Hi Everyone!
Greetings from the ms Rotterdam somewhere in the Pacific Ocean approaching Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. What a trip this has been! We left Fort Lauderdale, Florida on January 5th and our first port-of-call was Cartagena, Colombia where we searched for the famous emeralds and explored this old city.

Passing through the Panama Canal from the Atlantic to Pacific Ocean was so exciting! We entered the canal at Gatun Lake and went through the first of 3 sets of locks, the Gatun Locks, Pedro Miguel and Miraflores. It took 8 hours to travel the 50 mile length of the canal. An unbelievable engineering feat!

Our next stop was Costa Rica. They are very ecologically aware and their rainforests have been well preserved to protect monkeys, raccoons, scarlet macaws, iguanas and crocodiles and thousands of species of birds.
The next port-of-call was Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala. We visited the ancient city of Antigua, learned all about coffee on our visit to a plantation. We even got to pick some of the beans! I learned that jade is mined in Guatemala and was discovered here long before the Asian jade.
We relaxed on the beach at Huatulco, Mexico which reminded us of Acapulco’s early beginnings. We toured beautiful Acapulco with its coastline of tall resort hotels and clear blue-green water of the bay.
We enjoyed a wonderful classical piano concert this afternoon and look forward to our stop in Los Angeles on Monday.