Monday the 14th January - Antigua on our own - Guatemala

The morning was quiet and warm already. Entering the bay with the port was another beauty with small villages up the coast and brightly coloured fishing boats anchored in the coves or already out fishing.

There was a volcano in the distance again with a little puff of smoke coming out about every 8 minutes. Was it getting ready to erupt again? this one had just erupted about a month before and the highway that we were going to be travelling down came quite close to it. we wondered if we should be worried? we were kind of , but only a little bit really.

It was a nice port  with a few fishing boats and charters going out of the port as we were going in. They were very organized on the pier too directing us to our buses and loading each one till it was full. 

We should have known that things were going to awry today when, for the first time, we bought a bottle of water on the boat for the tour  and when we loaded onto the bus they gave us free water also. Oh well. It was a long tour and we would probably drink them both. Antonio and Pablo Escobar were our tour guide and driver. 

We drove through the country side past lovely flowering trees with views of volcanos all over the place. how many volcanos were there here in Guatemala or was it the same ones we were seeing as the road twisted and turned around the big rock formations scattered around the landscape?We drove  past large rock formations with fields of cows below them. It was very pretty and not what I was expecting. I am not sure what I was expecting. more jungly maybe or something. It was quite pastoral with really big rocks and volcanos in the distance.We drove on a nice highway past sugar cane fields. Then the scenery got a little bit rougher as that is where the volcano had erupted a month earlier we saw where several villages and the highway had been taken out by the volcano flows. I saw a sign that said beware of falling lava and hot rocks. My first ever beware of volcano sign. 

The villages were sad. Wiped out with no roofs and no streets left. When we got to the highway that had been wiped out they were working on repairing it with loads of equipment and tons of rocks and gravel. You could see the channel that the eruption had taken and the course that it left all washed away and burnt out. 

Our driver carefully maneuvered us onto the portion of the highway that was under repair and then back up onto the original highway but when the rear of the bus tried to go up onto the highway , the oil pan scrapped, broke, caught fire and started to fill the bus with smoke. 

It was not very scary but some of the passengers said that we all had to get off the bus immediately as it was filling with smoke. There was little bit of smoke but not so bad.  

We did all get off the bus and they driver and tour guide went to see if it could be fixed but it could not so they called for another bus. While we were waiting Margie and I crossed the highway and wandered up a cobbled rod past a sign that said golf resort. I was hoping for a washroom as I  did not really want to go into the jungle to use mother nature.

 There was a gate manned by two guards at the top of the hill and as I approached lI asked Bano? One of the guards repeated bano. I asked again kind of looking around for a washroom and saying bano??  Again the guards said bano? I was getting closer to the gate as I was talking and so seeing that there was not an actual fence , went around the gate , looked at their little guard shack and said Bano? Pointing at the shack. 

The guards looked at each other and then realization came into their eyes and they said yes by way of nodding their heads. I used the washroom. Then Margie did. 

The guards were very nice little Mayans with big guns. Some of the other ladies were now making their way up the hill also looking for a washroom and so we told them about the Bano in the guard shack. We asked the guards if we could get our photo taken with the guards and they agreed. They were very nice. 

I thought it would be nice to go up to the resort but the guards were there to make sure that no one went up the road as the resort had also been taken out by the eruption of the volcano. We made our way back down the hill taking photos of the flowers and butterflies along the way. There were more than several of the ladies and gentlemen from the bus who also came up the road to use the washroom once we had told them that there was one. The guards probably had not seen that much activity in weeks.

Our replacement bus came in 29 minutes which was pretty darn quick. once we were all back from the washrooms break we continued on our way in the new bus which did not encounter anymore difficulties on the way to Antigua. 

We passed lots more coffee plantations with the coffee planted in the shade of the bigger trees. the terrain was very hilly but very pretty too.

Antigua is a very old city that has been through many earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. A lot of the buildings and walls looked as if they had been repaired or were in need of repair.

The earthquakes had certainly taken a toll on the roads . The cobblestones were the deadliest I had ever seen anywhere with big stones and little stones and not even at all in a lot of places. had to keep your eyes down for sure anytime you had to cross a road.

It was a charming town though in so many ways and the Mayan's were lovely little people. we got off at the jade exchange and when we left there to look around Antigua we were swamped by the little ladies selling their wares. Beaded hummingbirds, woven tapestries, shawls, and runners, hats and carvings. So many things. We had not idea how much to pay so we each bought some shawls and hummingbirds and went on our way. 

We had been given maps to find our way around and we checked it pretty often. At one point we just said well lets find a restaurant and get a drink and maybe a bite to eat and get our bearings. We found Roots a lovely little cafe with soup and sandwiches at just the right price and sat for a bit of a rest from the cobblestones. 

