Travel with Art

Another late arrival... 1:00pm in the Dutch territory of Aruba. The approach passes by pristine white sand beaches of the Hotel District. Our docking point was right downtown (a 5 minute walk to Main Street). Aruba is known for its beaches, weather, and shopping. Being in port for only 5 hours I opted to shop and find a bar with free wifi to update this blog. So a few photos and then we are 2 days at sea till arrival at the end port of Fort Lauderdale.

Arrival was 8:00am with departures from 8:30 for tours. The approach to Cartegena is interesting as the city is built right out on the ocean coast over a series of, now connected, islands. Departure was set for 1:45pm so not much time in Columbia. Our guide, Marco, in a smaller bus, took us to San Poppa Monastery for 360 views over the city. The monastery was built in the only tall hill in the city and is the most important Catholic building in the city. The smaller bus was needed to allow entry into the old walled city of Cartegena. Here we dropped off at a market square for some retail therapy followed by a walk through old city streets. A not so fond memory is the persistent and annoying street venders (they absolutely never gave up). I guess to be expected with 12% national unemployment, and 8.5% in Cartegena. But I must admit I did feel completely safe here. Next we were on to the Gold Museum and finished up at one of the recommended, and expensive, emerald stores (Mom got hers ea

An early start to try and see the sunrise on arrival in Panama, but facing forward (northeast) meant the sun was mostly behind me so all I saw was a gradual lightening of the sky. I was our on deck 11 forward viewing area at 5:45am and was real lucky to squeeze in between two nice people. Mom sensibly slept in and then went to the glassed in viewing area of deck 14 (where she could also have breakfast) and lucked in with timing to take a place of a gentleman that was just leaving the front row! The morning locks, the Pacific locks, were the dual Miraflores locks followed by the single Pedro Miguel lock. At the entrance we had a full view of the new Calibri locks that are in test mode and scheduled (after an 18 month delay) to open in June. At the exit of Pedro Miguel we also saw the approach channel to those new triple lock set. We were a bit delayed on the Pacific side resulting in an hours delay from schedule. Here's what we ended up with: 7:15 passing Bridge of Americas (as we s

Port of call was Puntarenas, which is an archipelago on the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica. We arrived at 10:00am (rather than scheduled 7:00am) due to tide and resulting sea level. We headed out for an all day tour. 2 hours took us through the mountainous country side with commentary from our guide (and biologist) Julio. Costa Rica has not suffered political turmoil or military misadventures so Julio focused his commentary on the flora and fauna. He also mentioned things like, "Costa Rica has the world's highest literacy rate (97.3%)", and "Costa Rica has no military and that allows its resources to be used for education and health care". He had also gone out that morning to the left cal market and had a selection of fruits not normally found outside the region. This included square bananas, sweet lemons, and a pod from the chocolate plant, along with others that he passed around for show and tell and tasting. Our first destination was lunch at a restaurant near t

Port of call here is San Juan Del Sur. A small fishing village and now cruise ship port of call on Nicaragua's Pacific Coast. It's a kickoff point for visiting Granada, Managua, Lake Nicaragua and other developing attractions. Tender only as there are no docking facilities. Our tour today was to Granada and the Isletas (tiny islands) in Lake Nicaragua. Bus trip was nearly an hour each way but made good with the never ending (and interesting) commentary by our History Teacher / Guide, Jorge. He covered history, ecology, politics, and everything else.  The route was inland towards the shores of Lake Nicaragua where we could see part of the two volcanoes in the lake, and then north to Granada. We would have a much better unobstructed view of one of the volcanoes  in our return. We slowly navigated the streets of Granada (narrow and busy) to the marina where we boarded small flat bottomed boats for an hour on the lake. The Isletas are tiny islands formed when a mountain of volcanic