The ship was docked in Golfito when we awoke at 7am.
The ship comes here to pass through immigration into Costa Rica which the
purser does by taking all of our passports and forms into immigration.
The ship also offloads all of their trash and dirty laundry and picks up
clean linen and more food. We got on deck in time to see them tossing all
of the trash into a large truck.
Coffee is always available in the lounge from 6am.
Breakfast was at 7:30. It was the standard fare and the
specialty this morning was a fritatta. They also had homemade raisin
bread which set off the toaster wars! I love old people. There was
a line for the 2 six slice toasters, and people were getting a little testy.
I had to go in that area to get some butter. Almost didn't make it
back to the table alive.
After the trash was unloaded we sailed about a half hour
to Golfo Dolche and anchored in front of Casa Orchidea. This is a lovely
and interesting place. An American couple, Ron and Trudy McAllister, came
down here more than 30 years ago and started a garden which has greatly
expanded. They have only indigenous plants, and it is beautiful
done.
Bill and I were on the last zodiac to land, and we were
struck by what we thought was a strange dog statue. It was some kind of
large white mutt that was perfectly still starting up a palm tree. He had
apparently treed an iguana and was waiting for it to come down. He
finally moved and barked when the iguana moved.
People had spotted two scarlet macaws high in a palm
tree, so I wandered over. They were difficult to see, and just as I
spotted them, they flew away. Darn. Later on, though, when I was on
the other side of the garden, the pair came flying high overhead squawking. Luckily
they landed on a tall, leafless tree, and with my telephoto lens, I got a
decent photo.
The grounds are full of orchids, bromeliads, heliconia,
and a variety of other neat trees, plants, and flowers. The home is
open-air and by the porch they have a bird feeding station where they put out
fruit. I saw a beautiful pair of male and female cherrie tanagers and a
palm tanager.
Most people were in groups with a naturalist, but I just
wandered around finding all kinds of amazing plants. I was particularly
pleased with a strange flower which was a calathea marantha - a strange white
ginger. I also liked the heliconias - a hairy heliconia called
danielsiana and a green one called xanthovillosa.
We came back to the ship at 11:15. Some folks
went swimming off the stern, but for just a half hour, I didn't feel like
getting coated in salt and having more wet stuff.
Lunch was at 12:30. We had an excellent black
bean soup and a decent chicken Caesar salad with homemade focaccia bread.
The dessert was made by our server Shannon who is new - amazingly good
brownies. She said she had never made them from scratch like that nor had
to chop up chocolate!
After lunch they set up the 'global marketplace' in the
lounge. They have gotten some incredible local crafts from both Panama
and Costa Rica that are for sale. I loved one basket that I am not sure
even how it was made, but it was selling for $2200. They did have
Christmas ornaments made by a father/son team that takes small gourds, drying
them, painting them, and then shellacking them. I got enough for me and
all of the great nieces and nephews.
We had to check in with the purser to confirm that they
had the correct flights and to scan a credit card for on-board purchases like
wine and the stuff I bought.
At 2:30, my favorite naturalist, Ronald (who was with us
in March and a real sweetheart) gave a talk on Costa Rican history.
At 3:30 we took the zodiacs to a private reserve, Saladero,
that serves as a buffer for Piedras Blancas National Park. A couple named
Harvey and Susan run a 16 guest lodge and as with the McAllister's, they open
it up to the Sea Lion every week for a stipend which is mutually beneficial for
all.
Once again people broke off into groups with some of the
naturalist, but I hung out with Susan (who is originally from England).
She is a delightful woman, and she and her husband have had the lodge for
only 6 years. They can receive no mail, have no road in, and must boat 45
minutes to Golfito for supplies. Rather hard to feed 16 people a day on
that. They had a neat dog, Lulu, that loved being petted by everyone.
I did get to see macaws flying overhead which is an awesome sight.
Bill did a little kayaking, and then we both went back to
the ship to shower and relax a little. At 6, we went into the lounge for
a social period. The hors d'oeuvres were two kinds of humus with pita
bread and crudités. This was followed at 6:45 by the daily
recap/photo show by the naturalist.
Dinner was at 7:10. We had a great roasted
mushroom soup. Bill and I shared a filet mignon and a wahoo fish.
It was served with couscous and green and yellow squash. The whole
table (8 of us) wanted to try the vegetarian option - white bean cassolette -
so our server brought us a family style bowl of it for the table. All of
the food was great. Dessert was panna cotta with strawberry coulis.
Bill went up to throw some of our clothes we had washed
out into the dryer. We sat up there instead of going to a lecture on
botany by one of the passengers. There was a dryer open, so Bill quickly
got our clothes in. Twice while we were waiting for them to dry, 2
different old guys came by to see if the dryers were free. Instead of
feeling them, they each opened them, closed them, and then walked dumbly away
without pushing the start button again! No wonder everyone complains
about how long it takes to dry their clothes.
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