Puerto Limon
01 February 2010 | Puerto Limon, Costa Rica
John and Jean Locke
It was only a 12 hour journey through the Caribbean from Colon to Puerto Limon, our final port of call. We arrived at 12:30 am on Sunday morning January 31st.
The Celebrity Cruise Ship Equinox was in port and took up the entire commercial pier, so we had to anchor for the entire Sunday waiting for a berth to open up.
It was a nice protected little bay, and we spent a lazy Sunday on deck. A school(?) of Dolphins lazily swam around the ship all day, and the crew took the opportunity to go fishing from the poop deck. They caught enough fresh fish to feed themselves lunch and dinner on Sunday.
It was a mostly cloudy day, but those are the worst kind, as Jean and I both managed to get sunburned faces by not taking sufficient precautions.
We finally docked late Monday morning and got to go ashore.
Puerto Limon is not a very big place, only one commercial pier. We could walk the entire downtown area in about 30 minutes. Many of the officers and crew went ashore also. It rained lightly off and on during most of the day, adding to the humidity.
Jean and I both noticed how very much this reminded us of Lae, Papua New Guinea. Even the unique smells in the grocery store brought back memories of a previous life. I don't quite know how to describe the smell....a unique combination of fresh meat and produce, musky tropical earth, humidity and soap is the best I can do. Once you smell it, you never forget it.
We bought a few treats to have for our cabin over the final week of our voyage.
Jean struck up a conversation with an expat who was sitting at an outdoor cafe drinking a coke. He recommended the Park Hotel for dinner, so we went back to our cabin on the ship for a couple hours of relaxation in air conditioning (it was extremely humid and sticky ashore) before heading out for a nice dinner ashore.
We both had a feed of fresh shrimps, and local Costa Rican beer (Imperial).
The streets were pretty much deserted when we walked back to the ship at 8pm.
Cargo operations finished early, and the ship let out a loud blast of the ship's horn to tell crew still on shoreleave to return to the ship early. We pulled back out to sea at 10:30 pm, heading through the Caribbean toward Houston.
Time to pack and think about heading home. It's been a wonderful journey. We've been told that 2 Canadians from Winnipeg will be taking over our cabin for the next world tour. We envy them, but will be happy to see friends and family very shortly.