Friday, January 31, 2014

Thursday, January 21st--Easter Island--Ahu Tongariki from the Rano Raraku quarry.


Thursday, January 21st--Easter Island--Bill and Pat at the Rano Raraku quarry. It was raining!


Thursday, January 21st--Easter Island--Ahu Tongariki and the ocean from the road.


Thursday, January 21st--Easter Island--The 15 Moai of Ahu Tongariki


Thursday, January 21st--Easter Island--Bill and Pat at Ahu Tongariki.


Thursday, January 21st--Easter Island--Wild horses on the road to Anakena Beach.


Thursday, January 21st--Easter Island--Ahu Nau Nau at Anakena Beach.


Thursday, January 21st--Easter Island--Anakena Beach where we tendered ashore in 2012, and visited in 2014.


Thursday, January 21st--Easter Island--Sailing way from Easter Island--showing the town of Hanga Roa and volcanic hills.


Thursday, January 21st--Easter Island--Sailing away from Easter Island. You can see Volcano Rano Kau on the left, Volcano Puakatike on the right and the "birdman islands" at far right.


Saturday, January 25, 2014

Tuesday, January 14th to Thursday, January 16th—Our 11th to 13th Cruise Days—Callao, Peru


Tuesday, January 14th to Thursday, January 16th—Our 11th to 13th Cruise Days—Callao, Peru

NOTE: Getting internet access while on the ship is becoming increasingly difficult. We would get better reception if we posted our narrative and photos while we were in port, but in that case, we want to get out and see things—not spend our time in an internet café. So we will post on this blog as often and as best we can, but we will not be able to post as many photos as we would like—it takes too long to upload them! We will undoubtedly get behind on postings, but we will eventually catch up.

After leaving Manta, Ecuador at about 11:00 PM on Saturday, January 11th, we had two full sea days cruising south along the western coast of South America before reaching Callao (pronounced “kai-yow”), Peru at about 7:00 AM on Tuesday, January 14th. We were to spend two full days, and one half day, docked in Callao--in part to allow time for those who chose to take a 3 day/2 night overland excursion to Machu Picchu. Although we would love to visit Machu Picchu one day, we chose not to go this time since we already had planned overland excursions in both China and Africa.

Callao, Peru, was a stop we were very glad to have made, but are not anxious to repeat. This is partly due to the fact that we didn’t do our “homework” before our visit. We had assumed that Callao—even though it was close to Lima—would be similar to Manta, a small, coastal fishing village. In fact, Callao is a suburb of Lima—a city of 7 million people. And along with a city of that size comes heavy, heavy traffic, people who are in a hurry crowding the streets, and of course seemingly endless construction sites.

On our first day in Callao/Lima, we had planned a 4 hour excursion titled “A Stroll through the Plaza de Armas.” Plaza de Armas is a part of the historic center of Lima, and contains architecture from the 1600’s—but we saw much more than just the Plaza de Armas. After fighting traffic in a bus for about 45 minutes, we drove by the plaza of San Martin, walked by and/or into at least 6 different Catholic Cathedrals/Convents/Monasteries (Catholicism is by far the dominant religion in Peru), walked by numerous government buildings and homes of government officials, and finished our tour at the Plaza de Armas itself—viewing the Governor’s Palace and Cathedral of Lima. The “old town” of Lima is famous for the wooden balconies on its many structures which were very beautiful and unique. And after our “walk”—it was more like a death march—we stopped for fruit juice refreshments at a restaurant in Old Town. (We asked for a beer as well—which seemed to confuse the waiters no end. They kept reminding us that beer was not paid for by the tour, and we kept telling them we were happy to pay ourselves. But somehow that message did not translate well, and they kept repeating as did we. But we finally got our beers!) And we enjoyed the tour very much, but the term “stroll” in the title was definitely a misnomer—our tour guide wanted to show us everything—which meant no time for the leisurely sightseeing/shopping we had hoped for. So we saw many, many wonderful things, but it was frustrating to pass by shops and sights we would have loved to explore, but because there was “no time” during the tour we were unable to do so.  And by the time of our return to the ship, it was “rush hour”, so the traffic was even worse!

