Infinity docked at 7am at Puntarenas. We had a Ziplining 7 hour tour with Charlie Soto of Okeydokey tours schedulee in Costa Rico. Others on our CC roll call had tours with Charlie too. Bonnie, Rich, Merce a few others from our Cruise Critic roll call had booked a 4 and 1/2 hour tour with Charlie to do the Mangrove Crocodile Tour, while Stephanie and Gary booked him for a suspension bridge tour over the rain forest.
Bonnie's group was expecting Charlie to be their personal tour guide but he ended up setting them up with one of his other tour guides and while initially disappointed not to have Charlie they ended up having a great tour. Randy and I were about the last two to find Charlie where he had parked outside the port and while our name was on the van with Stephanie, Gary and a couple others there wasn't any room for us in the van! Charlie ended up putting us with a friend of his who was also a licensed tour guide and we followed his other van but unfortunately this meant we didn't get to hear Charlie's talk about his country and the refreshments were also in the van and not our vehicle. On the plus side we did have a nice enough car with a driver/guide and assistant and while not very entertaining, he did speak excellent English.
Our first stop was to feed the white face monkeys and was also our wake up call to slap on that insect repellent! After the monkeys it was off to the Villa Lapas hotel where some of us would do the 9 platform zip lining, and Stephanie and Gary would walk the large suspension bridge over part of the rain forest there to see birds and other wildlife.
There were five in our group of brave canopy tour adventurer's and after getting fully equipped we set off on our 15 minute trek through the rain forest and over 2 small suspension bridges to get to our first platform for take off.
On the way there we got to see a parade of leaf cutter ants carrying their leaves to their hole in the ground. Right after that the rain started, and the ground started to get really slippery as we gained the first metal platform. BOOM! Yep, thunder and lightning started as our guides yelled to get off the metal platform as quickly as possible to avoid electrocution! Normally it rains more in the afternoon but today it was to rain most of the day, though the thunder and lightning tapered off after we made the 15 minute trek back to the hotel amidst a forest path that had become a stream of water with slippery muck beneath our feet. By the time we made it to the hotel all of us were soaked. I had fortunately packed my sandals, a extra hat and shirt in my bag that I had left back in our car, but the rest had to go to the gift shop and change into clothes they bought. Randy did get a nice white shirt though which we both like and went together nicely with the hat he had bought in Acapulco. Stephanie and Gary were also soaked but did get to enjoy their walk on the bridge and viewing the wild life. As we were leaving, the Celebrity Tour buses arrived and it looks like this is also the place the ship tour does the suspension bridge tour, except they charge a bit more for it then Charlie's tour does!
After that the group went to lunch and it was a nice local restaurant with a view of the water. Randy, Stephanie and Gary got the chicken rice dish which they all liked but the winner for the day was my fresh fish plate, with beans, fruit salad, and rice.
On the way back to the port, we stopped to look at the crocodiles. Laying around the water they pretty much looked like the alligators I'm used to in Florida, though I'm sure they are more aggressive if attacking. Our last stop was at a local market where we bought Costa Rican coffee and vanilla. We did end up missing the macaws and a couple other things that were on the schedule which Charlie said couldn't be done because of the rain. I'm not sure why we ended up not doing the stop to taste the Costa Rican fruit. It was not the best private tour I have been on. A lot of that wasn't Charlie's fault of course as if it hadn't rained I could see how we would have considered it the best tour of the cruise.
I later learned the two ship tours (coffee plantation or volcano park) that I had considered doing before deciding to go private ended up being terrific. The volcano park which I had decided against due to clouds usually hiding the volcano had a very rare day where the tour group could actually see the volcano. Angus and Joyce did the coffee plantation tour and said the lunch was terrific, the coffee tasting informative, the folk show interesting and the 2 hour bus ride was also good due to a entertaining guide and the Costa Rican scenery. So if you are taking a Panama Cruise in the future and are faced with the decision to go private or by ship's tour, the coffee plantation tour is a good choice if you have any interest in it.
We had a lovely evening spent celebrating Angus's birthday which started out at the Martini Bar where Angus ordered a bottle of my favorite champagne (though he didn't know that when he ordered it), Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin. The four of us managed to finish that bottle off just in time for dinner that evening at the Trellis restaurant. Thomas and Annette were celebrating his birthday tonight at the SS United States so it was just the four of us at the table. Angus didn't want them to sing happy birthday so we didn't have anything special done for his birthday at the table. Later we went upstairs to the pool area where they were having a tropical buffet and dancing. Joyce and I briefly joined the group for one of the line dances. The crew were selling Coca Loco's in coconut shells so we bought one for Joyce and Angus and they said it was a delicious drink. The buffet looked very pretty but since we had late seating dinner, we were way too full to try anything on it. We played a bit in the casino that night but while we weren't lucky we ran into Thomas who had hit a nice birthday jackpot on the slots.
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