May 11, 2019 - At Sea (Pacific Ocean) - Mostly Sunny - 80s

A beautiful and calm day at sea.

Reading, relaxing, and eating in no particular order.

Capped off by a "Magic Moment" in the Pacific Ocean.

May 10, 2019 - Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala - Mostly Cloudy - 80s

We are at another port of call today, Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala.


There is not much to see in this tiny port - instead, we are both going on an all day tour -"Casa Santo Domingo and Antigua, Guatemala".  The tour starts early so we are forced to get room service at their earliest delivery time.  Not as good an option as eating in Terraces but we are fueled and ready to meet our group in the Lounge.

Background Information:  Antigua, once the capitol of Guatemala, was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979 recognizing the historical significance of its colonial architecture.  Antigua is also home to three impressive volcanoes, Agua, Fuego (active and a smoker), and Acatenango (dormant). V. Agua is closest to Antigua and is 12,300 feet above sea level and considered extinct.  A massive earthquake devastated the area in 1773 and the town has been rebuilding since.  The Convent De Santo Domingo was one of the world's largest convents in the 17th century but was nearly totally destroyed in the earthquake.  Today, it has been resurrected as the Casa de Santo Domingo Hotel (Five stars) and Museum.  Many of the buried churches and underground rooms have been restored.

We disembarked the ship and each boarded our own buses for the 48 mile ride to Antigua (about 90 minutes).


The countryside was picturesque but there was a lot of highway construction going on so progress was slow.  The roads were also bumpy even though they looked relatively new and smooth.  The ride was a little tough on my back.  As we were getting close to the city, the driver told us we would take a short cut through the back roads.


And back roads they were, barely wide enough to accommodate the bus.  We did get there and probably saved a lot of time not having to fight the traffic into Antiqua.

There are two take-aways from Antiqua - the first is the colonial nature of the town - one story stucco type buildings of various colors.


The second is the location - volcanoes form the backdrop of the town and can be seen from almost everywhere.  They are impressive.



Another interesting feature of Antigua are the wildly painted public buses.  The guide told us that was a way to inject some color into the town.


Our first and main stop was the Casa Domingo Hotel.  It is interesting to note that the hotel, which is quite posh, is built right up against some condos and separated only by a hedge.


We were given some free time to walk the grounds and see the work that has been done to restore the old convent and churches buried in the earthquake. All the buses were here, so Ellen and I met up and toured the grounds together. There are fountains and ruins and the photo ops are endless.





We also spent some time in the museum, the highlight of which was a Jade Crocodile supposedly worth millions.




Lunch was buffet style at the Hotel - there were some salads we could eat but no main dishes - we spoke to the hotel staff and they prepared two salmon dishes for us.


They were very good and along with the traditional dishes made for a very nice lunch.  They even got us Coke Lights (no beer for me today).  The dessert was also good - some kind of cake.  It is, after all, a Five Star Hotel.

After lunch, we walked a few blocks - certainly not wheel chair or walker accessible due to the cobblestone surfaces - to the Jade Museum.


The museum is run by a woman who is actually from the Midwest - she and her husband discovered a jade deposit decades ago and have been fashioning items out of jade ever since.  I was a bit tired so after listening to her talk, I hung out in the lecture area.  Ellen's group came by a few minutes later.

We met our bus and were supposed to see some of the other sites in Antigua but the traffic and lack of parking changed the plans - we did drive through but it was difficult to see the churches and buildings from the bus.

The driver indicated that we would start our ride back.  The ride back was slow - it took over two hours to get back- as we did run into lots of construction.  In many cases, there were flaggers and only one lane of traffic was allowed to move at any one time.  We did get some nice pictures of the local volcanoes from the bus as we inched our way back to Puerto Quetzal.



We arrived back at the ship in the dark and slowly made our way through the check in line.


It was a good thing that the Regatta is a small ship.  Dealing with five times as many passengers would have been a mess.

Dinner up in Terraces and decompression the rest of the evening.

All in all, a good tour of colonial Antiqua.

May 9, 2019 - San Juan de Sur, Nicaragua - Partly Cloudy - 80s

A much nicer day today in Nicaragua.