For our second day in Callao/Lima, we had booked an excursion through Cruise Specialists (the travel agency we booked our trip with) titled “Archeological Museum, Pachacamac, & Paso Horse Exhibition.” This time, it was an 8 ½ hour excursion, so we started in a bus about 7:30 AM—once again in heavy traffic. After about 45 minutes on the road, we reached the Peruvian National Archeological and Anthropological Museum. There we took a tour of the museum and viewed pottery, textiles, and other artifacts from the many cultures that inhabited Peru over the past 4000 years. For the most part, it was fascinating.

After the museum, we drove about another 45 minutes through heavily congested Lima to reach the archeological site of Pachacamac Temple—about 20 miles south of Lima. Along the drive, we had views of the coastline, and some poverty stricken areas of the city—including communities of “squatters” in the nearby hills. 

Pachacamac is a huge site encompassing 100 acres or more, and dating from 300 AD with architecture influenced by 4 different cultures—the last being the Inca who inhabited the site until the Spanish conquest. In fact, it is believed that when the Inca king Atahualpa was captured and ransomed by the Spanish, much of the gold for the ransom came from Pachacamac. Because of its size, a vehicle is needed to get around to see the entire site, and for us this meant staying on the bus and listening to commentary from our guide. This was a bit disappointing—but we were able to get out briefly for some photos.

After Pachacamac, our bus took us on another 45 minute drive to Hacienda Santa Rosa which turned out to be the highlight of our trip. When we went inside the walls of the hacienda we were greeted with a band of horns and drums followed by a man and a woman who performed three or four different traditional Peruvian dances, each with its own outfit. During the dance we were served Peruvian appetizers along with fruit juice and Pizco Sours—an alcoholic drink made from a Peruvian liquor which tasted like “Whiskey Sours.”

After the dancing was the horse show featuring the “Caballo de Paso” or “Stepping Horse”—a breed unique to Peru. Known for its high stepping and very comfortable gait, the Peruvian Paso horse has become a symbol for the coastal region of Peru. The horse show first showed a woman in traditional Peruvian dress “dancing” (i.e. she was on foot while she and the horse danced around each other) followed by two men and two women mounted on horses that all moved around in a synchronized gait. 

When the horse show was complete, we had a wonderful buffet lunch of traditional Peruvian food—absolutely delicious! We finished our meal by being invited into the hacienda house where we had our choice of many different desserts.

And at this point, we thought our tour would end. It was 3:00 PM, and a one hour drive back to the ship. Since the tour was advertised as 8 ½ hours, and we started at 7:30 AM, we should have arrived back at the pier by 4:00 PM. And we wanted to be back to the ship at that time since afterwards we wanted to take the free shuttle from the ship to the Shopping Mall next to the Marriott Hotel in Mirabella (a suburb of Lima, about a 45 minute trip—in traffic), returning on or before the last shuttle at 7:00 PM.  So we were all loaded on the bus at 3:00 PM, ready to depart, the driver has started his engine—but wait! One woman on our tour group complained that we had not been allowed to actually ride the horses as had been advertised in the tour description! So our guide asked how many people wanted to ride the horses, and although initially it was just the one woman, eventually 15 of the 18 in our group raised their hand—indicating they wanted to ride the horses too.

We didn’t care to ride the horses, so we waited—over an hour—on the bus while the others got their ride. This was particularly frustrating since there had been plenty of time before and after the meal was served for those who were interested to ride the horses. But no—they waited until the bus was loaded with people. And of course this meant that we would probably not be able to go to the mall afterwards as we had planned.