We were aiming for the town centre and a little park that was on the map. after our little lunch that was very tasty we wandered off and did in fact find the Central Park pretty handily.

 It was a very nice park with the little Mayan ladies and men coming up and asking us to buy things. Now for the purposes of information only, do not buy your souvenirs outside the Jade museum in Antigua, go the Central Park and busy them there. the closer you get to the centre too town the cheaper the souvenirs get. 

If we had of waited and bought our things at the park we could have paid half price for the same things. well you live and learn. all we could say that they understood was "Broke" already spent our money and they would say credit card go to the ATM to get more money. they were so cute.

We wandered around town and saw some interesting things. two little nuns coming down one street headed for some church we guessed. There were several churches in Antigua. of which we did not go into any of them. odd as we always went into th churches but we did not see any to go into that were open.

We came across a Hotel named Aurora which looked lovely with a very pretty little courtyard. My granddaughters name is Aurora and so I took some photos of that to show her . if I were to ever come to stay in Antigua I think I would try to stay there. One can never tell by the plain outside walls on the street what it looks like inside. 

We found what I thought was a post office but it turned out to e a police station. boy was I wrong. not going to get any stamps from them. but they were very nice and told us that the mail box outside their little building was 100 years old.

We continued to wander and found the chocolate museum and factory in Antigua. it is off the Main Street and it was not very busy. It was interesting with some very cool old chocolate related things and we bought a few souvenirs but not the chocolate covered condoms. We then thought we should probably be headed back toward the jade museum and to the bus.

We found our way back to the jade museum and we only had to tell twenty or so more little Mayans "Broke, Broke" and then we were there. We picked up a few more things, got some phots and used the washrooms. The bus driver rounded us all up with a bit of difficulty and we walked over to where the pickup point was.

The ride back was not eventful and we were glad to get back to the ship with tales of how the volcano ate our bus, our washroom adventures in the jungle with gun carrying guards and the little mayans who were so cute.

Of course the first thing we did when we got back to our room was shower as it was the first time on the cruise that our excursion left us feeling very dusty and dirty along with sweaty. What with all the outside actives next to the reconstruction of the destroyed highway ia am surprised that we did not have streaks of mud running down our faces. that I what it felt like anyway. 

The cobble stones really had been pretty hard on Margies and my joints and we were pretty sore for the rest of the evening. 

Margie did her payroll and I did my pictures for facebook.

we Read our books and went to dinner but came back to our room early and called it a day. It had been a fun and exciting day but very tiring.

Towel animal - Mighty mouse

Sunday the 13 Jan 2019 - Nicaragua

We did not have to get up so early for todays tour in Nicargua but I did anyway and went around the ship getting photos of the artwork on each floor by the elevators. The front is of fish and turtles and underwater creatures. The middle section is of gems and the back is paintings of modes of transportation, at lot of them boats and ships of different sizes.

After a lovely breakfast at O’Sheehan’s again, only this time it was quiet and time to talk to the staff. After breakfast we went outside to say hi to Nicaragua and saw dolphins and a whale in the distance. We were very excited as this was our second sighting of dolphins and first for whales on this cruise. we entered they and saw a very large volcano in the distance and wondered if this ws the one that had erupted just a month earlier.

The port of Corinto is lovely outside the port with lots of colourful little fishing boats in the water by their villages. Inside the port there are shipping containers and not much else. although they were setting up for us a wonderful reception, the first we had had of its kind. We went back to our room and were entertained by the dancers and bands on the dock. It was the best welcome we had received to date at any port. Nicaragua was starting out very well.

They were very organized on the dock and they gave us a bag with maps and information about Nicaragua. We were excited to receive this free gift as it was the first free things we had received at any of the ports. It was very nice.

 Our tour guide was Juan? and our driver was ? We left the port and drove through the little village which was very clean and although poor was well cared for. He gave us lots of information about Nicaragua and he tested us at the end of the tour to make sure that we were familiar with his country. A very nice young man and a very nice driver too.

Our 3 and a half hour tour started in El Viejo, "the Old man", with the oldest cathedral  in the country and it was beautiful. There was a mass going on and so I did not want to just walk around taking photos like the obviously non Catholics,  so I took a few inside and went outside to see the grounds and the exterior of the church.  

There were some lovely wall plaques and crosses on the building and some teens in the church youth group selling popcorn and drinks to raise money for the poor children of the poorer sections of town. I tried to talk with them and they picked the teen who spoke the best English and pushed her forward to converse with me. She did pretty well. Her English was way better than my Spanish . I bought two popcorn and gave one to a young girl out front for lighting a candle for me inside the church.  It was pretty good popcorn.

We tourists all piled back onto the bus and were on our way to Chinandega. It was not too long a drive and our tour guide kept us well informed as to what we were seeing. Whether it was sugar cane fields on the right, coffee on the left or volcanoes not currently erupting straight ahead.

