The Panama Canal Epic # 4: The Rich Natural World of the Rich Coast

In calling this beautiful country Costa Rica (the Rich Coast), I've no doubt that the Spanish explorer and plunderer Columbus (although it may have been D'ávila) was referring to golden jewellery worn by the local population. It's perhaps a bit ironic that the riches which form Costa Rica's most famous exports today are still gold or black gold in colour: bananas and coffee.

Our ship docked for a full day at the relatively new cruise port of Puntarenas, on the Pacific coast.

Right away, we could see the rugged mountainous spine of this country which is largely built up from volcanic mountains, some of which are still active.

The 12-hour length of this port call was largely dictated by the time that would be needed to drive from Puntarenas to Costa Rica's capital city, San Jose, or to the two destinations which were incorporated into my tour -- a tour focused on the natural environment. This map of the northern part of the Puntarenas province shows our route.

To reach our first location, inland from the beach town of Jaco, we had to climb up and over a couple of highland regions, getting in the process some eye-catching views of the Rio Grande Tárcoles river valley, which would be our second destination. 

Our first stop was at a privately-operated nature sanctuary located some distance up a bumpy gravel road in another mountain valley, inland from Jaco.

 

 

This nature park features a lengthy aerial tram ride up the side of a mountain through the tropical rainforest. Wisely, no attempt is made by the management to guarantee wildlife sightings. 

Only a couple of wild critters were spotted by anyone on our tram, and both were gone by the time I got my camera pointed. But the forest was full of life all the same, and we could certainly hear it. The tram system was designed with great care to be as quiet as possible, and fortunately the passengers on my tram mostly kept quiet too. That meant that we could hear rustling in the undergrowth below us, a diverse range of bird calls, the endless rippling voice of a small stream running down the hill, the quiet buzz and hum of insects. And that was all. No highway noise, no man-made intrusive sounds. The sheer quietness of the tram ride itself became part of the fascination.

 

Another part was the endless variety of lush greenery, and this treetop-height ride gives you a good feeling for just how hard it is for sunlight to reach down to the forest floor in such an environment. We also got to see a diverse assortment of parasitic vines which wind and twine themselves around the taller tree trunks to reach the sunlight.

At the head end, there is a small station with a fenced walking path around and below it, but our tour didn't include a stop there -- just the full hour-long ride up and down, all in one go.

 

Then, on the way back down the mountain, we could see just why the up and down tram cables are always strung at different heights -- so there's always a clear view all around the tram at eye level.

This picture also shows the unusual nine-seat layout of the trams -- four pairs of seats followed by a single seat at the back, often reserved for the bad boy of the group. So naturally....

Back on terra firma, we were taken for a short but very sweaty nature walk around the property. This featured one intriguing encounter with nature's heavy lifters.

Each leaf in the picture is being quickly toted by an ant -- and these little busy workers, we were told, are capable of carrying twenty times their own weight. Let's see some of our Strong Men try to do that! But they don't actually eat the leaves. These are hauled back to the nest, mixed with a sap from a certain kind of tree, and the decomposed mash is then eaten. 

After detouring around and over the ants, we walked along some paved paths lined with assorted jungle plants and shrubs.

There was also a small butterfly conservatory, but none of those butterflies were willing to sit still long enough to pose for pictures. 

We then assembled under a large, open-sided awning of a building with washrooms, gift shop, and long tables where we were served lunch (included in the tour). The menu was, I suppose, pretty standard fare although far too stodgy for me on a hot, steamy day: beef, chicken, rice, black beans, cooked veggies. It kept me going for the afternoon.

Sidelight on human nature. Eleven o'clock in the morning sounds far too early for lunch until you remember that you had to eat breakfast at 6:00 am because the tour was leaving at 7:00! None of that stopped a person a few ahead of me in the buffet line from saying something to the effect of: "I don't know why they can't serve lunch at a normal hour like noon, but I'm so hungry!" Just like that, all in one sentence. There's nobody stranger than people.

 

At noon, we boarded our coach again. Anyone who thinks airplanes are crowded, please contemplate this fact. I stand 5 feet 10 inches tall, and when I sat down in this coach, my knees were jammed hard into the back of the seat in front of me. And I had to spend a total of over 4 hours sitting in that seat. Suddenly, the 30-inch seat pitch on most airlines began to seem positively luxurious.