About this time we realized that the bus would pass by the mall on its return journey. So we asked to be “dropped off” so that we could walk to the mall and make our way back on the shuttle. Our guide very reluctantly agreed, and we were dropped off about 6 blocks from the mall—only to very quickly become lost. We asked several people along the way “Where is the Marriott Hotel and the Mall?” Unfortunately, very few Peruvians speak English. Finally we found a young woman we could communicate with, and she pointed us in the correct direction. So we replied with “gracias” and made our way to the mall. Our “6 block” walk was really about 18 blocks, but we finally made it.

The mall was below ground and located between the Marriott Hotel and the bluff above the seashore. It had all sorts of western stores: Nike, Brooks Brothers, North Face, Tony Roma’s, Steve Madden Shoes, Radio Shack, an Apple Computer store and more. One would think they were in a mall in the US! And why did we want to get to the mall? This was our last chance to pick up day to day items (and wine!) before our journey across the South Pacific to various islands, where those items would be difficult to impossible to find.

After the mall shopping, we went up to the Marriott Hotel to catch the shuttle back to the ship. By this time it was 5:45 PM, and were told the next shuttle would leave at 6:00 PM—perfect, right? Not so fast! This was rush hour in Mirabella, a suburb of Lima. So the bus was stuck in traffic and took forever to get to the hotel, and while we waited, more and more people arrived with the intent to catch the shuttle. Soon it became obvious that all of the people who were waiting would not fit onto one bus. So the crowd started “jockeying for position” to be the first on the bus when it did arrive—very uncomfortable! To make a long story short, we did make the bus when it arrived—just barely—and we were the last ones to make it on. By the time we got back to the ship, we were exhausted.

The next morning, we had a few hours before the 11:30 AM “all aboard”—but it really wasn’t enough time to go anywhere. There was a small “Peruvian Market” near the ship selling souvenirs, and we walked around there for an hour or so. And just for fun, there was a huge photo of Machu Picchu outside the market which we posed in front of—pretending we were actually at Machu Picchu!

So we departed Callao/Lima, Peru, about noon on Thursday, January 16th and after 3 days there, we were definitely ready to move on. Our experiences in the Lima area were interesting, but we can’t think of anything we would want to repeat or go back to see. If we ever returned to the Lima area, we would get out of the city as soon as possible and visit someplace smaller—such as Cuzco, Machu Picchu or even some small rainforest settlement. Also, our experiences there have made us think twice about going on organized bus tours in the future. In the past, we have had our best experiences when we embraced the adventure of striking out on our own—and are determined to do much more of that in the future.

We would have 4 full sea days heading southwest after leaving Callao before the port of call that would be a highlight of our trip—Easter Island!

Tuesday, January 14th--Callao, Peru--From our balcony--Coming into the Port of Callao.


Tuesday, January 14th--Callao, Peru--"Old Town" Lima--Plaza San Martin.


Tuesday, January 14th--Callao, Peru--A view in "Old Town" Lima. Note the balconies on the brightly colored buildings.


Tuesday, January 14th--Callao, Peru--Old Town Lima--Torre Tagle Palace--Note the wooden balconies.


Tuesday, January 14th--Callao, Peru--A Cathedral in Old Town Lima.


Tuesday, January 14th--Callao, Peru--Plaza de Armas, Lima--Governors Palace


Wednesday, January15th--Callao, Peru--Peruvian National Archeological and Anthropological Museum in Lima--Anciet textile. Note the tiny llamas around the border.


Friday, January 24, 2014

Wednesday, January 16th--Callao, Peru--On the road to Pachacamac Temple--the poor section of Lima.


Wednesday, January 16th--Callao, Peru--Squatter dwellings on the hillside on the road to Pachacamac Temple.


Wednesday, January 16th--Callao, Peru--Bill and Pat at Pachacamac Temple.


Wednesday, January 16th--Callao, Peru--Saddling up the horses at Hacienda Santa Rosa.


Wednesday, January 16th--Callao, Peru--Dancing with the horses at Hacienda Santa Rosa.


Wednesday, January 16th--Callao, Peru--Horse show at Hacienda Santa Rosa.


Wednesday, January 16th--Callao, Peru--Dancing at Hacienda Santa Rosa.


