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.