During the tour of Gatun Lake, the boat pilot was skilled at spotting curious monkeys. We saw a few howler monkeys, unfortunately they were slow-moving, shy and uncooperative for photos. But we met more than a dozen White-headed Capuchin monkeys who would watch us pull up alongside in the boat.
The capuchin monkeys in Panama -unlike other, pathetic monkeys - have prehensile tails, meaning they can grasp branches with it.
The guide explained that less responsible guides will feed the monkeys to lure them onto the boat. But no monkeys were fed on our tour, I assure you.
We were instructed not to look directly into the monkey's eyes, and not to smile at them. Apparently the direct gaze and teeth exposed are sometimes mistaken as signs of aggression.
Let me start by saying that Dan and I are cowards - we don't like roller coasters and during one ferris wheel ride at Disneyland California Adventure this summer we spent a lot of time gripping the cage and waiting for it to be over. Afterward, Dan assured me that the C130 ride to Baghdad was less terrifying than that ferris wheel.
So it took all of our courage to decide that "yes, we should try a zip line tour" and then it took even more courage to actually lift our feet off of the ground which started the ride.
You are in a harness that is attached to a pulley that rides along the metal wire line. One of your hands holds on to the rope going to the pulley and your other hand which is more heavily gloved works as a brake slowing you down.
This zip line tour was marketed as an eco-tourism canopy tour - one's chance to be at bird's eye level up in the canopy - it was great but this was not about bird-watching. The trip started with a twenty minute hike up a really pretty trail while wearing our zip line gear. We then took four rides across valleys from mountain to mountain. The third ride was across a waterfall. It's much steeper, so a guide controls your speed from above.
These photographs and the videos below do not show you how high you really are. Dan commented afterwards that we did not have helmets - but it wasn't a fall you'd likely survive.
It really was fun - and a little scary - okay a lot scary the first time and increasingly fun and less scary the other times. We asked our guides how to say "I am afraid" in Spanish. They said one should say "I have fear". In Duffy's video, I try to ask her, "Do you have fear?". Off camera, the guide is laughing. I later learned why. When I repeated the phrase for our driver, he pointed out that I was mispronouncing "fear" so it sounded like I was asking, "Do you have [excrement]?"
Panama City actually has two historic districts - we started the day at the older one - Panama Viejo. Here there are the falling-down ruins of a number of Spanish churches, monasteries and a convent. The city was apparently a constant target of pirates and after being totally burned to the down a second time - this time by Captain Henry Morgan, the city of Panama was moved to a more defensible area.
Convent recently restored with help from HSBC Bank
The second town site is called Casco Viejo - which is a charming area of functioning churches (we walked in on a funeral in one), the president's palace, and restaurants. The area is, however, bordered by one of the city's dodgier areas and at one point a man in a park told us not to walk any further in that direction. In front of the French Embassy we ate raspados (snow cones - 2 for a dollar) - they didn't just include "snow" (made by scraping a 3-foot cube of solid ice) and fruit-flavored syrup - but also sweetened condensed milk. We declined adding honey.
Mysterious eye-patch graffiti in (the nice part of) Casco Viejo
On our second day we took a small boat ride on Gatun Lake. This is the man-made lake that was created by damming a river to help create the Panama canal. Our boat ride around dozens of small islands was actually a boat ride among mountain tops now flooded by the lake. On the boat ride - we enjoyed looking at animals but also enjoyed being really close to some huge ships making their way through the canal. Ships included cruise ships, car carriers, container ships and this Russian tall ship. A fellow passenger said it might be the Tovarishch, which is used as a training ship for the Russian navy (and according to this New York Times article it is a former German training barque, like its sister ship the U.S. Coast Guard's Eagle. Both were seized from Germany as war prizes after WWII). However, further research revealed that the Tovarishch and the Eagle are 3-masted vessels. Still it's quite a ship, no?
At lunchtime, our boat picnicked at this shelter accessible only by boat, which was likely built by the Americans during the time they controlled the Panama Canal Zone.
Panama is widening the canal (here they are removing this entire point of land) and constructing a larger set of locks to accommodate bigger ships. Many of the boats we saw in the canal are at the maximum size and known as "Panamax" ships.
Here is a cruise ship bearing down on us. Our boat captain seemed to enjoy playing chicken with really large ships.