 

By 1:00 pm we were boarding a couple of boats of the Jungle Crocodile Safari for this crocodile and bird-watching tour of the Rio Grande Tárcoles. Here's what the boat looks like.

 

And here's what I looked like when I was sitting in it.

As such things go, this is a relatively unspoiled river, and the wildlife here is both diverse and easy to spot. Even a rank amateur like yours truly was able to get some pretty good pics.

Start with the birds. Even with an illustrated pamphlet, I can't identify most of these for certain, so I'll leave that up to any expert birdwatchers.

 

 

 

 

One other real beauty, which I'm sorry I didn't capture, was the Magnificent Frigatebird which suddenly soared away from us on the other side of the boat.

Now, all the time that this bird watching was taking place, so was the crocodile watching. This was where the naturalist who was our guide for the day really came into his own. He had all kinds of fascinating information about all the different species of birds, about the crocodiles, about their habits and diets. Both he and the boat captain seemed to have eyes in the backs of their heads, as the boat often came to a stop and then reversed when one of them spotted the tell-tale eyes...

 

...or the protruding back plates.

 

We spotted at least half a dozen, including a female lurking under the tall grasses of a swampy area, guarding her nest, and several big bull crocodiles about 5 metres long.

This was our most memorable encounter of the day, hands down.

The scariest moment of the day too, when that big bruiser turned and started swimming slowly towards the boat.

At that point, our captain very sensibly activated his engines!

As we were motoring away, our guide explained that when a croc opens its mouth wide, it's not an aggressive gesture. The beast is actually trying to get in some fresh air to cool off the body because, of course, crocodiles are cold-blooded. The gist of his comments was that, if a crocodile is planning to attack you, it will try to stay invisible for as long as possible, and certainly won't give away its presence by gaping its mouth wide open until the moment when it actually strikes.

After we finally got back to the ship, just before 4:00 pm, I had this last memory of Costa Rica from my balcony: a group of three stilt dancers in colourful costumes welcoming passengers back to the ship while a local band played traditional dance music in the background.

The Panama Canal Epic # 1: Introduction

By now, some of my "fan club" (using the term very loosely) are probably rolling their eyes on hearing that I am off on yet another holiday. I have to admit, I'm even a bit surprised myself. But the biggest single expense of this trip, the two-week cruise from Fort Lauderdale to Los Angeles via the Panama Canal, was actually paid for a long time ago. 

Regular readers may recall that in December of 2021, as the omicron variant of Covid-19 was spreading rapidly across the continent and the globe, I cancelled my planned cruise over Christmas and New Years. Since I had bought Princess Cruises' premium trip protection, I got 100% of the fare back as a future travel credit, a credit which had to be used within 2 years of the original sailing date. Part of it went towards the cost of my transatlantic trip in November, but the bulk of it went to pay the entire cost of this cruise.

So, off we go again. And again, I'm going to be landing in or passing through three new countries, and calling at four ports which I've never seen before.

With that, here's the ship: the MS Island Princess, shown here entering one of the locks in the Canal.

Princess Cruises photo

 

Actually, to be completely honest, it could be her all-but-identical sister ship. This is one of two ships in the Princess fleet which were built to the largest possible size that would fit into the six original locks of the Panama Canal -- a size which goes officially by the name of "Panamax." The other of the pair, by the way, is the MS Coral Princess. Although they look impressive enough on their own, these are now the oldest and smallest ships in the Princess Cruises' fleet, and by a fair margin. Island Princess, which entered service in 2003, is a 92,000-ton vessel with a capacity of 2,200 passengers. 

By the way, it's easy to see that the picture is a few years old. Those two tubes at the top of the funnel, which look for all the world like a pair of jet engine pods, are missing from the ship since the latest refit. Their absence suggests that they didn't fulfil any particular function which could not be met in some more conventional way. I always felt that they looked just plain weird on a modern cruise liner.

