Puntarenas, Costa Rica

 Today, we are in Puntarenas, Costa Rica, and we are tsking a ship’s excursion called “A Walk in the Clouds.

We set an alarm for 7:30 AM to give us enough time to eat breakfast in the World Cafe, and then to get ready and apply some sunscreen.  The weather outside was sunny, so we were looking forward to a nice day in Puntarenas.

Breakfast was good, it was not crowded and we had no issue finding a table.  After breakfast, we went back to the cabin to get ready for the excursion.  Stephanie could not find the fan she had purchased in Cartagena, somehow, she must have left it somewhere last night.  We also had not been able to find out if there were any special dress requirements for the excursion we were on today, we had looked in both the Viking Daily and on the TV.  Since it was in a rain forest, we thought there might have been some recommendations on what to wear or bring.

Stephanie wanted to see if anyone had turned in her fan to the Guest Services Lost and Found, so we headed to guest services to ask about the fan and about the excursion.  There was no fan there, and not much information on the excursion other than it was suggested to wear long pants.

We made the decision that we would wear shorts, and take some long pants with us in case we needed them.  We also thought about taking umbrellas but then thought it would be a better idea to take our rain jackets.  I was already going to wear my Keen Hiking Shoes, this was the main reason I had brought them, specifically for this excursion.  Stephanie wore her tennis shoes but took her Keen Sandals with her in her backpack.  We also took our bug repellant spray, but decided we would not take it out of the vacuum bag we had put it in at home until we knew if we needed to use it.  I took a small pocket knife in case we needed to cut open the sealed vacuum bag.

We applied some sunscreen since it was a perfectly sunny day here in Puntarenas, and it was forecast to be 92 degrees for the high.

We got everything ready and headed out with our backpacks at about 9:00 AM to disembark the ship and find our tour bus out on the pier.  We checked in with the tour coordinators and were assigned bus Number 18 for our tour.  It was nice that the buses were out on the pier since we were tied up at the very end of the pier, and it would have been a long walk to get to shore.

We were not the last people to get on the bus, but close to it.  We took some seats almost at the back of the bus to get some space from the other passengers and have more room for our gear.  It was a nice large bus with a bathroom at the back, but apparently, it was not for use during the tour.  Our guide told us the first stop was going to be a shopping area with bathrooms, about an hour away from the pier.  I think that was meant to tell us that the bathroom on the bus was not in service, but no one ever said for sure.

There was also a Viking Excursion rep on the bus with us, she was just going on the tour to experience it, maybe to see firsthand what the tour was about.  There was one couple on our bus that had been assigned the wrong bus at the check-in on the pier.  Actually, the Viking Rep on our bus had told them that she had made a mistake, and assigned them to the wrong bus.  They were supposed to be on one of the free included tours.  She gave them the choice to stay on this tour, or to take the last free included tour bus on the schedule.  Of course, if they stayed on this excursion, they would be charged the extra fee.  They elected to stay, so we were now ready to go.

Our bus left at about 9:30 AM, and we headed out of the port area.  There were a lot of people on the beach swimming since it is a holiday here too for New Year’s. We headed south and the city of Puntarenas was not very pretty, there are a lot of poor people living here.

Our guide filled us in on a lot of the history of Costa Rica, and it was pretty interesting.  They abolished their military forces in 1948, so they rely on neighboring countries for any protection they might need.  The history of Costa Rica is mainly tied to growing coffee, which was the main export for many years.  Almost all of the different cultures here initially came to Costa Rica to grow coffee.

We drove about an hour and made it to our first stop.  It was a place to purchase souvenirs, but it was run by local artisans, and they had some nice items for sale.  Stephanie was not sure she would find her missing fan, so we had to purchase a replacement fan here just in case.  It was more of a folding fan instead of what she has now, which is just a circular fan about 10 inches across with a handle.  She also purchased a small stuffed sloth to hook to her backpack with other similar animals she has collected on our travels.  Sloths are found here in Costa Rica, and we hope to see one of them on our rainforest tour.

Right after we arrived at the shops, there was another smaller bus of passengers from Viking that were on bus 19.  Apparently, this time slot for the tour included the 29 people on our bus plus the other group on the smaller bus that left a little after us.

There was also an area in the back behind the stores with some animals in pens and a garden area.  In addition, there was a butterfly farm, but we did not see it until near the end of our scheduled time here, so we did not get to spend as much time inside as I wanted to for photos.  

