Ya Mon - Jamaica

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Montego Bay, Jamaica, is our last port of call.  Once on shore, our Jamaican guide informed us the locals call it Mo-bay. Most everything he said was followed by a Ya Man, which sounds like Ya Mon.  The words are part of an English dialect called Patois which is mostly English.  We were quick learners but we (mostly me) are having trouble leaving it behind in Jamaica.  Ya Mon

From the moment we docked, we heard Reggae music which actually  is a very pleasing background music to start a morning.  Our shore excursion was to a sugar plantation that is called Rose Hall which I got confused with the Royal Albert Hall due to the music.

About 3 centuries ago, a young woman named Annee was born in Haiti to an Irish mother and English father who had fled Europe for the new world.  In Haiti, her nanny taught Annee voodoo.  

After her parents died of yellow fever, she moved to Jamaica and managed to marry John Palmer, a very rich sugar plantation owner.  Above is the restored mansion where they once lived.  It is here I picked up on the fact the mansion was haunted.

Shari and I are waving good-bye as we enter the mansion of a ghost.

Shortly after entering the door above, this is where we are headed.

I will admit I wasn't paying complete attention to the dialogue of the guide.  As she started referring to murders and ghosts, she had my attention.

We got a tour of the mansion which by itself was interesting.  

Most if not all the wood used for the floors, staircases, and furniture was mahogany.  If I haven't mentioned previously, mahogany is a very expensive wood.

This unique indoor toilet was also made of mahogany.

This is the master bedroom.  By the time we reached this room, we had learned that Annee had murdered not only her first husband but also two other husbands.  All three for some reason were buried at the beach, not on the plantation grounds.  

The plantation had 200 slaves to operate the sugar cane and the mansion and anything else associated with the plantation.  The slaves were said to call her the white witch and finally put an end to her life. 

On the grounds is Annee's tomb.  Our guide talked of Annee leaving the tomb to haunt the mansion and was bravely standing on the side of the tomb that opens.  We are obviously on the opposite side.

BTW, in the background behind our guide is an interesting tree.

As a forester, I am always amazed when I see a red tree.  This is a red birch.

Remember early in the story I showed us entering the mansion.  As we left, the thought occurred that this mansion had not only survived Annee,  it managed to handle a few hurricanes over the centuries.  Walls this thick don't blow down easily.

Another big trip comes to an end once we dock in Florida early Friday.  We have been pampered so well by the ship's crew and staff, and the guides as well.  It was interesting at lunch with friends James and Effie that the topic of 'returning to civilization' came up.  We are not sure that is the right term anymore.

Hope you have enjoyed the pictures and stories. We have one last picture.

Panama Canal

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Shari is modeling part of a specialty dinner we had very recently.  The theme was Cuisine From Great Britain.  She was interested due to the beer battered fish and chips, while I wanted to finally taste a Yorkshire pudding.  In the lower left on her plate is the 'pudding' which was more like an air filled muffin with a few bacon pieces.  It was a bit of let down, but the slow cooked brisket and veggies were excellent.  The round white thing with green specks is chive butter.

Our cruise is partially named after the Panama Canal for good reason. It is the only multi-day stop on the cruise and it was an amazing achievement with incredible importance back when it was built over a hundred years ago and still today.  

We were unaware that prior to the United States commitment to build a canal to connect the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, the French had started construction of a canal that would be much like the Suez Canal which they had built in 1869.

The Suez Canal was built through largely desert sands and is an 'open' canal with no locks.  This is the same sort of canal the French bragged they could build in Panama.  The geology associated with the jungles of Panama was completely different.  The narrow waterway angling to the right in the picture below is of the abandoned canal the French started but never finished.

During Teddy Roosevelt's Presidency, he and the Congress decided it would be wise to have the U.S. Corps of Engineers build the Panama Canal and bought the right-of-way from the French.  

The first problem in the construction was to control canal enemy number one:

The French had been plagued by malaria and yellow fever and thousands upon thousands of workers had died.  To drastically reduce this health issue, places where there was standing water were treated to suffocate mosquito larvae.  

Secondly, the engineers added a feature to make the length of the canal much shorter.  They added a dam on a nearby river to make a huge lake - a lake we entered shortly after starting up the canal.   I think they call that Yankee ingenuity.

It is primarily an earthen dam that was the longest of its type in the early 1900's.

Lastly, the jungle soil was mostly clay that as you dredged it would fall in upon itself as well as slide in from adjacent lands.  They built a series of locks at the east and west entries to the lake created by the dam.

The locks were also designed to keep the ocean salt water separate from the fresh water of the lake.  You'll notice the picture shows two gates at each lock.  If one gate failed, the second would back up the other.

The cargo ship we are passing fits in the 100+ year old locks.  Within the last 20 years, an alternate larger set of locks have been built by the Panamanians to accommodate super tankers.

