Sunday, February 23, 2014

Snap Shot Costa Rica

Our second port of call Saturday was Puntarenas Costa Rica. We pulled into the dock bright and early at 7:00 am.

Busy Day In Port
All ready in port was a north bound Norwegian Cruise Lines ship. Both ships at dock made for quite a picture and a busy day for the local tour operators.  

Our crew had earlier sorted us into herds and given us sticky numbers to paste on ourselves. We were #1. Almost as soon as we stepped foot on the dock we were met by our guide for the day the lovely Masiel
Our Guide For The Day Masiel
Masiel loaded us on our bus and off we went for our tour of the rain forest canopy, and Tarcoles river On our way to the forest Masiel came through the bus and gave us new sticky numbers, when she saw we were old tattooed tarts she said she had ink too, and we were her kind of people. I knew we were in good hands…

In Guatemala there was trash everywhere along the road, but here in Costa Rica there was hardly any. Costa Rica is a socialist democracy, with elected representatives. Way back in the 1960’s the country quit cutting down the rain forests and started preserving habitat. Instead of having a military they built schools, and made attendance mandatory up through high school with collage available for those that chose to attend. Most Costa Rica’s are fluent in English, Spanish, and French. The literary rate in over 90% and health care is available for everyone! The cost to citizens is a whopping 9% tax rate.
No wonder the regressive republicans in amerika fight for unregulated corporate capitalism. Representative   Socialism works!

The rain forest tram ride was not that special. We rode in 9 seat tram cars up one side of the hill, then down the other. We saw butterflies, lots of plants, and the beak of an elusive Toucan.

The boat ride on the Tarcoles River was something else. Almost as soon as we took to the river we started to see wildlife.
This Isn’t No Disneyland Crocodile

Birds were everywhere, and Masiel was not only good at spotting them she knew their species as well.  I saw birds that I thought I would never see.

White Ibis
Northern Jacana
 
Tri Colored Heron
Wood stork and Little Blue Heron
 

After our boat ride we were treated to Marimba music and fresh melon and pineapple.
Masiel got us back in plenty of time to take in the huge Carnival that was going on around the cruise ship dock. We lingered on the pier for a while taking more photos and listening to the sounds of the bands and crowd.

We decided since it had been over 45 minutes since we last ate, that it was time to go aboard. Once safety high above the bow in the Horizon buffet, I noticed that instead of letting everyone fill up their own plates the crew was now serving us. I thought it might be because they missed us, what with us being gone all day, but later came the announcement from our captain, that some passengers had come down with flu like symptoms, and we were going to health advisory level defcon 3.
 
Will our ship of food turn into the ship of projectile vomit? Let’s hope not!

 

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