We headed back to our bus and waited for one last couple to show up before we headed out to the main attraction on this tour.  Our guide said it was about 30 minutes away, but it took us more like 50 minutes to finally get there.  We passed through the town of San Ramon, which we were told was where many of the presidents of Costa Rica had been born.  There was a large Cathedral in the middle of town that we passed by.  It was odd to see that many of the houses were completely surrounded by high fences and even the rolled concertina barbed wire.  Our guide had already told us that Costa Rica has the lowest crime rate in all of Latin America, but it seemed strange that there appeared to be such drastic security measures in place.  The guide must have heard some say something similar about the houses in the town, and he explained that the fences and walls were to keep out animals such as monkeys, panthers, and others that could get into the yards of the houses if there was no protection.  Now it made a little more sense, but still seemed odd to see all of the concertina-type barbed wire.

Long before we arrived at the final tour destination, the weather went from a little cloudy and misty to totally cloudy and rainy as we headed upward in elevation.  Initially, it did not appear to be raining, but the roadway was totally saturated with water.  

Along the way, we could see some of the coffee fields high up in the mountains, as well as many tented greenhouses where flowers were being grown for export to Saudi Arabia.  Flower exports are now just behind coffee as one of the top five exported items from Costa Rica.

We were now really glad we had brought our rain jackets.  It was not a real rain, but a super heavy mist to a light rain at times.  Our guide told us that in this area, they average about 330 days of rain.  We thought who would want to live there, it would be too depressing.  

We finally arrived at the destination for the rainforest walk.  There seemed to be some confusion on what was to happen first, being served the included lunch, or the tour itself.  Finally, it was decided that our bus group would eat first, and the other smaller bus group from Viking would do the tour first.

They served us lunch in a sort of cafeteria style, they served up our food on a plate based on what you requested.  There were black beans to go with rice, your choice of either pork, chicken, or fish as meats, a piece of fried banana, some type of vegetable medley, and a serving of salad, which was minced lettuce and cabbage with a sliced tomato on top.  The chicken and pork were in some type of sauce, each meat having a different sauce.  All of this was piled on one plate, so it was a little juicy and sort of ran together, just what Stephanie loves.

We picked out a table and were joined by a lady who was on the tour by herself.  We recognized her as the person who had temporarily joined our bus group in Cartagena, we had surmised she had missed her bus leaving from the fort where we were stopped there, but do not know for sure what had happened.  She was pleasant to talk with, she was originally from France but was now living in Australia.

Stephanie had left her backpack on the bus, and as soon as she got off, she realized she needed to change her shoes since it was so wet and muddy.  The bus driver had relocated the bus to a parking area right after we got off, so during lunch, Stephanie asked him if she could board the bus and change her shoes.  He walked partway to the bus, and then used a remote to unlock and open the bus door for her.

We had not finished lunch long before our tour guide said we were leaving in five minutes to do the walking tour.  This caused quite a stir, many people needed to use the restrooms in the eating area, and that caused a back-up, especially in the ladies’ bathroom.  By the time Stephanie finished in the bathroom, the guide had already left with most of the other people, and all we could do was hear him on the audio system, we did not see where he had gone.  We finally found where he had taken the rest of the group, and he was dividing it in half because the bridges were weight-limited to 15 people at a time.  

We were in the second group by default, and were keeping our same guide.  The first group got a different guide for the walking tour.  Unfortunately, there was one couple who had not brought any type of rain gear, and she had also worn sandals, which were not going to work on the muddy dirt trail.  Initially, our guide offered her his raincoat, but she said that her husband would get all wet without any raincoat, and they would get sick.  Then our guide asked the staff at the tour company, and they said they had ponchos for sale for $4.00.  I think the people thought that Viking should have provided the ponchos for free, but in the end, they did not go on the tour, maybe because of her shoes.  Anyway, it was probably best for the rest of us they did not go and complain the entire time.

I do have to say that Viking does not do that great of a job with their information on what people might need to bring for their tours.  The only thing that was mentioned was the recommendation for long pants.  Nothing was said about anything else.  People are not that smart.  Most people in our group had rain gear, but others did not, some only some light jackets that were not really waterproof.  But it was a “rainforest” tour.

We were slightly confused at first when we grouped up with our guide.  Some people there were putting on harnesses and helmets.  We did not know that there was also a zip line at this park, and those people getting harnesses and helmets were not part of our tour.

Finally, we were able to start the tour.  We went down some wet steps and then went onto a wet and muddy trail.  The first area we stopped in was to view some hummingbirds.  There were feeders out to attract the hummingbirds since there were no natural flowers in this clearing for the birds to feed on naturally.

There were quite a lot of steps down on the trail, and some were quite steep and the steps themselves were pretty irregular and different heights from one to the next.  

We stopped occasionally for some insights into the rainforest plants and trees, which was interesting.  We finally got to the lowest point on the trail at a small river and I was wondering how we were going to be on suspended walkways above the rainforest, as was described in the tour information when we had descended to the bottom of the valley.  