Wednesday, January 16th--Callao, Peru--Inside the house at Hacienda Santa Rosa.


Wednesday, Janury 15th--Callao, Peru--The beach at Mirabella from the mall on the hillside.


Wednesday, Janary 15th--Callao, Peru--Marriott hotel and shopping mall at Mirabella--note the stores: Puma, Nine West, Apple, Brooks Brothers, etc.


Sunday, January 19, 2014

Saturday, January 11th—Our 8th Cruise Day—Manta, Ecuador.

Saturday, January 11th—Our 8th Cruise Day—Manta, Ecuador.
After our Panama Canal transit, we turned south and had one full sea day. At 8:00 AM on Saturday, January 11th, we arrived at the port on Manta, Ecuador, on the west coast of South America. All aboard was at 11:00 PM, so we had a full day ashore ahead of us.

Manta is a fishing port, and evidence of fishing is everywhere—from fishing boats and nets, to fish for sale at the market. Like Peru to the south, Ecuador is divided into three regions running north to south; coastal on the west (where most people live), mountain in the center (where the capitol city of Quito is located along with 20,703 foot Mount Chimborazo), and Rainforest to the east. The official language is Spanish, but English is commonly spoken and the US dollar is the official currency.

Our visit to Ecuador was unusual in that Bill and Pat took separate excursions—Bill took the excursion “Isla Corazon”—a visit to a marine bird sanctuary—while Pat took the excursion “Tagua Buttons, Panama Hats, & Authentic Manteno Cuisine.” We will describe our experiences separately. Fortunately, Bill had our friends Jacob and Margaret George to travel with, and Pat had our friends Don and Lily Tremblay and Dick and Cynthia Callaway to travel with.

Bill’s excursion group contained about 28 people—small, which is always a plus—and he joined his group for a two hour bus trip north to Bahia de Caraquez at the mouth of a large bay. (“bahia” means “bay” in Spanish.) The bus drive was very interesting with views of characteristic Ecuadorian flora and fauna along the way. Upon arrival, we had refreshments of pastry and local fruit juice at an outdoor hotel garden and then broke into two groups, boarding long, narrow boats for our trip to Isla Corazon—an island in the bay which is a marine bird sanctuary.

Since the island is a protected area, we were required to have a park official on board whom we picked up at a small pier along the way. This official spoke only Spanish, but fortunately our guide who was with us spoke excellent English, and he was very informative. 

Isla Corazon is only a small island (5 miles long and wide?) and is covered with mangrove trees stretching out into the water.  The best views of bird life are from the water, and as we motored along, we spotted tropical cormorants, magnificent frigate birds, pelicans, egrets, and blue herons—both nesting and flying. We even saw a male frigate bird with its red throat pouch inflated in full display. 

After visiting the island, the boat took us to the city of Bahia de Caraquez where we disembarked and visited the city’s Museum of Archeology.

The museum was fascinating—displaying pre-Columbian artifacts of gold, pottery, and textiles. Ecuador has had many, many cultures over thousands of years, and each culture had its own unique artifacts—well represented in the museum. The museum even had a full scale replica of an ancient ocean-going log raft.

After the museum visit, we took our bus back to the hotel where we originally caught the boats for the Isla Corazon trip. There we had lunch, and the hotel owner/operator was an Ecuadorian who had converted to the Hindu faith. As a result, our meal was vegetarian, and we were served non-alcoholic beer and fruit juice. But everything was wonderful—including a tofu stew which was absolutely delicious. Later we learned that this hotel was chosen because it was deemed “safe” in terms of cleanliness and the unlikely chance of customers becoming sick from the food or drink.

After our meal, we began our return bus journey to Manta—which was equally as interesting. The whole excursion was about 8 hours and was time well spent.

Meanwhile, Pat took about an hour bus ride to a village where Panama hats were made. While most folks think that Panama hats are made in Panama, they are actually native to Ecuador. On the way, the bus stopped at a fishing village, where men, women and children prepared the boats to go out to fish for tuna and other species. When we reached the village where Panama hats are made, Pat found it very interesting to see that women, particularly, spent most of their time weaving the hats. In order to produce them, women must bend over the hat in progress, and push down on it. Needless to say, they can only do this for a few hours at a time.