 

And here's a map to show the cruise route, with the ports of call labelled in red: 

 

Source Map Attribution: <a href="https://www.onestopmap.com/middle-america/middle-america-476/"

>Free vector map of Middle America political with shaded relief - by One Stop Map</a>

 

Originally there was to be another port of call at San Juan del Sur in Nicaragua, but the Nicaraguan government closed the port to cruise ships about a month ago. If any of you are wondering about health requirements, the government of Colombia has required full vaccination against Covid-19 -- or else the passengers must present proof of a medically observed test within 2 days at the time of embarkation from Florida. No test, no sail. It's either that or have the entire shipload of passengers prevented from landing at Cartagena, which is the reason Princess Cruises enforces the requirements.

 

There are a couple of key points to consider if you are thinking of taking or actually planning a Panama Canal cruise. 

 

[1] Full Transit (not Partial Transit)

 

The first and foremost is to make sure you are choosing a "full transit" cruise, not a "partial transit." Multiple cruise lines are now offering shorter partial transits where the ship comes from the Atlantic side, enters the canal via the three-stage Gatun locks or the newer and parallel Agua Clara Locks, motors around among the islands in the artificial Gatun Lake, and then returns down the same locks to the Atlantic Ocean. 

 

Doing this "short version" takes almost as long as the full transit, but deprives you of the most spectacular part of the entire voyage, the dramatic and entirely artificial 7-km-long valley through the Culebra Range (the Continental Divide), called the Culebra Cut, which links the Gatun Lake to the Pedro Miguel and Miraflores Locks down to the Pacific Ocean. You should consider the full transit as an essential feature for a Panama Canal cruise.

 

In that case, it's very likely that you will make the trip in the spring or the fall. These full-transit voyages are usually (but not always) built into a cruise line's plans as a "transition cruise," moving the ship from the Pacific Ocean and the summer Alaskan trade to the Caribbean for the winter season or vice versa. I got reminded of that fact in a conversation with a staff member at my hotel the day before we sailed. As soon as I told her I was joining a cruise, she knew right away which company and where we were going. The explanation was simple. As the Caribbean season was winding down, this was the last ship to leave port on a transition voyage to its summer location -- and the hoteliers in Fort Lauderdale are well aware of when these ship movements take place. 

Once I got aboard the ship, I was promptly set straight by the notice on the lunch menu that this was the "Island Princess World Cruise 2023." In fact, this is the final leg of a cruise which began in Fort Lauderdale about 100 days ago, and is now continuing on to its final destination of Los Angeles. As is usual with Princess round-the-world itineraries, this layout makes it possible to do a full circumnavigation starting in either Florida or California.

[2]  Historic Locks (not the new locks)

Equally essential, to appreciate the engineering ingenuity of a century-old project which had no models elsewhere to imitate, you need a cruise which will make the full transit through the historic locks, not the modern and larger parallel locks which opened in 2016. That means you need a ship the size of Island Princess or smaller, built within the original Panamax dimensions -- not the "new Panamax" size which now accommodates many larger vessels. Here are the original Panamax limits:

 

 

My biggest reason for taking this voyage now was the realization that, with ships getting bigger all the time, it may soon be possible to travel through the historic canal only by going with an ultra-luxury small ship line, which would almost certainly exceed my budget. So here I am. 

 

The importance of the Panama Canal to the world's economies can be readily grasped by looking at this global map, which shows the cruise route in red and the longer route that would need to be followed without a Panama Canal in brown.

 

 Source Map Attribution:   https://freevectormaps.com/globes/americas/GLB-AM-01-0001?ref=atr

 

Even with the contraction of the southern latitudes on this map, it's easy to see how immensely much longer the voyage would have to be. What the map doesn't show you is the horrendous, howling gales around the southern tip of South America in the Drake Passage, which make the effort to pass Cape Horn and get into the Pacific Ocean so perilous -- and, in certain seasons, nearly impossible.

So the Panama Canal has become a marine expressway and shortcut, connecting the east coast of the Americas and all of Europe and west Africa to all of the booming economies of the Pacific Rim. The Canal itself, then, is an engineering work of great historic, technical, economic, and scenic significance. It's no wonder that it features on more and more cruise itineraries every year, even if many of them are the less desirable "partial transit."

I'll have a lot more detail on the canal itself once we actually get there. We've just set out on our southwards voyage from Fort Lauderdale, and this is our first full sea day of two before we reach our first port of call at Cartagena in Colombia. Perfect time to get in a few photos introducing the ship!