In reality, we were not.  We started back uphill and came to our first suspended walkway, which was really just a small suspension bridge over the river.  Since we were behind the first half of our bus group, we had to wait for them to finish crossing before our group could start because of the weight limits on the walkways.

The walkways were pretty bouncy, especially in the middle, but not too bad.  In the end, we went over several more of the “bridges”, some longer than others as we continued the hike back upward to our starting point.  We did not see any wildlife or even insects on the trail other than the hummingbirds we saw in the first area.

When it was over we were wet and tired, mainly wet from sweating in the raingear.  It was more difficult than we had ever thought from the tour description, not terrible, but not what we expected. 

We were certainly glad we had brought the raingear and the better shoes.  In the end, I think I thought we would be mostly on elevated platforms, not mostly on muddy trails, that was what the tour description had seemed to me.

Everyone got on the bus and we started our one hour and 45 minute ride back to the ship.  Just like before, after about 45 minutes of driving in now what was a more steady drizzle, the sun magically appeared, and then we were in mostly clear blue skies for the remainder of the drive back.

We arrived at the pier at about 3:30 PM, and after a security guard checked all of our cruise cards, and also the bathroom in the back of the bus for stowaways, we were cleared to ride out to the ship at the end of the pier.  That was nice, it was a pretty long distance to the end of the pier.  We headed to the gangway and figured out it was not going to be too much longer before the ship departed.  Most all of the tent setup that we normally see ashore near the gangway was already dismantled and put away.  We might have been the last group on a tour to arrive back tp the ship.

Once back on the ship, we headed to the room to drop off our gear and get our rain suits out into the sun on the balcony to dry off.  

We then were able to get some text messages from mom’s caregivers, and apparently, mom has strep throat.  We had requested that she be taken to urgent care today since she was coughing yesterday and sounded bad.  She tested positive for strep, which we do not know how she got, other than attending a family function on Christmas Eve day with some cousins.

Since we were off the ship and did not have cell service or WiFi, we could not get any text messages until we returned.  Then we spent some time making sure the caregivers knew about trying to schedule the antibiotic prescription if it was something that needed to be taken twice a day.

Then we decided to do two loads of laundry and were surprised we did not have to wait long to get two washers.  While the wash was going, we relaxed in the room with some wine we brought back from the Living Room Bar when we first got back onto the ship.

While Stephanie loaded the washers, I went up to the Explorer’s Bar for another round of wine and was able to ask about the missing fan.  It had been found there, and of course, all the bar staff there knew it was Stephanie’s since she had it with her most times we were there.  They had kept it in their locker since they knew she owned it versus taking it to Lost and Found.

I got us another glass of wine for the room, and while the wash was going, I worked on the blog and Stephanie called her mom using wifi calling.  We also spent some time out on the balcony since we were on the shady side of the ship.

After we put the clothes into the dryer, we headed up to the Explorer’s Lounge so Stephanie could thank the bar staff there personally for finding her fan and keeping it safe, and got another round of “laundry time” wine.

We came back to the room and once the clothes drying was complete, we took showers and got ready for dinner. It was already 7:00 PM by the time we finished that effort, and we knew we were just going to the Buffet for dinner tonight.

Dinner was pretty good, and afterward, we headed to the Explorer’s Lounge for a nightcap.  There was nothing going on there, so we moved to the Living Room Bar and had a couple more beverages.  We ended up talking with one of the couples we see there a lot.  He is a retired doctor, so he filled us in on what the antibiotic mom was prescribed.  He said is usually in a Z Pack, so it is only once a day after the initial two doses on the first day, and not for too many days.

At around 10:30 PM, we headed back to the room after a long day.  While in the room, we unexpectedly felt the ship’s thrusters in operation, and we went out onto our balcony and found that the ship was stopped near a container port.  We checked out the ship tracker on the stateroom TV and found that we had returned to Puntarenas, or at least to the industrial port nearby.  We assumed there was some type of medical emergency, but by the time we were out on our balcony, the ship was just starting back underway, so we did not see what had happened.

We turned in for the night shortly afterward.

NOTE:

1.  We had some time to do some research on our tour yesterday and we found out that we went to a park called Adventure Park San Luis.  There are several of these types of parks in the mountains near Puntarenas, and I don’t think this one was one of the highest-rated.  Others we found on Trip Advisor looked like what our tour was described as, they actually had pictures of long platforms high up above the forest.  I think ours was more hype than reality.
2. We did find out from the Captain’s report the next day that we had indeed gone back to Puntarenas for a medical emergency.  We had to stop at the industrial port because of tidal issues at Puntarenas, the water was too shallow there.  They had used a lifeboat to tender a person ashore.  The Captian said the person was doing well, so that was good news.