Thank you Lew and Paul for watching things on the site. It was so nice to get away.
Met some nice folks and I was so fascinated by the new canal -- we got to see the big container ships enter and exit and were parallel with them for most of the canal. I guess it is terrribly, but I was more excited by seeing that than being in the actual canal. Those container ships are huge! Also got to travel a bit in Nicaragua and see the countryside, take a short boat ride on Lake Nicaragua, and visit Granda. I learned more about that country than I ever knew because we had a great guide. We also took a tour of Cartagena in Colombia so got to see a few old Spanish Colonial towns and also very modern parts of Cartagena. We got off in Costa Rica and Mexico and just wandered around on our own, but the heat and humidity was intense and defeated us after about an hour. Overall, a very nice and relaxing trip.