Also Happy July First. Very few Americans on this ship know about Canada Day, even the Trivial Pursuit people, who know everything. But as I was writing that (I'm in Barista's, the coffee bar, with a weak Americano that Marco makes for me), a woman (European-born not American) wished me a happy Canada Day, bless her.

Port Days are busy. The excursion at Huatolco on the 29th took me to a posh tourist resort. My choice, because I am interested in the contrast. Everything was slick and clean and neat and manicured and fake, created for tourists, looking like a movie set. Contrast that with the drive the next day from the port, steamy hot, up a mountain through rain and cooler air to a fiercely ecological macadamia nut farm,where we were served a "snack". Good thing I didn't eat lunch. We ate three - count 'em - three pancakes made with macadamia nut flour studded with chopped macadamia nuts adorned with macadamia nut butter and blueberry-m-nut jam, beside slices of banana and papaya. Actually I ate just one, more than enough. We also had the best coffee since I left home, also grown here.

But the drive: up through jungle (rain forest?) and indigenous homes, slapdash bits of wood with thatched or corrugated iron roofs, a far cry from the factitious (fictitious) buildings of the day before. Very different. Yesterday we docked in Nicaragua where my excursion took us on an hour and a half bus ride to Managua, blessedly air-conditioned because the heat was killing: 98 degrees F. with a strong dry wind. You know what white-outs look like in (parts of) Canada? Well, we drove through a brown-out, with dust blowing so strongly that we couldn't see the road, as the wind lifted the topsoil off the dry land. Our guide gave us a political history and updates on the Nicaraguan economy, with a hopeful prognosis for the new canal.

Today we will dock in Costa Rica about noon and I have chosen an Eco Mangrove River Cruise requiring not only sunscreen but also mosquito repellent.

So I'm still exploring, although mentally I have begun a countdown. Next Sea Day - tomorrow, I think - I'm going to have to look at what I've accumulated and think about packing. Oh my.

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We are just docking in Guatemala, well, in Puerto Quetzal, for a brief (7 hour) stop before we sail on. I can’t remember what I signed up for, so long ago in February and March. I read the descriptions three times, checking weather, time and information, trying to allow for my stamina. I’m actually stronger and in better health now than when I started out. I don’ remember what I chose and I can’t understand some of my choices (like the tequila class). Today I’m going to a macadamia nut farm. I guess it’s going to tell me more about macadamia nuts than I care to know, but I like macadamia nuts and we’ll probably get to sample some – with chocolate, i hope.

I’m writing this in WORD and I’ll transfer it to cobwebblog when I get on line. It’s difficult again because there are so many people on board now. Perhaps by the time I get to send it to you I’ll have more to say about macadamia nuts, and other kinds of nuts – we have a lot on board.

I still have not seen the new nuts. My roommate had left her iPad online so I couldn't get on - one stateroom account for the two of us. Perhaps I'll get back to you or perhaps not. It's a four-hour excursion, they say but it usually takes longer, mostly because people with cameras want to take just one (or two or three) more pictures. I don't mind, but we'll be late for dinner And I'll miss Trivial Pursuit. Minor problems.

Just wait till next week.