December 31-January 1, 2013
At SEA
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
We rang in the New Year in style!
Here’s Finny with his dance teacher Katherine.
(Finny likes her)
Had a wonderful dinner, then danced the night away aboard our ship: The Explorer!
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!!
Here’s to a safe, inspiring, wonderful, healthy and joy-filled 2013!
Safe Travels!
JKLM
🙂
Next: San Diego! -and HOME!
Monday, December 31, 2012
Cabo San Lucas, MEXICO!
It’s hard to believe this… but this is our LAST port of call! –And what an amazing way to end it!
Today we tendered to Cabo San Lucas Mexico to go snorkeling in the Sea of Cortez!
Quick facts about Cabo San Lucas (Cape Saint Luke), commonly called Cabo, is a city at the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula, in the Mexican state of Baja California Sur.
Archaeological excavations have shown evidence of continual human habitation in the area for at least ten thousand years.[2] When the first Europeans arrived, they encountered the Pericú people, who survived on a subsistence diet based on hunting and the gathering of seeds, roots, shellfish, and other marine resources. They called the location Yenecamú.
One more fact about Cabo: the plant life receives its’ water from a “mist” or “fog” that comes in almost every night.
The Explorer’s crew were up before the sun today, as we had to “tender” in to port. This was amazing to witness. “Tendering” occurs when either the port is too small, too shallow or just plain old too busy to handle a vessel of our size. Cabo is one such port.
First, we watched the crew un-band each “tender” from it’s birth aboard our vessel the Explorer.
Then each tender is lowered down to the sea and the crew aboard each runs it around and makes sure it is functioning properly.
We then had a quick breakfast and boarded the tender that brought us into Cabo.
This was a bit tricky, as the sea was a bit choppy.
The ride over took less than 10 mins. And the tenders were running back and forth all day long.
Finny once again blended in with the locals.
After we arrive on shore we boarded a bus and were driven across the pier to our ship for the day: The Sunderland!
In fact we were on a sister ship. The actual ship Sunderland stayed in port as it was going out for a later cruise. -which herself was a cool vessel, having been built in the 1800’s and named for the town of Sunderland England.
As we pulled out of port we were blown away by the amount of sea life! We saw several fishing vessels returning with their catch followed in tow by a flock of sea gulls, pelicans and A LARGE SEAL sitting on the back of many boats (the fishermen feeding hem left over catch)
We sailed out past the very famous “The Arch”, or Lands End. The Arch is locally known as El Arco.
We passed several fishing vessels on our way out of the cove.
It was cloudy at first –bit then cleared up.
THEN: IT WAS TIME!
We put on our snorkeling gear and we were ready!
Leo jumped in first, then Finn!
We dove down and saw schools of fish, a coral reef and some other marine plant life.
We then swam in to a secluded beach and soaked up some sun and collected coral, rocks and sea glass.
After a bit we put on our gear and snorkeled back to the ship, where we dried off and had lunch.
HEY! THere’s OUR ship: The EXPLORER!
We were then brought back to the dock and witnessed the tendering process again in reverse.
Oh and we saw another seal in the harbor playing with a pelican.
A wonderful day! Cannot WAIT to return to CABO!
Safe Travels!
JKLM
🙂
Tonight: New Years Eve!
Next/Last Stop: San Diego, USA!
Friday December 28, 2012
Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala
Welcome to Guatemala!
Quick facts: Guatemala has coastal and mountainous areas. It has rich soil from the volcanoes and main exports are sugar, coffee and beef. It is about the size of Tennessee but has the most populated of South American countries. A peace accord, signed in 1996, ended a 36 year armed conflict but violent crimes are still very high due to endemic overtly, an abundance of weapons, a legacy of societal violence, and dysfunctional law enforcement and judicial systems.
(Both the boys tracking devices were obviously ON 🙂
This is only the second place where we had armed police with us on our entire trip.
The locals are VERY interested in selling their wares and for everyone there is a “special deal for you!” But, geographically, it is a beautiful country.
Interesting fact about sugar, which is planted EVERYWHERE.
In order to get the “cane” (the root part of the plant that is the sweet part) out and exposed for harvest, farmers burn the entire stalk, -as only the cane will not burn. In Fact, you can see (and smell) smoke all around from the farmers doing this on the horizon.
