Day 4
December 2nd: Puerto Corinto, Nicuragua
Bob: We docked at Puerto Corinto, Nicaragua, early in the morning. Having heard that the shore excursions were not that hot, we had not signed up for any and initially resigned ourselves to a day on board all day. After swimming in the enclosed pool area aft, we walked a mile around the promenade deck, looking out at the little town just beyond the harbor gates on each circuit. We could see sales tents pitched around the little town square, and finally sheer curiosity made us decide to disembark and just walk around the town a bit. |
Monika: We had no shore excursion booked for Puerto Corinto, Nicuragua and looking at the town from the ship, there did not seem to be all that much there. So we decided to spend the morning catching up on our writing. Bob caught up on the writing while I tried out the swimming pools. The Coral Princess has two large pools, one inside an air-conditioned area was for adults only, the other was outside where you also could get a tan. I went into the inside one first. The boat was completely still, as it seemed to have been throughout our cruise, but especially when docked. So there was no wave action and swimming was not nearly as much fun as in the pool on a previous cruise when the ship was rocking and the water was sloshing. The water itself was not too cold and to my surprise it was not salt water. This made it nice for diving, but made it much harder for Bob who resembles a stone when he tries to float in fresh water. I also tried the outdoor pool. The water there was also fresh water, but surprisingly much cooler than the water in the indoor pool. After all this swimming, we decided to get some more exercise and walked on deck. But the town looked inviting, and after all we can spend time on board during the sea days. So after lunch, we decided to brave the strange town/village of Puerto Corinto. |
Bob: As soon as we got out of the security zone the local vendors accosted us, which we had expected, but they were much more insistent and less polite than the vendors in Guatemala. But worse than the vendors was the begging, which seemed to be endemic in Nicaragua whereas we had almost not experienced it at all in Guatemala. The kids were especially obnoxious, chanting "One dollar!" while holding out their hands. The begging I could ignore, but when they grabbed my arms and wouldn't take no for an answer it was really a bit much. So we walked down the main street in town with a gaggle of 4 kids trailing along behind us and just kept on heading for the other edge of town at a good clip to give them some exercise. They eventually got the message and gave up on us. The first thing we found when we entered the town square was cheap, ice-cold, Nicaraguan beer, $1 per can straight out of the refrigerator at a reasonably clean, empty place on the corner of the square nearest our ship. Monika had two while we sat outside watching the people shop at the pavilions and chatted with a couple from Sydney, Australia, about the best time to come and visit their land. We were told to come in spring or fall and to allow about 6 weeks to really see Australia well. We also checked out the sales pavilions, but we didn't like any of the wares well enough to endure the haggling process. For folks who grow up in that culture, haggling is a part of the expected social interaction process and probably pleasant, but for us the haggling is a significant cost of doing business. So Monika gave up on the embroidered blouse she was eyeing and I gave up on some nice ceramics that might have fit in with our collection of curios from our travels. At one corner of the town square we found a church and community center, and just outside the community center a group of 4 men and 4 women were doing some folk dances in colorful, fancy costumes. We enjoyed that very much so I donated a dollar to their contribution basket and we continued exploring the town. |
Monika: The town is on a peninsula. One main street goes from the dock to the beach on the other side of the peninsula, about 1 mile. One block into the town from the dock is the town square. It was filled was stalls of locals selling handicrafts. But the first store on the town square was a small cafeteria with a large sign: Beer $ 1.00. Of course, I could not pass that up. So I paid my dollar and sampled the local brew, not bad, but rather light. We sat outside and chatted with an Australian couple that gave us all kinds of suggestions about what to do in Australia, while I swilled my beer. The square itself has an official looking building on one side with a nice large verandah. A group of young men and women were dancing to some Latin music. Very pretty. Next to this building was the church, a rather unassuming building. I had to look twice to decide yes this was the church. We went inside and I found it very nice and relaxing inside. Outside again, we walked along the stalls and then along the main street. We were accompanied by a group of 10 year olds whose knowledge of English mainly extended to "one dollar". No they did not offer anything, they were begging. Besides these urchins there were also older women who had mastered the "one dollar" phrase with outstretched hand. We just ignored everyone and wandered down the main drag, looking at the stores and the side street. The majority of houses seemed poor. We did not go all the way to the end of the street, since there seemed to be less and less tourists and we thought it safer to stick to the main areas. |
Bob: About a block down the main street from the central square we found a sign that indicated an Internet Cafe, so I went in and asked how much time for $1 US. The young lady told me that a dollar would buy an hour, so we happily paid and sent out a "WE ARE HERE" message to all our friends and relatives. None of the symbols on the keyboard matched the symbols that would actually show up on the screen, so figuring that out delayed us by 5-10 minutes, but we still had plenty of time to do our email before our hour was up. There was no air conditioning, of course, and we were in a tiny, airless cubicle, so we didn't go for another hour but rather retraced our steps back to the ship. |
Monika: While walking back we saw the sign "cyber-internet". We went in and found out that for $1 we could have an hour. What a good way to catch up with our kith and kin! It was good that we had all that time, since the connection was slllooooowwww and the keyboard odd. Not the German "Y" "X" exchange, in fact the letters were ok, but special characters like "_" and "@" which were necessary for signing into our hotmail account, were not where they were supposed to be. So Bob tried all special characters with and without the shift or alt key and finally stumbled on the correct combination. Well it was good to find that everyone was fine, and we send out a message to let them know that we had made it this far. |
Bob: If we had but known that continuing to the other end of the main street would have brought us to a beach on the other side of the peninsula, we might have kept walking that way. But unfortunately Princess did not provide a decent map of the city and Monika didn't see that beach until when our ship was leaving port that evening. Of course, I'm not sure whether the beach was a safe or pleasant place to swim in any case, but we might have checked it out had we known we were already halfway there when we reached the edge of town. |
Monika: We took a look inside the small rather unassuming church and enjoyed the quiet peacefulness after the hustle and bustle outside. After a last beer, we decided to get back on board and watch our ship head out to sea. That was actually, when I found out that there was a beautiful beach on the other end of the main drag. Oh well, it would have been nice if we had a map of Puerto Corinto. But again, as we already found out on our Trans-Atlantic cruise, Princess does not do maps well |
Bob: The evening show aboard ship was "Motor City", an enjoyable rock-and-roll based show that we had seen on our last Princess Cruise across the Atlantic (Wanderung 18). We showered and hopped into bed right after the show as we had to be up early for our all-day tour of Costa Rica the next day. |
Monika: Evening entertainment was a production show "Motor City". It was similar to what we had seen before and about as good. Since I am not that hep on the Motown songs, it did not really impress me that much. |
