After the Galapagos, we had two badly-needed days-at-sea to recover from all our running around in the Galapagos. While we were pleased to have visited there, we were just as pleased to have left.

Panama Canal Transit

From the Galapagos, we headed off toward the Panama Canal. We spent a day anchored off Fort Amador before entering the canal. We didn't do much – just walked around the immediate area -- maybe 3 miles 'round trip. It was extremely hot and twice as humid, and we started to feel the pressure from our increasingly-soon departure (web pages to write, clothes to pack, desserts to consume, etc.)

The passage through the Canal is still interesting, even though we've seen it before. It was a dribbly gray day, which took away some of the fun but also made it easier for Scott to be outside without gobbing with suncream. It was interesting to learn that there are fairly firm plans to build some additional locks (and some potential competitors); many of the world's ships are limited in size by the dimensions of the canal, and it would be of great benefit to have a much larger set of locks. Ten years they say it will take. I wonder if they'll hire some of the Boston's "Big Dig" labor force? OK, that'd take 20 years.

Bridge of the Americas	Birds in formation	Arrow points to which lock to use
Ready for transit	Filling the lock channel	Continuing work on canal

San Blas Islands, Panama

A second stop in Panama was at the San Blas Islands, home to an Indian group that has become world-renowned for their “molas”, an intricate appliqué-like technique they use for create fabric pictures. They have an island whose sole purpose, it seems, is to display and sell molas to cruise ships passing though. This was probably the hottest weather of the entire trip, and we spent entirely too long outside while Kathy selected a single T-shirt.

She claimed this indulgence because it was her birthday – she turned 50(!) on San Blas Island – a claim that very few in the first world can make. We had kept it a secret from fellow passengers, and had a nice romantic dinner in the specialty restaurant on board, including a fine bottle of wine purchased in New Zealand just for the occasion.

One of San Blas villages	Visitors...	Hawking photos of their kids
Mola marketplace	Molas	Artisan

Puerto Limón, Costa Rica

Our next port of call was Puerto Limón. It is is primarily a commercial port, with bananas as the primary export, and the banana-export market ain't what it once was, we hear. When the occasional cruise boat calls, passengers usually end up taking excursions to nearby National Parks or to beaches. With only about a week left on our trip, we decided to make a short day of it, and just wonder around town. The town has, in the guidebooks, a rather unsavory reputation – poor, smelly, somewhat dangerous.

We saw nothing to warrant such denigration. Sure, it wasn't a rich town, but it was bustling, lots of people out running errands, everyone very friendly and helpful. Little hard sell; nobody following us around, no one trying to scam us. It was, however, very hot, so we spent less that two hours (enough to cover all the downtown area at a leisurely pace). We spent a disproportionate amount of time in the toy section of a cheap department store. No, we are not planning children at this point, nor do we have many to purchase "stuff" for in our lives. No, we were shopping for silly hat supplies. Our tour group representative held the last of our cocktail parties for us the following day, and the "price of admission" was a silly hat. Well, we managed to convert a 50c plastic dish, and a plastic foam rocket toy, into a satellite dish (hers) and a propeller-head (his) respectively. We didn't win the prize, but we did receive a few... choice... comments. A photo may be forthcoming, or perhaps we'll manage to forget the thing entirely.

Our's wasn't this good --
but you can get this one at CompUsa