Now onto the volcanoes. they loom in the distance of every horizon.
The one we are going to climb is over on the left:
Woweee! This was a crazy-fun ( if a bit strenuous:) day!
Today we HIKED the Payaca Volcano! It is on the the same plate tectonic fault line as the one that erupted in Nicaragua but they assured us it was safe…. more on this later.
It was HOT. -and I mean REALLY HOT. But, it was a DRY heat… kind of like … an OVEN. -and VERY dusty.
The volcanic rock was extremely light and the mountain was covered in volcanic ash and rock… Which was a bit treacherous to hike at times. It was 2 1/2 miles up and and 2 1/2 down. Both Leo and Finn were troopers and hiked the whole way up.
We then had a yummy picnic lunch on the upper tier of the volcano and we ROASTED marshmallows in the volcanic heat!
We also met some dogs that were up top looking for some love and food!
Oh and we did also manage to see a small eruption CLOSE UP. As we were defending there was a “small ash” eruption. Our guides assured us it was no big deal -but when we got back down to the bottom they also mentioned hey hadn’t seen one in ten years or more.
We treated the boys to a horse ride back down and they loved it!
Saturday, December 29, 2012
On Ship
BIGGEST of the big and SMALLEST of the small.
This morning we attended a lecture on Island Biology: The Biggest of the Big and The Smallest of the Small.
Professor Charles Leavell spoke about how people and scientists LOVE islands because they are unlike any other place. Islands are like laboratories for change. Evolution happens faster here due to finite and different conditions from what existed in the mainland.
He talked about how organisms get to islands and what happens to them once they arrive. “Immigrants” face unique environmental pressures that cause changes over time from their mainland relatives. In some cases miniaturization occurs such as in Pygmy elephants.
And in other cases Gigantization occurs, such as in the case of the Komodo Dragon from the Galapagos.
Plant and animal life get to islands by land bridges, flying, swimming. Hitch hiking as in the case if parasites and other small creatures who travel on the back of bigger creatures.
In the evening there was a ship passenger talent show which both Leo and Finn were in which we will post photos next.
Safe Travels!
JKLM
🙂
Next: Cabo San Lucas, Mexico!
Thursday December 27, 2012
Corinto, Nicaragua
Good morning and welcome to Nicaragua!
Ok, so couple of things about Nicaragua. First, The first city named León in Nicaragua was established in 1524 by Francisco Hernández de Córdoba about 20 miles east of the present site. The city was abandoned in 1610, for unknown reasons. The principal cause is commonly given as a necessary abandonment after an eruption of the Momotombo volcano. There has been civil unrest here for quite some time. they have battling with their neighbor (or their neighbor with them, depending on which side of the property line you are on) Costa Rica for quite some time. But, let’s leave politics off this blog…
The bottom line is: this is a poor country. Really poor. -and the poverty is everywhere.
Not that are not places wherein there is some wealth. Oh and like most of this part of the world: Coca-Cola:
Nicaragua is the biggest country in Central America. Christopher Columbus discovered it in 1502. The country has 7 million people with 60 percent of the population under25!
-For this reason they are focusing as much as possible on education. They believe education is the machete to the future. Here is a statue in a main square literally depicting Nicaragua forging its’ own future, by creatine itself from out of the stone.
You can see pockets of change throughout the city. Where most homes have little to no electricity and phones, CYBER-CAFES are popping up, cel phones are cheap, propelling and leap frogging users into present day.
Nicaragua, which means land of lakes and volcanoes, possesses one of the eighth largest lakes in the world, Lake Cocibolca, which is an industrialized city based mostly on import and export. All this AND fresh water sharks. Finny pet one! Just kidding:)
Coffee us the largest export and tourism is second. There are 47 volcanoes and 7 are active. In fact, while we were driving out to Leon, one of them: San Cristobal actually became VERY active! We would find out when we returned to the ship (international headlines!) it was actually erupting and they evacuated nearby towns!!!
Because of the volcanoes, much like the neighboring countries, the beach sand is as black as ink.
We did two things today: The first was a tour of a Botanical Gardens in Leon.
The second, is we visited the oldest cathedral in Central America nearby: Chapel de la Asunción.
