Panama Canal cruise

We are on a Panama Canal Cruise. Six of us.  Me and Kay, Lauren and Janell and Kay’s parents Winnifred and Ben Cope.  After Kay getting Southwest airlines to open the door for me and his mom and Ben in a wheelchair, we didn’t miss our flight.  We did have to kill about 4 hours at LAX.  We left Ben and Winnifred with our luggage and they must have had the cruise people feel sorry for them  as they and gave them some transfers so we got to get to the ship free.

They have great food, good shows, great company.

First stop was unplanned.  There was a medical emergency, appendicitis.  They evacuated a crew member  at Cabo San Lucas and we went onto Puerto Vallerta.  After a visit to Walmart for sea sick meds we took everyone downtown for shopping and Kay, Lauren and Janell ate lunch at a back ally Mexican place. 

Next stop was Huatuclco known for it’s snorkeling.  We just happened to find a nice snorkel and fin set abandoned in our room hidden behind the emergency life jackets. We rented another set on the beach and snorkeled in pairs. The water was great and the snorkeling was great too. 

Chiapas was a little different.  It is a small town that cannot handle the two ships that were in port.  Kay waited in the taxi line for 4 hours.  Everything was backed up for hours.  We really wanted to see the ruins at Izapa since they are the place of the famous Stella (stone) 5. It is significant because it is of the tree of life, Lehi’s dream from the Book of Mormon.  Kay had a copy of it  in his house growing up and we have it now.   Our taxi took us to the ruins but when we asked about the Stella 5 they said it was down the road.  We saw some old friends from NJ, Hal and Kay Gaisford there, from the other ship.  They were told our ship was on red alert and 400 passengers were sick from our ship and not to shake hands with us.  News to us!

We asked their tour guide if we could see stella 5 she said it was too dangerous.  she told our cab driver it was too dangerous.  the grass was too high, over our heads, , there are military guys there hidden and we may get shot.  Kay told our cab driver if he got shot we would pay him extra.  Kay begged our cab driver to take us, the other locals thought it would be fine.  We decided to send one cab back and one cab would go see Stella 5.  We went, our driver asked several people on the way and all of the sudden we were there.  A park.  Our cab driver called the other and we all made it.

For Guatemala I hired a private company to take us to Antigua.  We passed by two active volcanoes on the way, one was smoking.  Antigua was beautiful and a place to buy small souvenirs.