Don & Kully's World Cruise on Viking Neptune

Happy New Year from beautiful Costa Rica. We had a wonderful day at sea yesterday that began with a behind the scenes tour of the ship given by the Hotel General Manager Ronald. Getting the tour from the General Hotel Manager is a big deal as he is the senior non-navigational officer on board. He’s in charge of everything but sailing the vessel. I’ll do a separate post regarding the tour with pictures in the coming days.

The ship’s entertainment team hosted a wonderful New Years Eve Party under the stars last night. The event was attended by both cruise guest and the ship’s crew and staff. We made it to midnight, but then hurried off to bed so we could make it to our excursion this morning.

We awoke this morning in beautiful Puntarenas, Costa Rico. Costa Rico is our favorite place to visit in Central America. The people are friendly and very enthusiastic about showing off their beautiful country. Costa Rico is famous for its Ecco Tourism most of which centers around the lush rainforest that dominates the country. People come here to hike, to zip line high above the rain forest floor, to take white rafting tours, bird watch and some even come just to hang out on the beautiful beaches.

We headed out to the rain forest today for “a walk in the clouds”. We boarded a bus for a two-hour ride into the mountains to San Luis, San Ramon where there is an adventure park that has a hiking trail system that meanders through a cloud forest river valley. It was sunny and in the mid 80’s when we left the ship, but by the time we had reached the park at roughly 3000 feet above sea level we were literally in the clouds where the temperature was in the mid 60’s with a very light rain. Fortunately, we brought light jackets and we also purchased throw away ponchos. Prior to heading out on the trails we had a traditional Costa Rican Lunch at the park’s restaurant consisting of black beans and rice, pork or chicken medallions, cabbage salad, and fried plantains. 

After the hardy lunch we head out on the trail. Near the trailhead there were bird feeders that attracted many of the beautiful rainforest birds.

I’m not a very good bird watcher, don’t have a clue as to what kind of birds these are. I just love watching them and taking pictures of them. We did learn that there are over 50 species of hummingbirds in Costa Rica. We saw many of them, and I tried to get photos, but it is really tough capturing the little guys. Not only are the fast, but they also blend in with the foliage.

The trail we hiked wound through a small river valley for about a mile. The trail was pretty hilly but well maintained so the footing was very good. The trail included four high suspension bridges that provided incredible views of both the river and the cloud forest canopy. We had hoped to see some sloths and monkeys that are native to the area, but unfortunately, we didn’t see any today. However, we enjoyed the beauty of the fauna and foliage of the forest. Here are a few of our favorite photos:

The excursion also included a bathroom stop at a large souvenir shop that had all of the usual t-shirts and nick-nacks you’d expect to find. They also had Costa Rican Coffee, honey, nuts and other local treats. Everything was priced in US dollars. There was also a beautifully manicured garden behind the shop. I was able to get a picture of a traditional Ox drawn cart that in the 1800’s was used to haul coffee to the port at Puntarenas. Of course, now that is all done by large trucks.

This was one of Viking’s optional excursions for Puntarenas and proved to be very popular. We enjoyed it very much and would recommend it for active future cruisers.

We will be at sea for the next three days. Our next port of call is Cabo San Lucas, Mexico on Saturday, January 6.