Our Panama Canal and Central America Cruise

For the past 3 weeks my husband and I have been on a wonderful cruise. We were on the ship Rotterdam. We started in Fort Launder dale, Florida and ended up in Los Angeles.

The kids were happy that we are home. Everyone got some kind of souvenir.

One of the stops we made is Cartagena, Columbia. The old buildings and history were really nice. However, there was a lot of poverty.



A lot of beautiful churches and missions

This is a old fort where they use to fight the Spaniards

I made the BIG mistake of taking this lady's picture. She actually chased me and followed me until I gave her money.

The pan handlers were horrible. About five of them at one time would get in your face. At one point I had to run to the bus to escape them. When I sat in my seat I looked out the side window and they had actually ran over to my window and continued to harass me through the window!

There was military guys with guns on every corner. They would stand guard for us in every building we would enter.

I can now say I have been to Columbia. Been there, done that......

Our next stop was cruising through the Panama Canal. This should be on every one's Bucket List!

The ship would go into a lock, they would close the gates behind them and fill it up with water

This is the above picture filled up with water. The ships keep going into these chambers until it reaches the level it should be. Its amazing!

You pass a lot of pretty building along the Panama Canal. Here is a picture of the Panama LDS Temple. I took this picture from my balcony in my Suite as we passed by.

This is a picture of Panama City off in the distance. Look at those huge tall buildings. The city was beautiful and is growing so much!

Our next stop was Costa Rica. What a beautiful country. The people were so friendly and they seemed so happy.

We took a Jungle Cruise down a river in a Mangrove. It was just like the Jungle Cruise at Disneyland except the animals were real and could eat you!

Here is a Crocodile sitting along the shore line just waiting for his next meal. They seemed to line the river's edge!

The water seemed muddy but I loved seeing Scarlet Red Macaw Parrots flying around the trees. They were to fast to get a picture.

We also took a train ride back to port on a old train. It took us through the beautiful farmlands. The people and children would hear the train and run to the tracks to wave to us.

Another stop we made was Guatemala. This was my favorite stop. There was 12 of us that chartered a small aircraft that flew us to Northern Guatemala.

We arrived in Peten' and then we got on a bus and went to an area called Tikal where all the Mayan Temples and Pyramids are deep into the Rain Forest. It was so awesome!

They told us in this area there are over 250 temples. Only 20% have been excavated! We climbed to the top and looked in every direction and all you can see is tops of buildings every where!

This is all I will post today of my trip. I will save my other pictures for another time. I just loved our cruise, but there is no place like home...................