During World War II when the greatest generation fought that war in both the Atlantic and Pacific, the Panama canal had more forts to protect it than there were around Washington D. C.  One of the ship's historians explained that between submarine nets at both entrances and modifying the entrances to have curved channels, enemy torpedo tubes never disrupted the locks.  BTW, even small aircraft carriers of the day moved through the canal.

This saved two weeks of travel (blue line) in which ships traveled around Cape Horn at the south end of South America.

Our guest speakers are good at showing the range of whatever is the daily topic.  Our favorite was this historic tunnel canal in England where two guys on opposite ends of a plank use leg power to move a ten ton barge.  I always thought the British term 'footman' meant something else.  

We have been cruising and have not seen land since leaving Panama. We still find interesting views to look at from our small balcony.  

Between North and South America

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Our Viking Star managed to handle very rough seas on our way from Costa Rica to Colon, Panama.  Thankfully, Shari slept through the constant creaking of the ship and the ship's hull slamming against rough water.  Wouldn't you know it, we woke to calm seas.  Some passengers who didn't sleep through it, or sleep at all, swore they were on the Titanic instead of the Viking Star.

We took the land tour via bus to the western end of the canal, which took us to Panama City, commonly known here as little Miami.  Our cruise takes us only partially through the Panama Canal thus our interest in the bus tour.

The picture above does not begin to due justice to how many tall buildings are seen with the naked eye.  This picture is taken from historic Panama City, which is much smaller and much less populated.

On our land tour we walked easily on cobblestone streets from parks through streets with historic buildings readying for Christmas.  Traffic and crowds were not part of the ambiance.

I guess seeing a boat load of old Viking passengers prompted this vulture to keep an eye on us (picture below).  I'd swear the average age of the Viking passengers is 80 years old.  He might have guessed 90!

Our guide did take us to this remnant of Panama City that remains the same since 1691 (320 years ago) when Captain Henry Morgan, the pirate, and his 'merry men' crossed over from Colon to Panama City and pirated the city.  There was a fire during the siege blamed upon the pirates that burned most of the old city.

At the time, Panama City was the second most populated city in the Americas.  Sometimes pirates had bigger ambitions than attacking another seafaring ship.

There are many ways to view the changes and complexities of this world.  As we left the historic part of the city, we saw this cat which may have been saying 'Don't Worry'.  Shari and I had shared a beer by the time we saw our cat friend and agreed with his attitude.

Lastly, we have to show you a picture of a 'fan palm'.  Palms are grasses, not trees, but regardless, these are simple and yet unique.

They are better than any billboard.

Inhabitants of the Rain Forest - Costa Rica

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We wake each morning wondering if it will be raining in the rain forest.  If we considered rain as a curse, we'd be in Costa Rica in October or March or April, it's three dry months.  Rain is a small nuisance at worst. 

This could have been the beach Christopher Columbus landed on in 1502, 10 years after his controversial finding of America in 1492.  No controversy concerning Costa Rica - he was the first from Europe to cross the Atlantic and find this Central America country.  Columbus discovered it on his 4th and last voyage to the new world.  He didn't like the weather nor the malaria and yellow fever that Costa Rica had to offer and he sailed back to Spain after a short two week stay.  This statute of him landing on this coast is all that commemorates his historic landing.

The focus of today's adventure was about present day Costa Rica and some of the flora and fauna that thrives here especially along their rivers.  

Notice the sky is looking very friendly.  This picture was taken from a rickety old open air train on the second leg of our tour. 

This country and it's rain forest offer many edibles.  The crop of the day was bananas.

I'm sure you are wondering if the blue bags are litter or have purpose.  It turns out they are protecting the banana crop.  BTW, the color blue is used because unlike the colors yellow, red, and orange, it is not a color that attracts insects, animals, and others that like to eat bananas.  

This is the male banana flower that I tried without success to capture with my camera in the wild.  It's impressive for its size and color.  

The very special part of the day was our boat tour on one of the rivers.  We happily volunteered to captain what I called the SS Minnow.  

With little or no support, we happily chose to watch for critters.  The captain and interpreter were excellent at finding plenty of them to shoot with my iPhone 12.

This sloth was seen after leaving the dock and seemed incredible based on the fact that they live high in the trees most of the time.  They are known to come down only once a week to pee and poop.  You will more clearly see his face if you enlarge the picture by double clicking the picture. Our guide was beside herself because it's not common to see them on this tour. And not only did we see one sloth, we saw a total of five. 

But, on our trip we saw something very unusual - a sloth swimming across the small river.  Our boat was in his way and as he approached our boat, he grabbed hold of a rope dangling from the SS Minnow, and the captain hauled him aboard on the forward deck.  

Sammy the Sloth was added to the list of ship guests.  He is a three toed sloth versus a two toed sloth, in case you are interested.

All the passengers were very happy and excited that he joined us.  Our captain and guide bragged about our unexpected guest.  Lots of excitement about one of the slowest moving mammals!  We loved it!!

I could show you lots of pictures of birds we saw along the river.  Due to the Costa Rican protection of their rain forests, it has the most bird species in Central and North America and Europe.  That's a nice accomplishment.

