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| It is now October 13-day ten. We arrive in Puerto Caldera Costa Rica at 6:30 am, tendering from shore. We have a long 8 hour tour planned deep into the rain forest. |
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| We passed several quaint, very neat, clean villages-a welcome contrast to the Mexican villages. The Costa Rican landscape is mountainous with coffee plantations, corn fields, rolling green hillsides with grazing dairy cows, and cloudy, foggy rain forests in the upper mountain regions. The scenic lush countryside drive was absolutely fabulous! |
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| We travelled from the Pacific Coast 2 hours into the mountains to almost the Caribbean east coast. Our destination was the Valle Escondido Hotel and Resort, tucked away in the middle of the rain forests. Our tour guide, spoke flawless fluent English, a college student who was well educated, polite, and very educational about Costa Rican life. From the bus, he led us to the forest trailhead where it began to rain. We were all warned beforehand to bring rain gear so everyone was prepared. The trail wound deep down into the forest fauna where the sun doesn't shine. Even though it was raining hard, we stayed relatively dry with the tree canopies shielding us from above. Because it was raining, the monkeys, iguanas, birds and other wildlife hide, so there were no sightings. The hike lasted about an hour and a half as we learned the ecosystem of the forest. It was very interesting how the trees and plants regenerate to survive. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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| After the hike, the hotel dining room served us a traditional Costa Rican afternoon meal. Mainly rice, vegetables, salad with chicken or beef as a very small portion of the meal. Our scenic drive back took us to the historic town of San Ramon. We parked at the town square, by the church of course. It reminded me of the 50s, an unrushed, simpler time with clean, polite people. School children learn to speak English and French but Spanish is still the language of choice. Then on back to the ship for a 7:30 sailing. We thoroughly enjoyed Costa Rica as one of our favorite ports, and would return in a heart beat. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Valle Escondido Hotel | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Street of San Ramon | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Tomorrow is a much needed relaxing sea day-gearing up for the following day, the Panama Canal! |  |
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