We traveled to Leon along the Panamerican highway which connects all of the South America. At the botanical garden, which was a Meso American Dry Forest botanical garden we visited an arboretum (trees) and a butterfly garden.
We were greeted by our guides and a HUGE cockroach!
The fascinating thing we learned about the trees in general and each specifically is although they all just look like “trees” with different trunks and leaves and flowers, each has an incredibly special and valuable gift to offer.
For example the Cacao tree treats insect bites. The Guanacaste fruit looks like ears and was used as soap while it’s trunk was used to make oxen cart wheels. The Achioti plant is being tested to treat rattlesnake bites and banana trees.
and we saw an ant carry a leaf much bigger than itself… boy, if there’s not a lesson there..
Oh and we saw a trail that termites use to travel up a tree.
Perhaps our favorite part of the touring these gardens was meeting our new friend, Granilla, a beautiful sixty year old woman who has traveled the world and from her visits to the Amazon, taught Leo and Finn how to turn the Bird of Paradise flower into a nose:)
Next we visited Leon cathedral, the oldest cathedral in Central America the Chapel de la Asunción, (Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption of León), typical colonial baroque building was built between 1747 and 1814. Because strength of its walls has endured earthquakes, volcanic eruptions of the volcano Cerro Negro and wars. In 1824, were placed several cannons on the roof during the siege of the city by conservative forces; and, in the uprising of June and July 1979 against the dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle, the guerrillas of the Sandinista National Liberation Front also used for war purposes.
This cathedral is one of the largest in Central America. It was the first episcopal seat of Nicaragua, since 1531, making it one of the oldest dioceses in the Americas.
It is a beautiful old world cathedral. With life sized statues everywhere (some quite gruesome) but they all seemed far away. -Either protected behind bars, or within glass.
Within one of Christ we noticed there were children’s shoes and notes put inside the glass.
We were told that these were prayers and that children’s shoes somehow symbolized the innocence in the wishes.
In the domed ceilings there are several areas for the light to reach around the floor of the church. this church is also famous for being able to go up on to the roof and have a breathtaking view of the city. So…
we scaled several narrow stairwells and finally made it to the bell tower!
then, one more set of stairs and…
WOW!
The views were beautiful.
It is also the burial site and there is a a tribute tot he country’s three famous poets, Alfonso Cortes, Ruben Dario and Jose Delacruz.
Quote: ” I know how volcanoes are made. It is when mother nature does ballet and spins and spins and spins.” – Leo
And another beautiful sunset…
Safe Travels!
JKLM
🙂
Observation:
When we lose people we love, people we can’t really imagine existing in this life without, we attempt in small ways to create a patchwork of a piece, a fragmentary weaving of a part of a flicker of that which we long for. We have met in Luz and Granilla sparks of our beloved Gran. Both women had a fierce sense of humor and protective loving quality for which we are grateful. The journey sometimes it seems, is to the side of the intended journey.
Next:
Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala
Wednesday December 26, 2012 (Boxing Day!)
Puntarenas, Costa Rica
Today we hiked through Carara National Park, 50,000 acre rain forest.
It was just Finny and Mom today,
as Leo and Dad both stayed on ship to fight off a bit of a cold. 😦
Its name, Carara, means alligator -and we saw a LOT of them!
It has three different ecosystems, the dry and wet forest and the ,amgroves, which a like swamps. We were led by an experienced naturalist guide who pointed out all the indigenous wildlife and beautiful flowers.
The birds were magnificent. We saw a Magnificent (that is part of its name:) Frigate bird, which was tough to shoot
a Slaty-tailed Trogon
a Squirrel Cuckoo and the very very rare … Great Tinamou bird in the underbrush, which our guide, having done this for over twenty years, has never seen before.
The external root systems of most of the trees was fascinating and quite beautiful. There were stilt roots which are thinner and roomier and look like stilts and buttress roots which like … Buttresses.
Because the soil is so shallow this is the way the trees grow and brae themselves.
The Strangled Fig tree was the biggest we saw
The Agouti is a weasel looking rodent that jump runs. We saw it but could not capture it on camera. Is was true of many of the creatures. We saw a Two-Toed Sloth through our guide’s binoculars. It was huddled between branches in a bug lump. The Sloth only comes sown from its tree, which is usually a Trumpet Tree, once a week to go to the bathroom. It digs a hole and goes in and ten buries it so no predatory animals can smell it.
