We had to have breakfast at 6:15 so we could leave at 6:45 for
our bird Watching hike. It's a beautiful day in the tropics. our
group went out with Archie, a guide who seemed to know quite a
bit of the birds. it was hot and incredibly humid as we hiked
up a fairly steep hill. I was breathing pretty hard. We saw a
number of tropical birds but I was having trouble since we had
to look straight up and it was difficult to do that all the time
so it limited my bird viewing. I need to lose a significant
amount of weight but it's not going to happen on this trip since
they feed us so well. Our guide Archie had some trouble with
his diabetes on the walk. He radioed for help and another
guide, Ray showed up to take us back and also brought along
Louie, our ship doctor to tend to Archie. Louie ended up
running back to camp then came running back with a can of coke
for Archie. The beach was wonderful and was a typical tropical
beach. We were in the shade of a large Mango tree on a white
sandy beach. Several Palm trees with coconuts contributed to an
idyllic tropical scene. After the hike I sat under the Mango
tree and enjoyed the beautiful beach as well as the tropical
breeze in the shade. It was literally heaven. After a while
we had to leave the beach and take the skiff back to the boat.
We had a nice lunch of a falfala tostada which was a mixture of
beans into something like a bean burger. This was my thing. My
shirt was soaked so I washed it in the sink and hung it in the
shower to dry. I put a green polo shirt on for our afternoon.
We went to another little tropical island with a white sandy
beach. This too had some kind of fruit trees for shade and an
assortment of palm trees as well as volcanic rock outcroppings.
While Libbie went to snorkling 101 class i hung out on the beach
under the shade of one of the fruit trees. I stood in the water
a little bit as well as walked around and enjoyed the sunshine
before we got on one of the skiffs going back to the Safari
Voyager. My green shirt was now totally soaked as well as my
shorts so I hung them up as well and changed shirs once again. I
used my camera to take some sunset pictures but the point and
shoot does not do the sunset justice. In a funny moment one of
the young ladies on our boat went to the bow of the boat in a
short mini skirt. Of course the wind blew her skirt up over
head exposing her black panties. The dirty old men sitting in
front of the bridge thanked her for the entertainment. She said
all men are dirty old men no matter what their age. She has it
all figured out! In the evening I once again put a different
shirt on, my third shirt today!!!! I only budgeted one shirt
per day so this is not going to work very well this week. We had
a rum drink in the afternoon, Daniel recommended a Queens Park
Hotel rum swizzle, a rum drink from London. It was mint, rum, punch,
grenandine and some bitters. The drink was pretty with multi
layers of color adn tasted delicious. Dinner tonight was
Corvina, a mild white fish that I also had in Panama City.
Dessert was a flourless chocolate cake with fruit sauce. We had
a few glasses of Cabernet during dinner. After dinner we joined
our Ornithologist Karen in the Lounge for an excellent but very
very long presentation on neotropical birds. She showed many
many very good slides of tropical birds. It wasn't over until
9:45 PM. Many of us were very tired.