 

We'll start with the heartbeat of every Princess Cruises' vessel: the central atrium, here called the Princess Plaza. Unlike the larger ships, this one extends four decks high, rather than three, and has a most unusual floating staircase at the lower end, as well as eye-catching "pod" scenic elevators.

 

 

Behind the hanging banner in the lower picture is the Crooners Bar, which features piano music at various times in the afternoon and evening. Other times have musicians playing at the small stage area on the lowest level.

A larger music venue is found in the Wheelhouse Bar, with old-style figureheads and a ship's wheel striking a nautical theme.

 

The traditional dark-panelled corridor leading to the Wheelhouse Bar is decorated with paintings or reproductions of classic ships from the olden-days fleet of the Peninsular and Oriental (P & O) Steamship Company, reminding us that Princess Cruises began as an offspring of P & O. 

The second one shows a 1930s-vintage P & O liner calling at the essential stopping point of Gibraltar, a port which I have visited on a Princess Cruise.

As well as the two main dining rooms, Bordeaux and Provence, the Island Princess has two extra-charge specialty restaurants. This Roman artwork points the way towards Sabatini's, one of the most striking Italian restaurants I have ever visited, anywhere. A night or two here is a highlight of every Princess cruise for me. I'll be there tomorrow night for dinner.

 

 

Then there's this painting, and if anyone recognizes the buildings, they'll have no trouble guessing the theme of the other specialty restaurant: the Bayou Cafe and Steakhouse. I'll be eating there in a few more nights.

Up topside, the ship has two large pools. One, the Lido Pool, is pretty typical of cruise ship pools, placed in a well surrounded by a higher deck, with sun loungers everywhere.

 

The other, the Lotus Pool, is like no other pool I've ever seen on a cruise ship, and that's not just because it's enclosed inside a glass Conservatory.

Say hello to my new best friend!

 

It seems ironic that the smallest ships on the Princess Cruises roster should have the most spacious promenade deck. Sadly, on the largest current ships in the fleet, the Royal Class, the Promenade Deck has vanished altogether except for a short segment on either side just at midships, or at the stern. But Island Princess has space to burn and dozens of chairs for people who want to sit and read or think in a shady location that's more peaceful than the Lido Deck around the pool. And yes, those are the lifeboats hanging overhead.

As we sailed southeastwards along the north shore of Cuba, we had a distant view of the mountainous island. This picture, taken with a zoom lens, shows clearly that cruise ships, if at all possible, give the widest possible berth to land at all times. 

 

Ship captains also give a wide berth to other ships. Here, we passed our much larger fleetmate, Caribbean Princess, which was sailing back towards Fort Lauderdale. Caribbean Princess is one of the small handful of cruise ships which operate in the Caribbean all year round. That ship is two or three decks taller and carries almost 1,000 more passengers than ours. This photo was also taken with a zoom lens; the ships were actually separated by several kilometres of ocean.

 

 

Generally, you'll only get heart-stopping views at close range from a ship when entering or leaving a port, or when sailing in confined waters like the Inside Passage of Alaska -- or the Panama Canal. Thus, there's no point in fussing over which side a cabin is on for views. 

In the tropics, though, there's a great deal to be said for following the rule of "POSH." This word, meaning luxurious or elegant, is more common in Britain than in Canada. What many people have forgotten, though, is its origin.

In the glory days of the P & O Steamship Company, people constantly travelled by sea from the United Kingdom eastwards to India, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, and New Zealand. This was before the invention of air conditioning, and the cabins on the south side of the ship, exposed to direct tropical sunlight, would become fiendishly hot during the daytime, nor would they cool off much at night.

As a result, the cabins on the north and slightly cooler side were highly valued, and shipping companies charged much more for them. To get on that north side, you had to take a port side cabin on the eastbound voyage, but starboard side on the westbound trip. Thus, to a Brit: Port Out Starboard Home. And since all the wealthy people followed this rule, and could afford to do so, "POSH" came to mean "deluxe" -- and also, to a degree, "stuck up."

Even on a modern air-conditioned cruise ship, you'll likely have to keep your window curtains closed as long as your side of the ship is catching direct sunlight, because the air conditioning will have trouble coping. So, I'm travelling posh. My cabin is on the starboard side. Once we get through the canal, and travel mainly westwards, it will be the cool side. I'm cool with that.