Panama, Peru & Valparaiso 2017

   Today we are cruising along the coast of Peru to tomorrow’s port of Callao, the gateway to Lima, Peru. Today was sunny with a haze around the horizon, which in San Diego was referred to as the marine layer cloud. The temperature was a cooler 69 F (or 19 C) and windy but not as strong as yesterday. After breakfast, we walked our usual route out on decks 11 and 12. The 720-step circuit includes one set of 16 riser staircases at one end of the ship and one set of 24 riser staircases at the other end. At 9 this morning the ship was close to Trujillo, Peru, 12 hours later the ship had covered half the remaining distance to Lima. We had logged 5631 steps before the 10 a.m. presentation.    This “Beyond the Podium” presentation by Doug Field was about the Pacific Ocean Ring of Fire and the tectonic plates whose movement cause the earthquakes and volcanoes.   He also explained the effects of the Pacific weather patterns of El Niño and La Niña. The waters of Peru...

    We crossed the equator during the night, after we cruised along the coast of Columbia to along the coast of the Republic of Ecuador.    This morning there was a haze and thin clouds, but the temperature was about 75 F and very little wind.   We could see beautiful beaches from the ship’s decks.     Manta, located in Manabi province, is one of the Republic of Ecuador’s largest ports and is famous for its tuna fishing industry. International major brands of tuna are processed here in one of the 16 facilities. The dock was within the working port and there were fishing boats unloading their catches at the next pier. There are 160 fishing boats on the tuna fleet. There was no smell of fish even though the ship was docked between five fishing boats that were unloading their frozen catches.   About 40 cruise ships dock in Manta each year.    Ecuador has some tall mountains in the Andes, some over 6,000 meters high. The tallest...