail out ...

Actually, we never "sailed" through the locks ... the ship was so large that it had only a foot or so of clearance on each side, and so she was towed into and out of the locks by electric locomotives that pulled on cables attached to the ship. Here is what the towing operation actually looks like, as four locomotives pull a huge freighter through the lock opposite our ship ...

Once through the Miraflores and Pedro Miguel (Pacific side) locks, we passed through the Culebra Cut and into Gatun Lake, the giant freshwater lake that provides the water for the canal's operation, and in which ships often anchor to wait their turn to go through the locks. We learned that the largest ships, like the Coral Princess and the large freighters in the other pictures - because they are so large and have so little clearance on all sides of the locks - can only transit during the daylight hours for safety reasons, and so many smaller ships pass one set of locks during the night, then wait in Gatun Lake until the next night to complete their passage. Here is a picture of part of landscape along the Culebra Cut ...

And here is a view from Gatun Lake, looking out over a vintage 1855 road/railroad bridge toward the distant rain forest. If you enlarge the picture and look closely, right at the center, on the skyline just above the bridge, you can just make out the very top of the observation tower we climbed the day before ...

We passed through the last three (Gatun) locks at about 3:30 PM and sailed into the Bay of Limon and the Caribbean Sea ... we were now on the Atlantic side of Panama, having achieved in about nine hours a trip that would have taken months had we sailed around the southern tip of South America. A very exciting and very interesting day!

The following morning we pulled into our next port of call, Cartagena, Colombia ... but we'll talk about that in another post. No sense in letting you get bored with the travelogue.

Have a good day. More of our adventures coming on Sunday, after Cartoon Saturday makes its appearance tomorrow.

Bilbo

* Between a third and a half of them are probably pictures of clouds, sunrises/sunsets, and the ship's wake, because on a cruise with seven out of 14 days at sea, there isn't much else to take pictures of.