Insects and more insects oh my!!!! There were a lot!!!!
Finny actually ATE a termite!
(ewwww and uggghhhh). The ones with an orange back are edible and taste according to him and others like minty carrots.
We saw many termite nests and a HUGE wasp nest.
We also the Jesus Christ lizard (yes, really) which runs on water!
We saw a Maiva Festiva lizard
two bigger iguanas
a baby crocodile and many bigger crocodiles.
And, because Finn had to pee we walked off the path a bit and when he had finished, we spotted a Tarantula sider
which the naturalist confirmed!!!!
Safe Travels!
JKLM
🙂
Next: Nicaragua
December 25, 2012
Puntarenas, Costa Rica
Today we celebrated Christmas in a most unique way: by being in Costa Rica!!
And we attempted to blend with the locals…
We were up and out early today as our ride started at about 8 AM.
Some quick facts: First known as Villa Bruselas in colonial times, Puntarenas was discovered by Hernán Ponce de León in 1519. Despite the use of the Gulf of Nicoya as an entryway to Costa Rica’s inland territory, the port of Puntarenas was not developed until 1840 when coffee production in the highlands reached exportable volumes.
First impressions of Costa Rica: The downtown area is comprised of low slung cement buildings.
Homes range form shanty style tin huts to more elaborate cement homes and cattle farms.
Looming in the background of almost every shot, are the volcanoes. -We’ll be seeing one of these close up in our next stop in Nicaragua.
Costa Rica has some 60 volcanoes, with 7 of them active. Here’s a pic of them:
Costa Rica has a woman President, no army and (according to locals) rockin’ health insurance for all.
But from what we saw there are two classes: very poor and wealthy.
On it we traveled for about 3 hours to Guanacaste. Along the way we spotted some Scarlet McCaw’s at a rest stop.
Costa Rica is rich in farming. The dark rich soil makes it perfect for growing pineapples, coffee beans and livestock grazing. We passed quite a few ranches on our drive. All of them had at least 2-3 bulls!
-Bulls are also a deep part of the history here. As evident by the bullrings (aka PLAZA DE TOROS) we pass.
The volcanoes are responsible for that rich soil… and: THE THERMOMINERAL HOT SPRINGS!
Which brings us to our destination today: RIO PERDIDO (‘www.rioperdido.com’) and WOW! It was amazing!
An iguana greeted us.
We were led into the small resort and were treated to a selection of local fruits, fruit juices and coffee.
After the light snack, we made our way down the paths in the woods (not so tretcherous after PERU!) to see what makes this place so special.
We arrived at the bottom and jumped into the hot natural springs! Ahhhhhhhh.
We then went for a hike into the forrest and out across a tension bridge and hiked over to a lookout over the water falls.
We saw this sign… should we be scared of this one…
Or this one…
Whew. we made it across.
The views were beautiful.
Then we made our way back to the base where the pristine spring pools awaited us! There were a secession of natural spring water pools varying in tempreture.
We swam, relaxed and swam up to the bar for a cold drink.
Afterwards we were treated to a top notch lunch.
We collapsed into the bus for our drive back to the ship.
An awesome day!
Safe Travels!
JKLM
🙂
Next: the National Park!
HI!
I know this is out of order… BUT how many times do you have a chance to actually meet a Chief Justice?…
Have to say, she was quick, smart, funny and very much to the point.
We were honored.
And we LOVED her!
JKLM
🙂
Travel Safe!
Sunday, December 23, 2012
Manta, Ecuador
This is going to be a long post, as it was a long day!
Today we were back in Ecuador and went to see three different Eco-Artisans practicing their craft. A “ECO- Artisan” is an individual or group that makes a product from the earth in a completely natural way. That is, without leaving a “carbon footprint”. So all the products are usually made by hand and sometimes by a small village that uses the selling of goods to support their community.
We arrived at the port of Manta, Ecuador. It is one of the TUNA capitols of the world. 
And boy, are they proud of that!
Every place you go tuna is served and celebrated!
It is also known for something else: the famed PANAMA HAT.
Fact: Panama Hats are not actually made in Panama. True.
