Guatemala

Pics of Cabo, PV and ==Your heading here...==Guatemala

April 21& 22

Saturday and Sunday: days at sea. Attended three lectures: on Saturday, the first was about the history of the Panama Canal, which we’ll be traversing in a few days from an American who was born in and continues to live in Panama. The second was a science lesson on the tectonic plates. Both speakers were interesting and amusing. On Sunday, the lecture was about the 2 upcoming ports.

Listened to an easy-listening singer Sat evening, who Steve says was pretty good and I didn’t mind. I even recognized a couple of the songs .

Sat we set our clocks back, so an extra hour of sleep. We’d already moved them forward twice and lost a couple hours. Apparently, there will be 2 more clock changes, so in all, 4 times forward and 1 time back.

We also booked shore excursions for Guatemala, Colombia and Panama, 3 of the 4 remaining ports. We plan to just walk around in Costa Rica near the port.

Since I couldn’t upload pictures in the last post, here are Cabo and PV.

Monday in Guatemala

We spent the day in Guatemala, having purchased transport from the cruise line. Antigua is 1.5 hours from the port, 5000 feet higher in altitude, and subsequently, 10 degrees cooler. Also less bugs than the sea-level rainforest. We were dropped off and given 5 hours of self-touring time before the return bus. Wilder, our guide, gave us some information on the way up to the highlands (quite a bit of which had been included in the previous day’s port talk).

Antigua is a UNESCO heritage site, representing a preserved colonial city that bears the scars from earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. The cathedral and other buildings remain in ruins, but it was a nice town in which to walk around and enjoy the day. After touring the ruins, churches, chocolate museum, jade store and mercado, we stopped at the Restaurante del Arco for lunch of quesadillas, tortilla chips and beer, along with free internet.

Here are a few pics from Antigua.