After the hat demonstration, we moved on to the tagua button factory. Tagua is vegetable ivory, produced from the nut of a palm tree.  These trees take several years to grow big enough to produce the nuts, but once they are large enough, they can produce nuts for many years. The tagua nut is soft at first, but hardens quickly and is used to produce buttons for companies such as Tommy Hilfiger and Ralph Lauren. While these companies used plastic buttons in the past, they have recently become more “ecologically” minded, and now buy their buttons from Ecuador. Not only are buttons produced, but also small figures are carved from the tagua nuts. Pat enjoyed finding several souvenirs to bring home to our grandkids! The whole excursion was about 6 hours and most enjoyable.

Bill and Pat met up at the pier in front of the ship upon Bill’s arrival from his excursion (Pat’s excursion was shorter than Bill’s, and she arrived back first.) While at the Panama hat village Pat received a telephone call from our daughter Rhiannon, informing us that a tree had fallen on one of our rental houses during a severe windstorm the night before! So after Bill heard this news, we both boarded the ship and began dealing with the rental house issue with phone calls and e-mails. (Some of you may remember that while on the 2012 cruise, a tree fell on our property in Snohomish, which Matthew had to deal with.)
About 11:00 PM, our ship departed Manta, Ecuador. We would continue heading south along the west coast of South America for two complete sea days before arriving at our next port of call—Callao, Peru, on Tuesday, January 14th.
 
 

Saturday, January 11th--Manta, Ecuador--Bill's Excursion: "Isla Corazon"--Map of part of the coast of Ecuador showing Bahia de Caraquez where Isla Corazon is located and Manta where the ms Amsterdam is docked near the center of the map.


Saturday, January 11th--Manta, Ecuador--Bill's Excursion: "Isla Corazon"--Map of Bahia de Caraquez and Isla Corazon. Manta, where the ms Amsterdam is docked, is to the south below the bottom of the map.


Saturday, January 11th--Manta, Ecuador--Bill's Excursion: "Isla Corazon"--Manta is a city dependant on fishing--as this sign indicates!


Saturday, January 11th--Manta, Ecuador--Bill's Excursion: "Isla Corazon"--Ship building and repair on the beach at Manta. Note the bare "ribs" of the boat in the middle. These will become fishing boats.


Saturday, January 11th--Manta, Ecuador--Bill's Excursion: "Isla Corazon"--A view of the island from the bay.


Saturday, January 11th--Manta, Ecuador--Bill's Excursion: "Isla Corazon"--The other of the two boats that took us up the bay to Isla Corazon.


Saturday, January 11th--Manta, Ecuador--Bill's Excursion: "Isla Corazon"--Pelican on the water in the bay, or "bahia"


Saturday, January 11th--Manta, Ecuador--Bill's Excursion: "Isla Corazon"--Pelicans roosting in mangrove trees on the island.


Saturday, January 11th--Manta, Ecuador--Bill's Excursion: "Isla Corazon"--Frigate birds nesting on the island. The birds with white heads are juvniles.


Saturday, January 11th--Manta, Ecuador--Bill's Excursion: "Isla Corazon"--Frigate birds flying and nesting and egrets (white) nesting on Isla Corazon. Note the egret with the curved neck at the center of the photo.


Saturday, January 11th--Manta, Ecuador--Bill's Excursion: "Isla Corazon"--Bahia de Caraquez in the distance from our boat.


Saturday, January 11th--Manta, Ecuador--Bill's Excursion: "Isla Corazon"--Docking at Bahia de Caraquez after our visit to Isla Corazon.


Saturday, January 11th--Manta, Ecuador--Bill's Excursion: "Isla Corazon"--The beach with the ms Amsterdam in the background.


