Noon Location: (docked in Puntarenas) N 9º 58′ 12.97″, W 084º 49′ 48.96″

As I was walking the deck this morning I was thinking about ‘things’ and remembered something significant about one of yesterday’s lectures. The talk was “the man who walked into the jungle – the story of the Costa Rica Railway” and it covered the building of the railway from the central agricultural highlands thru the mountains to the Atlantic coast. The ‘man’ was Minor Cooper Keith who invested significant time, personal fortune, and effort bringing the project to completion. His reward included a 99 year contract to operate the railroad which gave him the monopoly for shipping coffee and bananas (a crop that he introduced) to the only Atlantic port. This is all well and good and such, but it’s even more significant when you note that his name was Keith – as in Clan Keith, the clan to which the Marshalls belong. So I wonder if there’s a way to negotiate a piece of this transportation monopoly. Just sayin’.

After the workout it was a lazy morning.

“We docked around 9:00 next to a very interesting ship.”

After breakfast we sat on the veranda reading and waiting for some difficulty with the internet connection to be fixed.

Lunch was at 12:45 and at 1:20 we were off on our excursion to the Natuwa Wildlife Sanctuary. This sanctuary was created to provide care and rehabilitation for the Scarlet Macaw – the only Macaw native to Costa Rica. As it has grown it has expanded to receive other species as well (some native to Costa Rica and others not naturally found here). Animals are received from a variety of sources – injured, captured and raised as pets, purchased from the black market… Some animals, particularly Scarlet Macaws and sloths can be released back into the wild, although the center does provide feeding and nesting opportunities for released birds. Here are a few photos from our tour. Some of these animals are in cages (particularly those not native to Costa Rica) while others are free.

Sloth story: When ready to mate the female emits pheromones that males pick up from as far away as 150 km. It can take male sloths up to a month to find the available female, who selects one of the responding suitors for mating.

During the 1 hour trips to and from the site our tour guide provided a significant amount of information about Costa Rica, the flora and fauna we saw along the way and other random topics. Among other things he mentioned that the difference in daylight between the summer solstice and the winter solstice in Costa Rica is ~50 minutes.

Returning to the ship we got cleaned up, rested, began to curate photos, and attended a lecture on the Bayeux Tapestry (Yes, I know, we’ve already taken the stairwell tour, but the tapestry is so large and complex that it deserves much more explanation that even this will provide. The on board mini-museum of nordic culture and heritage even has a video depiction of the tapestry that is really fun. Perhaps I’ll post a snippet at some point.)

After dinner we shared ‘photo taking duty’ with another group of guests.

We returned to our stateroom for more relaxing and curation. We opted not to attend Bruce’s Brain Busters because the format this evening was: based on several events guess the year. Not our strongest suit.

We felt much better prepared to attend the New Year’s Eve party.

Midnight safely behind us we made our way back to our stateroom (I’d say we staggered but that would imply that we had sampled several adult beverages – an impression I can neither confirm nor deny – although Cheryl did comment that attending a NYE party is something we don’t usually do because, well, driving home. I’d rather suggest that it was because the seas were rolling.) to bid a fond farewell to a very interesting year.

I’ve also done an “outlet survey.” One of the complaints about typical cruise ship cabins is that they never have enough outlets. Here’s what we’ve got:

•  

• Desk: 2-110v outlets, 2-220v outlets (one used to charge our QuietVox devices), The lamp (plugged in with the fridge somewhere below) has 5-USB-A (max 10 amp total)
• Bedside tables (2): 1-110v, 1-220v, 1-USB-A, 1-USB-C (The USB-C is a new config. Older Viking ships have 2 USB-A.)
• Coffee Maker Shelf: 1-220v (we had the coffee maker removed, freeing up that outlet)
• Bathroom: 1-110v shaver outlet (not really useful for anything else)

That seems to be plenty of outlets – we haven’t come close to using all of them.

So…that’s a wrap on 2022. Happy New Year All! R