Day 17 - Limon, Costa Rica

Day 17 – Sunday 26^th January 2014 – Limon, Coast Rica

Day 17 - Sunday 26th January 2014 - Limon, Costa Rica

Awake at 07.30 and were alongside in Limon, Costa Rica with another cruise liner in port called Celebrity Equinox with 4,000 passengers on board.

An early breakfast, in the Britannia Restaurant, of fruit & fibre/poached eggs/toast.  We were ashore by 10.00 with a temperature in its mid-twenties. On leaving the jetty, you had to pass through a shed, in which there were numerous stalls packed in, selling all sorts of trinkets.

It is early Sunday morning and with a street map, set off for the centre of town.  You are hit by the decay of it all.  A lot of the buildings are not well maintained and shabby.  The ones with any reasonable look to them are surrounded by high grid fencing topped with razor wire.  The roads and pavements are in a state of disrepair while there is not a decent motor vehicle.  There are a few still sleeping off last night’s excesses on the street corners.

Main Street

From our map, the cathedral was the centre of town, we circled a coupled of streets surrounding it, looking for an internet café.  Eventually, tracked back to a café, we had spotted earlier and entered for a welcome iced tea.  They had access to the web but it ran very slowly, so we left after our refreshing tea.

Wandering down to the main street, on which there were two sets of traffic lights, we came to the sea wall.  Found the Park Hotel which had internet access for $2 per half hour.  We gratefully accepted and commenced reaching out to friends via the web.  In the air conditioned bar/restaurant, keeping cool drinking the local Imperial beer, we spent the next four hours and a lot was achieved.

Park

Walking back to the ship, we came across this park which to us was the best part of the town.  The locals were taking advantage of the day off with the family and the kids were dressed in their finery, it made a welcome change to our first impressions of this little town.

We were back on board for 16.00 and went up to the Lido on Deck 9 for tea and sandwiches and a lie on one of the inviting sun loungers.  At 18.00 we sailed and cleaned up for an informal night.

At 19.00 we were sat in the Garden Lounge on Deck 9 to listen to Dixieland Jazz given by the Royal Court Orchestra.  Before they started, I had a word with banjo player who informed me, he tuned his 5 string banjo using only four strings as a guitar and played it as a guitar, new style to me.  The music was great as we sipped on our Limon Twist cocktails, crunching on crisps and nuts.

Dinner consisted of clam chowder/risotto/warm apple which was grand. 

I was Australia Day with various activities going on, but we gave it is miss, as we retired early for an early start tomorrow and the arrival at the Panama Canal.