PANAMA CANAL CRUISE NOV. 2010

Arriving at the LA airport - JoAnn and Alan and Pat

Our cabin - view from the door

Our view from the bed looking back towards the door

Dining room with everyone

Keith and Terrie on deck

Eugene and Pat on deck

One of the formal nights

One of the fine productions we had nearly every night

Our first port of call

Pat shopping in Cabo

A man with a big iguana

Eugene and a new-found friend in front of a restaurant

Another friend he met on the way back

Our second stop - Acapulco

One of the sites to see - a chapel at one end of the harbor with a view of the city

A view of the city from the chapel

A close-up of the city showing our ship

Another big attraction - cliff divers.  This shows the scenic path to get to the cliff.

Terrie, Keith and Eugene looking over the wall - ready to watch the cliff divers

One of the cliff divers about to hit the water

The splash of the diver - shows the crowd on the left below us

Another cliff diver just launched his dive

Pat tipping the divers afterwards

This is our cab driver on the left.  He stayed with us all day.

Terrie, Keith and Eugene getting ready to snorkel at a local beach

It didn't turn out too good for Eugene.  He cut his knee on some rocks.  This is the ship's ER.

Now we're in Costa Rica.

Their highly decorated carts and wagons

Eugene showing a machete in a gift shop.

Our bus tour took us to the top of a cloud forest.

We took s train ride through the forest.  You can tell it is cloudy there.

A view of the train from our train car.

We went for a hike in the forest.

Forest flowers

More of the forest - moss on the trees

Another formal night with Keith and Terrie

Pat found a friend in front of a restaurant on the ship.

Our destination was the Panama Canal.  We spent a day on an excursion in the forest before going through the canal.

We had to tender (ferry) to shore from the ship.

A view of Panama City from the tender.

We went to an orchid farm and a butterfly farm.

These are the orchids Pat was photographing.

Our destination was a tram ride through the rain forest.  These are other tourists we photographed from our tram.

Another view from our tram ride.

We stopped at a tower where we could climb up and see more of the forest.  Everyone was wearing rain coats.

We saw this toucan up close from the tower.

Early the next day we started through the canal.  This shows the front of the ship as we pass under the first bridge.

We had to get up early to see the temple because we knew we would pass it at the beginning of the trip through the canal.

Our first lock.  We are already in the lock and waiting to be raised to the higher water level.

We were still near the city and a school group had come up to see the locks and waved at our ship as we went by.

There are two locks side by side.  You can see a big freighter going the opposite direction coming into the lock next to us.

Motorized cars that pull the ships through the locks.  They are referred to as "mules."

This shows another lock, closed, and filling up with water to bring it to the level of the water to the left.

Another lock showing the ship on the left already raised and moving out.  We are to the right and will also reach that level next.

A view as we left the final lock.

Our next stop was Cartagena in Colombia.  We are now in the Gulf of Mexico on the Atlantic Ocean side.

It rained all day but we still went out.  This is a view from our bus window of the flooded streets with two motor scooter riders.

Our first stop was a historic fort.  This was used in the movie "Romancing the Stone" with Kathleen Turner and Mike Douglas.

An old cannon used to defend the fort. Cartagena was overrun by pirates until the fort was built, and then it never experienced another attack.

Another view of the top of the fort.

There were narrow tunnels and stairways we had to navigate.

Pat, Keith and Terrie.  Pat had an umbrella, but Keith and Terrie used their rain slickers.

We went to a market during a break in the rain.  The women always wanted us to take pictures of them with their colorful dresses and balancing fruit on their heads - and they wanted us to pay them.

We went to an old chapel but had to walk to the side streets to get there. 

This is the alter in the chapel.  There is a petrified body of a "saint" in the gold-colored coffin.  It had a glass window in front for viewing.

We went to a hall and were entertained by dancers in traditional costumes.

More of the dancing women.

Here's Pat with one of the local women with fruit on her head.

A view of the church on our way back.  You can see the wall around it in front.

Our last port was Aruba.

You can see the beautiful blue water and the very clean city from our ship.

We went to one of the real pretty beaches out and away from the crowd.  We flagged a taxi to take us there.

Keith and Terrie snorkeled.  Eugene couldn't because his stitched up knee shouldn't be exposed to the ocean water.

A view of the beach looking back towards town.

Another view of the beach, taken from the parking lot.

We were waiting for the cab driver to come back.

Some of the hotels and restaurants in Aruba near the port.

A colorful bus in downtown Aruba.

Back on the ship.  Our two-day trip home included more good food,

...as you can see Pat being served her lobster.

We had more entertainment.

Eugene and Pat at breakfast.

We had a demonstration from the ship's chefs,

and a tour of the galley

and we even had an ice sculpting demonstration.

It all had to end sometime.  Eugene is outside our cabin with the bags that would be picked up that night.

Waiting to depart the ship in Miami.

Taking off from the airport in Miami for home.