Panama Canal Cruise: Costa Rica
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 the Poás Volcano. The strawberry (from the surrounding slopes) juice was an excellent starter. The rest of the typical lunch was more interesting than it was tasty.
Poás Volcano last exploded in 1969 damaging strawberry fields and coffee plantations but without loss of life. The volcano is still active but it is often obscured by clouds as the location is in the cloud forest. Today we saw a sheet of white and nothing else, but I did get one photo of the caldera and its lagoon (I'll leave it to your imagination on how).
After about an hour we headed down the mountains to the colourful village of Sarchi when ch is known for its painted oxcarts. The industry has expanded to other painted articles. Then it was time to chase the setting sun and head back to the ship (arrival 7:30pm making for a long day).
