Panama Cruise - part 3 (final)

The last stop on our cruise was Aruba. This port had the beautiful water of the Caribbean. This was our chance to enjoy the water. Tommy decided to try to find a place to scuba dive and I went with Trent and Melissa on a submarine tour. This "hill" is the third highest point on the island of Aruba.Here are a few pictures I took on the submarine. The first one is a sunken ship.

We had a really great time on our cruise. We really failed at taking pictures on the ship, but here are a couple of pictures we took before leaving the port in Aruba. Hope we get to do another great vacation soon!

Panama Cruise - part 2

After a day at sea, our next two stops were in Columbia. First we visited the city of Cartagena. This was our favorite stop. Cartagena is a beautiful city. We reserved a cab for the day and he took us on a tour of the city and showed us the big historical spots. First we went to look at the wall that was built around the city to keep out pirates. Here we are both under and on top of the wall.

We also visited a emerald shop/museum. We saw some amazing emeralds. Tommy even bought me a ring and some earrings.

After a delicious lunch that included amazing coconut limeade, we took a walk through the beautiful streets of the old city. I loved it. Everything was so OLD!

Tommy found a bakery that sold yummy, warm treats. Everyone enjoyed them!

Here is an old castle in the city. We didn't spend the money to take the tour, but it was pretty amazing from the outside.

Santa Marta was our second stop in Columbia. We didn't get many pictures in this port. However, we took a cab and found a really great beach. Melissa and I get massages on the beach and Tommy and Trent bought snorkeling gear. Santa Marta was very hot and very arid, but the ocean was beautiful!

Panama Cruise - part 1

We just home from a really great vacation! We went on an 8 day cruise to central America and the Caribbean. Plus, it was a vacation without kids. Here are some of the highlights:

We flew to Panama City, Panama to start out the trip. Panama is really pretty, but it is a little scarier than I was expecting. There were a lot of armed police and security guards. I did like to see the country and the people. Outside of the hotel we stayed at where these huge trees. The trunk of the tree was also the root system.

We decided to take a taxi to see the Panama Canal before I cruise ship left. On the drive we saw this boat "washed up" in the port. The driver told us it was abandoned by drug runners. Pretty interesting.
In the same area we saw this great statue. It was huge.

Here are the pictures we took at the Panama Canal. It was like, oh, 20 times bigger than the locks in Ballard. We watched several large ships move through. We also got to see where they are clearing for the bigger canal that is being built. We asked our cab driver how much a boat like our cruise ship would pay to pass through the canal. He told us "oh, like $200,000.00". Whoa.Day two of our cruise was in Costa Rica. We decided to do a pineapple plantation tour and check out the city. Costa Rica is very beautiful, just as you would imagine. And the pineapple is delicious! Here are a couple of pictures of us as we are leaving the ship.

These are a few pictures of the drive to the plantation and some pictures of the grounds.

Ok, I know that I am just a dumb kid from Arizona, but how did I not know this is how pineapple grows. I was expecting trees.