2005 Panama Canal Cruise -- Puerto Limon, Costa Rica and Tortuguero Canals

Updated July 24, 2005

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We arrived on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica, at the commercial port of Puerto Limon. Our shore excursion for the day included a boat trip on a canal boat through the Tortuguero Canal area.

It turns out that the canal system runs from at least this area of Costa Rica, all the way north to the Tortuguero National Park (where the turtles make their nests on the beach), and onwards to Nicaragua.

Our boat trip was very interesting, with many sightings of the unique birds of Costa Rica. There were monkeys in the trees, but not only were they hard to see, but hard to capture with the camera. The shore excursion included a stop near a banana plantation, where we could see the work needed to grow the major export of Costa Rica.

These pictures were taken primarily with our (now not so) new Kodak DX6490, which we love. The 10x optical zoom is great, and the electronics do a fine job of automatic adjustment and flash operations.

Approaching Puerto Limon, Costa Rica	Definitely a working port. Costa Rica produces a lot of fruit, including bananas.	Tug alongside to help us in	Masses of passengers trying to debark to their shore excursions. We were told that the hold-up was getting the gangway set up.	Music and food were available at the canal excursion dock.
Lovely torch ginger growing near the canal excursion dock	Getting onboard our canal boat. The boat was narrow, so allowing everyone a pretty good view.	Large tree near the dock	Bob and Sandi enjoying their canal excursion.	Three-toed sloth. Easy to photograph, because they don't move much!
Lush jungle along the canal. We ended up with a lot of photos like this, because the animals would disappear before we could get the camera trained on them.	A Jesus Christ lizard. When alarmed, they run very quickly across the top of the water.	We saw far more birds than other animals. Costa Rica is home (temporary or otherwise) to a wide variety of birds.	A water bird drying its feathers, before the next fishing expedition.	Another wader
An egret	A bird wading in the water, while another comes in for a landing.	There were spider monkeys in this very tall tree. You can just see them in the area slightly below center of the photo.	A local man approaches our boat	Ah, we see, he's been fishing for crabs! [what a remarkable face]
Another boat approaches, and it's some of our Cruisecritic friends, taking their own private canal tour.	More waterfowl	Floating water plants are home to a variety of wildlife...	Including wading birds. This bird is standing on the floating mat of plants.	Iguanas seem to be everywhere in Central America

2005 Panama Canal Cruise -- Puerto Limon, Costa Rica and Tortuguero Canals

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