ingridandleotravels

Just pulling into port now.   What a feeling! Only about 2 more miles to go out of over 32,000 miles.   Next stop – Aurora, Colorado!

What can I say. It is hard to put into words what a trip like this means. It certainly gives you a unique perspective on what an immense and wondrous world we live in. Every day at noon the Captain or the officer of the bridge would come on the PA system and give a quick update on where in the world we are. It would go something like, latitude xxx, longitude yyy, making 18 kts, anticipating destination z at 8:00 AM tomorrow morning. The depth of the water under the keel is 5,645 meters or 18520 feet. Often the depth of the water was over 5,000 meters – more than 16,000 feet. Can you imagine the amount of water that is on the globe?   Us world cruisers now have a small understanding of just how vast the planet is. How you can go days in a row in the South Pacific and not even see another ship. Or recently, how we cruised northward along the Mexican coast and could see dozens of sea turtles and scores of dolphins right from our balcony. We even saw a flying mant...

Day 109 – Puerto Vallarta, Mexico- Anniversary! – 32 years with my beautiful bride. What a way to celebrate. Our waiter Victor’s mom took a bus 8 hours to meet him and tour the Pacific Princess! She and her fiancé then met us for lunch at Pipi’s in Puerto Vallarta. Spectacular lunch. Many of the people that Victor waits on daily joined us at Pipi’s so we were able to tell his mom what a fantastic waiter/person Victor is - “amazing” to use the phrase that Iljo always uses. What a great authentic Mexican restaurant with wonderful salsa, guacamole (made right at your table), margaritas (served in buckets), and plentiful food with the mariachi band in the background. OMG – this emotional lunch was a fitting way to celebrate our 32 nd anniversary and feel that although our round-the-world cruise was coming to an end, the friendships that we have made are just starting. Next stop LA, then home to Aurora, Colorado!!!

Day 107 – Nice stop in beautiful Huatulco, Mexico. We snorkeled at two locations very near the ship, the last one the ship was actually visible from the snorkeling location. Very colorful coral was inhabited by beautifully-colorful tropical fish. Our snorkeling guide pointed out many interesting fish, which included him catching two puffer fish to show them to us. Don’t try this at home! After snorkeling we found a lovely restaurant on the beach and enjoyed a Mexican seafood feast that included, to-die-for nachos, fish tacos, coconut shrimp (served in a coconut), pineapple shrimp (served in a pineapple) and a 4x4 shrimp platter cooked 4 different ways. All of this was served at the beach within sight of our wonderful Pacific Princess. Hard to believe we only have a few more days left on the trip. It will be great to be back in Colorado, but we already know we will miss many of the people we have traveled with on this amazing journey. Next stop – Pu...

Day 104 – Costa Rica – Had a nice day visiting Carara National Park and taking the nature walk trying to avoid the poisonous snakes and not to step on the leaf-cutter ants. We then went off on a boat ride through the mangrove trees that looked a lot like the Disney ride.   I was expecting the robotic hippo to emerge from the water any second, but the gators in the swamp were real! About 30 minutes after we left our mooring, BLACKNESS! As far as we know, the entire ship went DARK! As this was after nightfall - the darkness was complete. Initially, no emergency lights or anything was visible. Both Ingrid and I were in our cabin - so I quickly turned on the flashlight from my phone and took it to Ingrid who was taking a shower. When the power goes off - so do the pumps supplying water to the bathroom and the shower - so Ingrid was now in the shower without water, in the dark. Yikes. After about 10 minutes - emergency lighting came on - and then a few minutes...

Day 102 – Fantastic day cruising the Panama Canal. The canal has been in operation for over 100 years and it is certainly a marvel. To watch the “mules” (train-like creatures) – attach and pull the Pacific Princess through the canal was fascinating. The canal uses no pumps as all the water is gravity fed and the technology from over 100 years ago is still masterfully escorting ships of all kinds through the canal. The journey through the locks, up 85 feet, across one of the largest man-made lakes in the world, and then down another 85 feet or so to the Pacific took around 6 hours. The Captain said that was the fastest he had ever gone through the canal. Definitely a bucket list item, if you are keeping a list, and an “E-ticket”, if you remember the old Disney scheme! The time-lapse below was done by a friend of ours – Dave Brennan. He let his GoPro run for the entire time we transited the canal from his balcony at the back of the ship. Let me know if you can view the time-lapse. ...