"Mutiny! The cry of mutiny is in the air!
"Yesterday, without warning, the captain announced that the city we're visiting in Costa Rica has been changed. We were scheduled to visit Caldera, which is actually the port city for nearby Punteranas. Instead, we'll be visiting Golfito, in far southern Costa Rica. The only explanation given was 'we're changing at the recommendation of the embassy,' and a rather lame 'Caldera is just a port city, Golfito will be more intersting to students on liberty.'
[Editor's note: Maybe Bush, Cheney and Rumsfield are going to invade Costa Rica and have sent a "heads up" to the embassador.]
"BUT, Lee Parker, our biologist, had already scheduled an overnight rain forest visit out of Caldera. The Caldera area still has reasonable intact rain forests nearby, and an international tropical rain forest ecology group (who was going to be our host) has a couple of study sites in that area. We've all paid for that trip, and Lee has sent them a check. Golfito is mostly surrounded by agricultural lands (think 'bananas') where the rain forest was cleared long ago. But that's all irrelevant; the captain has issued an order.
"The students are VERY disappointed. Lee has sent emails to the captain about our situation, but apparently to no avail. Everyone knows that port stops are subject to change, but past changes (there haven't been many) have been for more obvious reasons - like typhoons, or failing to gain dipolmatic clearance. This change seems quite capricious. Lee is trying to see if any alternative field trips can be arranged, but this area of Costa Rica doesn't seem well connected by road to rain forest areas. (One guide book mentioned an area that can be reached by an all-day hike in hot, 100% humidty conditions over slippery, muddy trails!)
"In the meantime, everyone's looking forward to arriving in Valparaiso on Monday morning. Several organized tours are being offered, and I've signed up for a day tour on Wednesday to Santiago, the capital city about 75 miles inland. Santiago is supposed to be a very pleasant city. They'll take us to various sights, a market, somewhere for lunch, etc. and have us back to the ship in the evening. Certainly a whirlwind tour, but I hadn't anticipated being able to get to Santiago at all. Could be quite chilly inland. A horseback riding tour is very popular with the students, and a number of students and staff have also signed up for a wine-tasting tour in the 'Napa Valley' of Chile.
"We passed two pods (is that the right grouping?) of whales today. A pod of just 3 or 4 about 8:00 a.m. I may have been the only one to see them; I was on my way to class. They were about half-mile away. Then a much larger pod of a dozen or more about 9:00, in a little closer. That one actually got an announcement over the PA system. They were mostly staying on or near the surface, not diving deep and only appearing occasionally at the surface like the grey whales do near us [off the coast of central California]. One officer said he thought they were sperm whales. All you could really see where their backs and an occasional tail flipper, so it wasn't much to go on to make an ID. They didn't seem to me to be terribly large whales, as far as whales go, but they were still big."
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