Saturday, January 11th--Manta, Ecuador--Pat's Excursion: “Tagua Buttons, Panama Hats, & Authentic Manteno Cuisine”--Fishing boats on the beach.


Saturday, January 11th--Manta, Ecuador--Pat's Excursion: “Tagua Buttons, Panama Hats, & Authentic Manteno Cuisine”--Making Panama hats in Ecuador!


Saturday, January 11th--Manta, Ecuador--Pat's Excursion: “Tagua Buttons, Panama Hats, & Authentic Manteno Cuisine”--Making Panama hats in Ecuador!


Saturday, January 11th--Manta, Ecuador--Pat's Excursion: “Tagua Buttons, Panama Hats, & Authentic Manteno Cuisine”--Panama hats made in Ecuador!


Saturday, January 11th--Manta, Ecuador--Pat's Excursion: “Tagua Buttons, Panama Hats, & Authentic Manteno Cuisine”--Tagua: from nut to final carvings of buttons and figures.


Friday, January 17, 2014

Thursday, January 9th--Our 6th Cruise day--The Panama Canal

Thursday, January 9th—Our 6th Cruise Day—The Panama Canal.

The next day after our visit to Puerto Limon, Costa Rica, we were to traverse the Panama Canal!

On our 2012 World Cruise, we were fortunate to pass through the Suez Canal—a fascinating trip through what was basically a long wide, heavily militarized  “ditch”—in which there were no locks and we were at sea level at all times.

The Panama Canal is very, very different from the Suez Canal. The Continental Divide mountain range runs the length of Panama, and it would be impractical—if not impossible—to dig down far enough to produce a sea level canal. Hence, when coming from the Caribbean (or Atlantic) side a series of locks lift ships from sea level up to Lake Gatun, the ships travel the length of the lake and the Culebra Cut, and then two more sets of locks take ships back down to sea level on the other side.

The Panama Canal is deceptive. We were traveling from the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific Ocean, so it is tempting to think that our trip through the canal was from east to west. But considering the geography of Panama, our journey through the canal was really northwest to southeast which—to me at least—is counterintuitive (please see map). Perhaps the easiest way to think of the canal is: “three steps up, three steps down”—a ship must go through three chambers or locks to get from sea level up to Lake Gatun, and three chambers or locks to get down from Lake Gatun to sea level on the other side.

We passed the city of Colon and entered the approach channel to the canal on the Caribbean side at about 5:00 AM while it was still dark. At this point, a pilot boarded our ship to take us through the canal—with the pilot being in charge of navigation through the canal. We also had an escort of two tug boats—one leading and one trailing our ship. The pilot and the tugs are requirements for transiting the canal—it goes without saying that the Panamanian government doesn’t want any navigational “accidents” while inside the canal!

At about 6:30 AM we entered the first of the three sets of locks—the Gatun Locks. All three sets have two “lanes” parallel to and operating independent of each other. This allows two large ships to go through a particular set of locks at the same time, and theoretically in opposite directions.  Each lane of the Gatun Locks has three chambers and therefore 4 gates—some of which are double gates. We entered the first chamber at sea level, followed by a closing of the gate behind us. Then water from Lake Gatun flowed into that chamber, causing the ship to rise to a higher level. Upon reaching that higher level, the gate in front of us opened, and we went into the second chamber. This process was repeated, until we reached the third chamber and the last forward gate opened allowing us into Lake Gatun.

While the tug boats assisted us in entering the approach to the locks, they did not actually accompany our ship through the locks. On shore as we went through the locks were mechanical “mules” that looked like small railroad cars on railroad tracks—three on each side of the ship. Each mule had two cables attached to the ship, and moved along the tracks as we went from chamber to chamber. It was tempting to think that the mules were pulling the ship through the canal, but actually they were there to prevent the ship from moving side to side laterally and colliding with the sides of the canal causing damage.

