This morning when we arrived, an ambulance took a passenger off the Island Princess, which is on her way to the Panama Canal and shares our pier, and this evening just before we left, an ambulance took someone off our ship. We’re dropping like flies. And a woman (and her husband) was put off our ship here for harassing other passengers. Our table mates, Barry and Adele, had lunch with someone who saw the 4 Russians being taken off in handcuffs by the police, so I guess that rumor was true. Very exciting goings on. This pier is so long and narrow that the tour buses have to back up the whole way to get off the pier while dodging pedestrians and other buses coming down. Didn’t see a single one go into the drink, even after it got dark.
Today’s tour was to a coffee plantation first. It was a very long drive, but the bus was air conditioned and comfortable, so that helped. The plantation was privately owned and we saw all the steps up to packing the beans in the 96 pound bags for shipment. They aren’t roasted at the plantation, with the exception of the coffee they sell at their gift shop and in local stores. We also had a nice lunch there with a couple from the Island Princess on the same tour from their ship.
Fortunately the plantation was quite high up in the mountains where it was cooler and windy - a requirement for the beans - so the temperature was quite comfortable. We heard from many others how hot it was in town or on some of the other tours. We also stopped at a botanical garden for a quick visit where we saw a wild young toucan in the tree, besides the beautiful parrots in the cages. Our guide was quite knowledgeable and was really singing the praises of Costa Rica, as you’d expect. We stopped in the town of Palmares on the way to the plantation to see their square and church, which were both lovely. We were favorably impressed with most things, but we did wonder about all of the bars on the windows and the razor wire which was on many of the walls around the houses. Our guide told us that Costa Rica is very safe, which seemed not to jive with what we were seeing. But the cities were very clean and we saw very little graffiti, which has been prevalent in the last few ports.
Since the tours were very long and some got back very late (it was a long way to anywhere from Puntarenas), we were the only two at our table for dinner last night, and the dining room was more empty than usual. This has been a very unusual cruise as far as the dining room is concerned. On all of our previous cruises, the fixed seating dining rooms have been full, but since the beginning of this cruise there have been many empty seats, and sometimes whole empty tables. We understand that this is the case at the later seating and people have had no trouble getting into the Anytime dining whenever they’ve wanted. We checked out the buffet once right after we ate and it wasn’t very busy either, so we have no idea where people are eating. Strange.
Tomorrow is Nicaragua.
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