We are both on tour today (on the same bus) - "Amayo Hacienda, Lake Nicaragua, and Lunch".  This is a tender port so, after meeting our group in the Lounge, we headed down to the pontoon to catch our tender.

The map below shows where we are and where we are heading to.


The tender ride took about 10 minutes or so (I got a jump seat so I could get some pictures of the ship) and dropped us off at the tender port constructed a couple of years ago.  Before, we left on the tour, I got a shot of the beach area of San Juan de Sur.



San Juan de Sur is usually very warm and humid, but today, the conditions are quite comfortable.  We walked through the tender port area and found our bus in the parking lot.  We introduced ourselves to our guide, Elvis (yes), and found some comfortable seats (the bus was not full so we got on own seats).


Elvis' English is almost perfect and he is easy to understand - the bus is air conditioned and the ride pretty comfortable.

After a short tour of the town, the bus headed East toward Lake Nicaragua.  As we drove along the countryside, we could see the twin volcanoes, V. Maderas (dormant) and V. Concepcion (active and sometimes puffing smoke) situated on the island of Ometepe in the lake.


We drove through the town of Rivas and past its baseball field (baseball is very big in Nicaragua).  One of the times we were here, San Juan del Sur had no electricity since the power comes from Rivas and Rivas was experiences some kind of problem.

The travel time to Amayo Hacienda took about an hour.  The estate, originally given to a family by the King of Spain, is still family owned.  Today, it consists of a main building and a large piece of land, which is right on the shore of the lake.  The estate contains various types of vegetation including several huge palm trees.

There were several chairs available to sit on and enjoy the scenery.  We chose to sit under the overhang to avoid the sun.  There were very few, if any, mosquitoes, or other annoying bugs.  There is also a small pool but no one took advantage of the pool on this trip.

When we arrived, we noticed a framed document on the wall of the building - it was in Spanish but the opening lines were those of the Shema.  We inquired about this document but Elvis and other folks associated with the Hacienda did not know what this was.


Ellen and I ventured onto the estate to see examples of local pottery and to see the horses housed on the Hacienda.

You can go all the way to the shore of the lake and get some great shots of the volcanoes.  There are also several wind turbines along the shore that take advantage of the windy conditions present on the lake.





The conditions were near perfect for viewing the lake and its sites.  The terrain was very uneven and there were several stairs that took you down (and then back up) to the house.  Not everyone in our group went exploring.  It should be noted that L. Nicaragua is home to the only species of freshwater shark in the world.

When we got back to the house after exploring the shoreline, the group was treated to some songs by Elvis and some backup musicians.  A dance group also performed some local dances.


We also got a traditional lunch - we couldn't eat everything but Elvis did help us find some vegetarian items (some kind of veggie tortilla, plantains, and other non-meat goodies) so we did not starve on this trip.  Soft drinks and beer was also provided.  The food was pretty good.

After lunch, we had some more free time, which was spent chatting with some of the passengers.

By mid afternoon, it was time to get on the bus and make our way back to San Juan de Sur.  There was no wait to get on a tender.


We changed for dinner and ate up in Terraces.

A nice day in San Juan de Sur.

May 8, 2019 - Puntarenas, Costa Rica - Cloudy - Rainy - 80s

Today, we are supposed to dock in Puntarenas, Costa Rica.

However, the weather conditions prevented us from docking so we have an unscheduled sea day.  That's actually OK as Puntarenas has never been one of our favorite stops.  You can see the conditions were nasty - windy, rainy, and all around undesirable.

Appropriately, all the pictures are of our sail away.

May 7,2019 - At Sea (Pacific Ocean) - Cloudy - Rainy - 70s

A not so beautiful day at Sea.

The seas are smooth but it's a cloudy and rainy day in the Pacific.  On the other hand, the clouds were spectacular and the storms (as long as they are in the distance) amazing.

A nice breakfast and another great coffee created by Barbara in Baristas rounded on the morning.

My third talk, "Forensics and History:  Search for the Unknown Titanic Child", also drew a nice audience - full house or close.  People are reading the program or listening to the announcements or simply like to learn more about forensics and/or history.

After dinner and the show, we wandered out on the pool deck.  The night was warm and the deck all lit up.