There are iguanas in every country we have visited.  This is a good specimen.

BTW - no rain in the rain forest this day!

The Rain Forest and Pirates

 Our Viking Star stopped at the island of Roatan, Honduras.  If you are not much into geography, Honduras is another small country in Central America.  The island is made up of a beautiful coastline and a rainforest.  Some passengers complained about rain today, but, we took it in stride.  You can't call something a rain forest if it doesn't rain fairly frequently.  When we got off the tender that took us to shore, this was the first view - the clouds seemed to promise rain.

We didn't have to go far to be in the rain forest and on a guided walk through what some would call a jungle. 

 

I would have loved the jungle sounds you hear in Tarzan movies but was thankful there were no large snakes or crocodiles.  Instead, we saw only the flora of the rain forest like the walking palm trees.

Those tan appendages coming off at an angle from the palm tree are roots, not branches, and that black mass adjacent to the base of the tree is a termite nest. 

What caught my attention was all the beautiful flowers in their native habitat instead of a nursery.  The Bird of Paradise seems more spectacular in the wild.

Lots of edibles and things we drink or add to food come from the rain forest:  coffee, cacao (that makes chocolate), cinnamon, bananas, and cashews to name a few that we saw close up.

There were termite nests in a lot of different trees.   BTW, termites are not parasites that attack their live host. They are only harmful to dead wood, like in peoples' houses. 

Most of our land tours take place over the course of a morning, sometimes a bit longer.  Viking ship activities do not include bingo, gambling, water slides, roller coasters, or formal dress up nights.  What they have instead are talks about things unique and interesting about the places you are visiting.  One of my favorites was about Caribbean pirates.  

The Caribbean wasn't the only place pirates were known.  But, it was the most infamous, and it just so happens I love pirate movies.  It turns out, I knew little about the reality which is more interesting than some of the myths.  For instance, I didn't know they (of all people) had a Code of Conduct.

Skip over the first and read from the next seven particulars.  #2 is all about true democracy - for men.  And there are a lot of good Christian values in some of the others.  #5 seems to be very wise - all fights are to take place ashore.  There is no mention of rum, however.  Then there is the unique medical insurance they had:

I think Long John Silver lost his right leg, so with his compensation got a decent peg-leg to help him continue in his work.  Our learned historian talked of how countries protected their own pirates and amazingly in our U.S. Constitution there is provision to do so too.  I looked it up after the talk and found the citation.

We love these talks, and our cruises seem to have mostly exceptional speakers who know how to make you interested in history, geology, and many other things that expand your interest in where you are going and what you are seeing.

While we love the desert where we live, we are happy on the ocean.  Last evening after the rain and thunder, we were sitting in our cabin and watched the sun go down from our veranda.  Somehow the sun on the right affected the clouds in a way we would not have expected.

'Shiver Me Timbers'

Belize - the Country

 We get to visit several Mayan ruins as we move from country to country.  We are in Belize which became Belize in 1981 when the Brits gave in to the locals demand for independence.  When I was going to high school over 50 years ago, the country was called British Honduras.

Belize is a small country and we took a ferry boat from the Viking Star which was anchored 5 miles from shore.  I was here with a good friend 15 years ago on my 60th birthday.  I still remember snorkeling with nurse sharks and rays and touching them without fear.

The park we visited is called Altun Ha.  You may not be able to read the sign . . . so it reads All Spice/Pimienta and the tree is one of the first features you see as you walk in.  The guide gathered a few leaves from the tree and shared them with a few of us having partially crushed each leaf.  It smelled like and is the spice we put in pumpkin pies and such.  The picturesque tree on the hill became more interesting.  

It turns out Allspice if taken in slightly larger amounts than we use it is like novacain in that it numbs your mouth.  The Mayans did have dentists.  The drawing above shows the turquoise and black jade fillings and also the crude drill.  The dentist appears to be making a healthy living based on the jade earrings and necklace he is wearing.

In 1960 the ruins were discovered after Hurricane Hattie devastated parts of Belize.  Those rebuilding Belize came to the Altuna Ha area to obtain building rock.  The area had been abandoned 800 years previously and all the temples were covered completely in dirt and vegetation.  Upon discovery of ancient ruins, excavation for rock turned to excavation for buried treasures.  The distant temple (above) is a temple to honor the rain god.

The profile picture captures a view of the temple to the sun god.  The sun god was the most important god to the Mayans and also a place for human sacrifice.  At the very top of the temple is a small platform where the sacrifice took place - in this case for blood letting.  Those that volunteered or were 'volunteered' were given a free pass to heaven.  Back in their heyday, they had a favorite game in which two teams sought to score goals by hitting a ball with any part of their body except their hands or feet into a goal.  At the end of the game, there was a sacrifice to the gods as well.  The captain of the winning team was the sacrificial lamb and he gave up his life when they severed his head from his body.  The rationale for the head of the winning coach was that you wanted to sacrifice a winner and not a loser to the gods.  Things were different back then.