The day after Canada Day, into July now; we dock in Miami on July 8 and I fly to Toronto later that afternoon. So the countdown begins. I woke this morning with terribly domestic thoughts and even checked my grocery flyers although I'm not ready to buy food yet. But we still have too much to do to worry about that.

Tomorrow we transit the Panama Canal. Tomorrow.

Today has been a Sea Day and I have written stuff and people and made lists, and talked to fellow travellers and went to another wine-tasting, this time Wine-Pairings. I always learn something; this time I was given a revelation about Reisling.

Yesterday was fabulous; we went on a Mangrove River Cruise. I love boats and rides and bridges and trains and all kinds of conveyances. (Not heights though.) In spite of another HOT day (98 degrees F.) there was a little breeze as we moved along the river gazing at the mangroves, liking the little blue herons, whistling at the macaws (saw two of them), howling at the howling monkeys,that is, our guide howled, and also whistled. Anyway, the creatures responded, and we saw them. At least, most of us saw them. I gaze and gaze and gaze and sometimes I see something.

I keep thinking of James Thurber and his poor eyesight. He wrote about his university days and his inability to see through a microscope. He almost failed Biology because of that. Try as he would, he couldn't see a specimen under the microscope lens. Finally, after frustrating efforts, he managed to pull up an image and called his teacher.

"I see something," he said in triumph. The Professor came over to look, and turned away in despair. "No, no," he said.

Thurber had managed to focus on his own eyeball.

Well, that's what I do and he's who I think of when I gaze into a mangrove forest searching for a howling monkey. I heard them, though.

I'm happy.

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.