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Our third Viking port of call was Puntarenas, Costa Rica.  As usual, several excursion choices were offered.  We chose one entitled “Walk in the Clouds.”  We boarded a bus for an hour’s drive from the coast up to the highlands of the central valley running through the country.  Our Costa Rican tour guide spoke for the whole hour as we traveled, providing many details about his country.  I remain very interested in Costa Rica, having heard that it is a popular destination for retired Americans wishing to relocate to a foreign country less expensive than the US and having a great climate.  I’m happy to continue to live in Reno, but we might want to visit Costa Rica again for a more in-depth visit...

Our fourth Viking port of call was the country of Panama, at the port of its huge modern capital, Panama City.  Panama originally was part of its Southern neighbor Columbia.  But American “gunboat diplomacy” separated Panama early in the 20th century into an American “protectorate”.  This allowed the US to proceed with the ambitious project of constructing the Panama Canal, whose length of approximately fifty miles qualifies it as one of the greatest engineering projects in human history.

Following our first port of Cabo San Lucas and three days at sea, our second port of call on the Viking world cruise was the famous tourist city Puerto Vallarta.  Puerto Vallarta is the capital of the Mexican state of Jalisco, a state which is approximately the size of South Carolina.  Tourism is its main “industry.”  Susan and I joined a city tour with a local guide who spoke perfect English.  We toured the downtown area including the cathedral, followed by a half-hour drive out of the city to tour a tequila factory...

Chilean wines of world class quality tend to be less expensive than similar European wines due to Chile’s lower labor costs. 

This blog will describe Southern Chile: Puerto Montt, two impressive glaciers, Punta Arenas, and our transit around Cape Horn, the southernmost part of Tierra Del Fuego, South America.

At every Viking port, several different excursions with local guides are offered.  We didn’t want to visit another winery or cattle farm.  So we chose a city tour which included a tango performance.  Our local tour guide began by acknowledging that Uruguay is not a tourist “destination”...

Several blog readers have requested a description of our cruise life. 

I first heard of Cape Verde Islands in the title of a jazz composition by pianist Horace Silver, The Cape Verdean Blues. 

What a difference the distance of three sea days between Cape Verde and Madeira makes!  The country of Madeira, like Cape Verde, also discovered and settled by the Portuguese, is the opposite of Cape Verde...

Until today’s port visit, Cadiz was just a name I had encountered sometime in the past.  I didn’t know anything at all about it.  Now at the end of the day, I feel enriched by learning about this city, as well as having visited an historic village named Vejer de la Frontera.