The small town of Chinendega had the second church we were visiting and also folklore dances  out side with children all dressed up in their traditional outfits dancing away in the heat of the morning. We watched from the shade of the trees and then gave them a little bit of money for their performance which was very nice.

The church was very different from the old man church we had seen earlier. It had no mass going on so we could actually take a look around inside, it was brighter inside but not as cozy feeling as the previous church. Lovely all the same.

There were young children selling packages of gum and they had even smaller children with them also selling packages of gum. I felt bad for them but did not buy any gum from them. I did  put some money into the donation box and said some prayers for my family and the children selling gum. I wondered if the little ones they older children were holding hands with were really their little brothers and sisters or just random kids off the street. Paris and Slum Dog Millionaire had educated us in so many ways that we were now sceptical of these sorts of things.

After our quick and very crowded shopping spree to get souvenirs at the little market across the street from the church, we all piled back onto the bus and headed back to the ship. The countryside is quite dry and desolate in places but very pretty all the same. Our tour guide was very proud of his country and it showed in all the things that he told us about it and the people and the government programs and the history. some the the Americans were I believe surprised at their roles in the countries past, never having heard these things before about the corruption and greed of the U.S. government and the U.S. multi national companies taking advantage of smaller weaker countries.

We headed back to the ship and at one point the bus pulled over and who ever wanted to could get up and get off and walk back to the bridge we had just passed to get photos of the volcanoes could so quite a few of us did. of course there was a cloud in the way but that was OK ist was a nicaraguan cloud.

We made it back in plenty of time and had a nice relaxing afternoon. I like short tours.  We went to the customer service desk and wrote up a report about Agness Hebbert, the waitress who had been yelled at by the unreasonably irate passenger. We simply told them about how she did such a good job taking care of an unsatisfiable passenger and that she did nothing wrong.  

After we had done our duty as we saw it righting wrongs in an unjust world, I realized that I had forgotten to sprinkle Mom and Dad on our tour, so I did then at the end of the ship into the harbour. I did not think that they would mind. They were in Nicaragua.

As we waited for other tours to come back I noticed that they were again practising with the tender boats. Maybe they were training new people of just re-certifying the already trained crew to make sure that they were current. We wondered which ports we would be tendered out at. We could have found out but we were really not that curious and would rather be surprised. 

We uploaded photos and organized our shots to get them ready to put onto facebook. 

Took some nice photos of us leaving the harbour. There were some fishermen in small boats and a statue of, I believe, the first president of Nicaragua, at the harbours entrance right beside the light house. A very picturesque departure. 

We looked for whales again once we were out of the harbour and back into the Pacific.

We had dinner with Gerry, (Geraldine) at Magenta’s. She was a solo traveller and enjoyed telling us all about the ins and outs of being a solo traveller. Interesting lady. Back to our room to relax and watch a movie, the Equalizer 2. We decided the we loved Nicaragua.

When we got back to our room after dinner we could not find our Towel animal. We went and got Vignesh, our attendant, and he showed us where he had placed him.... flying off of our air-conditioning vent in the ceiling - Burt the bat.. we loved him.  Vignesh is trying all kinds of new things for us as we are saving all of our towel animals and so he is having fun too, seeing them all at the same time in one place.

Saturday 12 jan 2019 Punteranas, Costa Rica

 Woke up at 3

Made up my laundry bag

Watched the movie I feel pretty. wandered around the ship taking photos of the different levels at the stairs.

 Wrote up some more of the trip

Margie woke up and we went for breakfast at O’Sheehan’s. it was a little crazy with pretty much the whole ship having to be ready to leave on their tours by 730.  We got a table and then waited for the waiter to come and take our order. I held up our menu and one of them came over and asked what time our tour left . Ours left at 740 so he asked us if we would mind waiting for a bit as they were trying to get the breakfasts for the folks leaving at 710 first. No Problem. He brought us tea and coffee and we waited watching the action of all the waiters and waitresses. 

Our turn came and we had a lovely breakfast as usual. Porridge for me and eggs for Margie and toast for both. As we were finishing our breakfast a passenger across the aisle from us started to complain to one of the waitresses that he was given terrible service , that he was ignored, that he was not happy with the lack of service. The waitress was very professional and tried to explain that she was sorry that he was not happy with that morning’s service but it was not her fault , that there were three other waiters in that seating area. I felt bad for her. The unreasonable passenger would not be placated and even though she was holding a tray full of other peoples breakfasts he kept her there for at least 5 minutes complaining. After he left and she had come over to our table to see if we needed anything, we asked her how she was and hoped that her day would get better now that everyone would be going off the ship. Her family were coming to see her in the port  in Nicaragua and she was looking forward to that. 

