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22 April 2010 - We got home last weekend from out cruise to the Caribbean. It was fantastic! Aruba is like cutting out a portion of our Arizona desert and dropping it in the middle of the Caribbean Sea. Our tour of the island took us from the resorts and California Lighthouse to the Casibari Boulders. Then we were off to Colombia and its old city of Cartagena. We were fortunate enough to find a taxi driver who had majored in Colombian history and minored in English in college. He took us all over the old city, by car and walking, giving us the history and showing us all the plazas and statues. The Panama Canal was our next stop and is an engineering marvel, to think this was done over a 100 years ago is amazing. As we left Panama we were fortunate to see the USS Mission Santa Ynez, a WWII “Victory Ship” as she made her final voyage. This grand old lady had seen a lot while she was on active duty and had received the National Defense Service medal, the Korean Service Medal and the United Nations Service Medal and was being towed to Brownsville, Texas to be dismantled. Most of our ship were on deck to pay final tribute to her. The next morning we arrived in Costa Rica, we had heard how beautiful it was and then we were there. Our guide gave us the “how to” on growing bananas and then took us through the rain forest by bus, train and boat. They made sure that everyone had a chance to see and photograph all of the animals and reptiles found, they even walked along side the train and halted it whenever something was spotted. Our last stop was George Town, Grand Cayman Islands and is an interesting place. A lot of history and million dollar homes along the beachfront. Once we made it back to Miami, Florida we spent some extra time so we could visit the Florida Everglades. They were a special bonus to a wonderful 40th Wedding Anniversary Cruise.