So we entered Lake Gatun, and had some time to kill since we could not enter the Culebra Cut until ships going the opposite direction had cleared. Our ship’s captain, Captain Jonathan Mercer, first took us over to the dam on Lake Gatun, and then to the works for the new Gatun Locks.  The new Panama Canal Locks—which includes all three sets of locks—are scheduled to open in 2015 or 2016 and will accommodate ships of a much greater girth—making the canal more attractive to shipping.

We spent about 3 hours traversing Lake Gatun, and the views of the islands in the lake were spectacular. Later, we entered the Culebra Cut—a narrow channel leading up to the Pedro Miguel Locks. In fact, the Culebra Cut was the most difficult part of the canal to build. Earth and rock had to be excavated to a depth which would allow for the movement of shipping, and that included excavating the Continental Divide mountain range. Not only was the Culebra Cut made before the canal could be opened, but a channel had to be dredged in Lake Gatun to allow for shipping. And eventually, the level of the lake itself was raised.

We passed through the Culebra Cut and moved towards the Pedro Miguel Locks. Along the way, we passed through the Continental Divide, and under the Centennial Bridge—built in the early 2000’s to celebrate 100 years of Panamanian independence.

Although the Gatun Locks were “three steps up”, a single set of locks could not accommodate “three steps down” because the earth and rock on the southeastern part of the canal were not as stable as in the north western part— where the Gatun Locks are located. So there are two sets of locks in the southeastern part of the canal—the Pedro Miguel Locks which are one step, and further on, the Miraflores Locks which are two steps.

By the time we reached the Pedro Miguel Locks, there was a torrential downpour of rain—in fact photography was very difficult in this section, and most passengers—including us—took refuge in our cabins. But after we exited the Pedro Miguel Locks and moved towards the Miraflores Locks, it cleared up, and we got our best views of the canal. (When we went through the Gatun Locks, it was 6:30 AM, and quite foggy)

The Miraflores Locks are interesting because there is a visitor’s center next to the locks—which was absolutely packed with people the day we went through. Also, the visitor’s center has a “webcam”—meaning that people from around the world can watch ships—and people on the ships—go through the locks. Unfortunately we found out about this too late to let our friends and family back home to know that the webcam was available.

We departed the Miraflores Locks about 4:30 PM and made our way through the entrance/exit channel of the canal, passing under the Bridge of the Americas connecting the Pan-American Highway. At the end of the channel, we could see the City of Balboa on our right, and Panama City on our left with its numerous skyscrapers. And then we had completed our traverse of the Panama Canal and were in the Pacific Ocean.

This year, 2014, is the 100th anniversary of the opening of the Panama Canal, and there are numerous celebrations planned for the occasion. Of course, this was our second trip through the Panama Canal. (Our first was when we extended our 2012 world cruise after the ship returned to Ft. Lauderdale, and stayed on board allowing the ship take us home to Seattle via the Panama Canal.) But this transit was just as special as the first. Much of our day was spent in moving from one part of the ship to the other in order to get the best vantage point for viewing and taking photos. At 5:00 AM we were not up to see our entry into the approach channel (it was still dark anyway!), but we were up for our passage into the Gatun Locks and were actively moving about from that point on. For the passage, the foredeck of the ship was opened to passengers where “canal rolls” (rolls with apricot filling) were available in the morning. An audio narration was broadcast throughout the ship as we progressed through the canal which was very helpful in keeping track of where we were and the highlights to see.  The map posted on this blog was provided for each passenger, and is probably the best way to get a sense of the transit, showing both the original canal—which we went through—as well as the new canal under construction.

Once outside the Panama Canal we entered the Pacific Ocean and turned left to go down the west coast of South America. We would have just one sea day before our next port of call—Manta, Ecuador, on Saturday, January 11th.

Thursday, January 9th--The Panama Canal--Map of the original canal--and the new expansion.


Thursday, January 9th--The Panama Canal--"2014 Grand World Voyage" from the foredeck of the ms Amsterdam.


Thursday, January 9th--The Panama Canal--Gatun Locks from our balcony--We are in the second chamber of the Gatun Locks, rising up to the level of the third chamber.