We went to the stardust theatre in case our tour had different directions, which floor , aft or bow exit doors, but it was the same as always,  so off we went to find our tour bus. We exited the ship and headed in the wrong direction along the dock looking at all the tour buses lined up and ended up having to walk back to our starting point to find ours only a few buses in the other direction. 

Today our tour was a long one 7 hours roundtrip to San Jose National Theatre and Sarchi artists town with the lovely oxcarts. We had Juan? and Jeffrey, our driver, although Juan did not tell us this when we got on, I had to ask him and he never told us the drivers name I asked the driver myself.  

 The drive there was uneventful with only a little information being given to us about what we were seeing and when he did tell us he directed our attention to the front of the bus. Well, the problem with that was that we were seated at the back so we had to wait for the road to change direction for us to see what he was talking about. Later on in the tour he started to direct our attention to the left or right side but not until later.

We saw a volcano which was active but not dangerous as of yet. We saw lovely orange trees that I asked him about and he said they were African orange tulip trees. There were bright yellow trees he said were called yellow Cortez because Cortez died under one.

We arrived at San Jose, the capital of the country via the main highway which winds its way up ward through sugar cane fields and coffee plantations.  They plant coffee in the shade of other trees, mangoes or banana or nut trees, as coffee grows better in the shade. 

On the way we passed a river with some smaller, poorer homes on one side and larger homes on the other with rour guide telling us about how the rich people lived on one side of the river and the poor lived on the other. He sounded disgruntled. 

The National theatre in San Jose is really lovely. Reminded me of a smaller version of the Paris opera house. The history of it is quite interesting. at the beginning there were so few rich people and the the president came from a poorer background that he made it so t hat everyone could go to the opera house. They did not need to wear shoes if they did not have them and would never be turned away because of that.

We spent a lovely time there with all the statues in the foyer and the marble in the hallways and stairs. We went upstairs into the theater to learn about its history. 

We went into the reception rooms decorated with more statues and paintings . One painting on the ceiling was of a lovely lady and her eyes followed you around the room. she was lovely although at the same time creepy. 

There was lots of gold leaf making it look quite opulent. We spent some time taking photos and using the washrooms. It was really lovely.

 We made our way back to the bus via the square with the largest gold museum in latin America underneath it. It was very hot out and we kept trying to get into the shade of any tree we could find. back to the bus and we were off again.

A short but nerve wracking, winding, steep ups and downs drive later we were in Sarchi. Costa Rica is a lot of mountains with some active volcanoes and lots of steep hills with small roads winding up, down and around, back and forth on tight corners. The main highway is wide enough but we were not on the main highway to Sarchi.

Sarchi is a smallish community of artists making beautifully painted carved wooden crafts, beaded handworks and ceramics. the town has a lovely green church which is a landmark of sorts. 

the town also lays claim to the largest painted ox cart in the world. it is really stunning displayed on a large covered patio in the park across the street form the green church

 The shop where we stopped acts as the seller of all the different items and has a workshop where they make oxcarts of all sizes from the largest to ones still in use to day in the coffee plantations to souvenir ones for tourists to take home.

 The designs and bright colours of the painted ox carts were stunning. These designs were all over the place, on chairs, walls and souvenirs. I fell in love with the vibrant designs and have decide to, somehow, incorporate them into my garden back home. 

We had a bite to eat at the restaurant, an included lunch with our tour. I had beans and rice and plantain which was very good. Margie and I came in last and were at the back of the line until the tour guide came in and told us we had lined up backward so then we were at the front of the line. Worked out well for us as we had more time to shop for souvenirs.

 I bought a lovely little beaded hummingbird and some post cards and coffee of course for my son and daughter-in-law, they like their coffee. then we wandered around and looked at all the pretty designs on everything. we watched a live demonstration of them painting a piece by hand,  free hand, and it was amazing to see how quickly they could do this intricate patterns. made it look so easy so you know that it is actually really hard.

There was a coffee display with a live coffee plant with coffee berries on it. I never knew how complicated coffee was. I am a tea drinker so never really paid much attention to coffee before. It was all very interesting.

 Margie and I both just loved Sarchi and I am sure that both my mother and father would have loved it too so I sprinkled them there in the flower garden when no one was looking

 The drive back was just as harrowing as the drive there, but we took a different route and  made a few stops. One to take photos of the volcano and one to get a banana plant flower and one to get one of the passengers some sand from the beach. We were back in the port just in time. We were the last tour group back. With 10 minutes to spare for our deadline of 430. The ship departed at 5.

We had a lovely dinner at the garden cafe that night and went to  the show of the broadway singer who was alright but rather loud. She definitely knew all the words.

Towel animal - Dino the dinosaur,