They are made in Ecuador. Legend has it that when President Teddy Roosevelt came in for the opening of the Panama Canal he was wearing one. when asked where he got it -with his famous toothy grin he replied “Why, PANAMA of course!”
We began with a short ride to El Rancho where we watched them make Panama hats.
Here’s how they make it:
First they showed us how the fiber is obtained from the carludovica plant, a palm like plant that only grows in the tropics.
Then they gather and bundle the leaves of the plant.
Next, they “split” the leaves by using a cactus needle.
Then the split leaves are boiled for 60 seconds to make then soft and easier to work with. At the point any dyes are added to the water for colors.
Next comes weaving.
A hat size is selected and using a series of wooden hat molds -and a leather sizing strap, the weaving begins.
The weaving takes places in this rather uncomfortable position.
From here, the hat then gets trimmed -and all the loose ends are bound.
The hat is then washed with a special blue soap.
Then the hat is pounded with a series of weights.
Then, as a last step, each hat is ironed.
TADA: the Panama Hat. made locally here in Ecuador!
Here is Rafael, who made and sold our hats to us!
Each hat takes between one and three months to create. The finer the weave the longer it takes. We bought hats for Leo and Finn and they look smashing:) the hats are packed up in boxes made of balsa wood. Finn made friends with Rafael, one of the artisans and sat with him for some time asking him questions and managing to bridge the language barrier quite perfectly.
We took a short ride to El Chorilla to a Cabuya Factory.
Cabuya is a type of rope ( often brightly colored) used in making bags and sacks for shipping.
We watched how they strip the agave plant of its outer shell and tear it into strings.
From there they make spools and eventually have a loom that draws from 142 spools.
The spools deliver the strands into a small rope like twine, which gets bundled and handed off to the next set of machines.
There using a very old fashioned way of working, then twine is combined and made either into a bag
or a hat, or luffa… or whatever!
Pretty cool!
Lastly we went to a Tagua nut factory.
And we watched in amazement as they shelled and carved the nut into animal sculptures, buttons, and jewelry.
When the nut dries it is as hard as ivory and in fact is called vegetable ivory.
Our second outing began with a ride to Montecristi on a brightly colored bus hat had a band playing on top of it. Buses are the most important mode of transportation because they’re cheap and connect the country’s coastal towns and interior sections. The town is beautiful and still retains a faded elegance of its Spanish heritage. We saw a picturesque wooden building which was the first girls school and has been converted into stalls where artisans sell their wares.
Safe Travels!
JKLM
🙂
Observation:
It was fantastic to see so much art created from natural substances such as plants, nuts and leaves. And inspiring to think of who first imagined that such items could be created from a leaf or a nut or and plant.
December 25, 2012
AT SEA
Christmas came to us in the middle of the sea!
(our tree)
Finny and Leo both had new haircuts (Finny REALLY enjoyed the shampooing process!)
The sunset was amazing!
We had dinner with dear friends.
JKLM
🙂
-and a Happy Christmas to all -and to all GOOD NIGHT!
Safe Travels!
Next: Manta, Ecuador!
Friday, December 21, 2012
Chinchero Village, Peru (The Sacred Valley)
We awoke to the beautiful gardens and bird sounds on the hotel grounds.
Orange , papaya and pineapple juice were all fresh squeezed. Coffee was super strong. And what we thought would go squish (potatoes) went chew (chicken) so we stuck with eggs and toast and amazing juice.
We proceeded again through breath taking countryside to Chinchero Village for a fantastic weaving demonstrations where we learned about how they sheer llama wool, clean it, spin it into thread, dye it with natural plants and berries and seeds and dead parasites ( ewwwwww!). Then they showed us how they weave each thread together to make the beautiful patterns and designs. L and F both got alpaca slippers.
Before going to the airport we stopped in the most treasured churches in the Sacred Valley
-and the energy was very strong.
We looked at beautiful artwork of the indigenous people including the three major arc angels,
St. Michael (for protection and help)
St.Raphael (for fishing out what you want)
and St. Gabriel (for wealth). They had never heard of wings before so painted them as birds wings, some parrot wings. We then flew to Lima and returned to our ship in Callou.
Peru was AWESOME!
Safe Travels!
JKLM
🙂
Next: Manta, Ecuador
leo and finn go to south america! 