This is the best picture we have of a sloth - unfortunately they are the same color as the tree. The are about the size as a koala and have really, really long claws.
These are seven bats asleep on a tree
A howler monkey in mid-howl - we have a lot of capuchin monkey pictures which we'll include in a separate entry.
Our last stop of the day was the canal visitor center at the Miraflores Locks (and just across the street from the U.S. Embassy). We watched a big container ship and the aforementioned Russian tall ship go through the locks. The toll for large ships is $250,000 USD and even for a small sail boat it is several hundred dollars - at the end of the day the last slot is auctioned off and the highest price paid was $400,000 USD.
We took a week off from work and headed to Panama - a destination chosen because we wanted to see the canal and there was a direct flight from Trinidad. If we stick with the "we'll go anywhere with a direct flight" strategy (which also took us to Suriname) our other vacation destinations would be Barbados, Venezuela and Guyana.
But the strategy has worked well so far - Panama City was a great city and it was just 20 minutes from hiking in the jungle. On our first full day we joined a birdwatching hike in Soberania National Park along the Pipeline Road. Our guide helped us spot monkeys, butterflies and lots of birds. He seemed most excited by the spotting of this black hawk which he thought was unusual for the area - but he seemed really blase about all the other hawks that we saw - along with toucans, flycatchers, and others.
We saw several packs of monkeys traveling through the treetops. They were most often in groups of ten. This is a white-faced capuchin monkey and we could hear howler monkeys during most of the walk.
Pretty flowers!
Smithsonian biologists making their morning rounds in the park
Early in the hike we encountered this trapped opossum, way up high in the trees. The critter and trap were gone when we returned. He was tagged and released, don't worry!
Panama's beloved Harpy Eagle. This one was rescued from the chilly North American continent, where he was kept in an environment so cold part of his talon froze off. Now he lives in captivity at a fancy Sony-funded exhibit in the Botanical Gardens.
The capuchin monkeys in Panama -unlike other, pathetic monkeys - have prehensile tails, meaning they can grasp branches with it.
The guide explained that less responsible guides will feed the monkeys to lure them onto the boat. But no monkeys were fed on our tour, I assure you.
We were instructed not to look directly into the monkey's eyes, and not to smile at them. Apparently the direct gaze and teeth exposed are sometimes mistaken as signs of aggression.
So it took all of our courage to decide that "yes, we should try a zip line tour" and then it took even more courage to actually lift our feet off of the ground which started the ride.
You are in a harness that is attached to a pulley that rides along the metal wire line. One of your hands holds on to the rope going to the pulley and your other hand which is more heavily gloved works as a brake slowing you down.
This zip line tour was marketed as an eco-tourism canopy tour - one's chance to be at bird's eye level up in the canopy - it was great but this was not about bird-watching. The trip started with a twenty minute hike up a really pretty trail while wearing our zip line gear. We then took four rides across valleys from mountain to mountain. The third ride was across a waterfall. It's much steeper, so a guide controls your speed from above.
These photographs and the videos below do not show you how high you really are. Dan commented afterwards that we did not have helmets - but it wasn't a fall you'd likely survive.
It really was fun - and a little scary - okay a lot scary the first time and increasingly fun and less scary the other times. We asked our guides how to say "I am afraid" in Spanish. They said one should say "I have fear". In Duffy's video, I try to ask her, "Do you have fear?". Off camera, the guide is laughing. I later learned why. When I repeated the phrase for our driver, he pointed out that I was mispronouncing "fear" so it sounded like I was asking, "Do you have [excrement]?"
Convent recently restored with help from HSBC Bank
The second town site is called Casco Viejo - which is a charming area of functioning churches (we walked in on a funeral in one), the president's palace, and restaurants. The area is, however, bordered by one of the city's dodgier areas and at one point a man in a park told us not to walk any further in that direction. In front of the French Embassy we ate raspados (snow cones - 2 for a dollar) - they didn't just include "snow" (made by scraping a 3-foot cube of solid ice) and fruit-flavored syrup - but also sweetened condensed milk. We declined adding honey.
Mysterious eye-patch graffiti in (the nice part of) Casco Viejo
Panama is widening the canal (here they are removing this entire point of land) and constructing a larger set of locks to accommodate bigger ships. Many of the boats we saw in the canal are at the maximum size and known as "Panamax" ships.
This is the best picture we have of a sloth - unfortunately they are the same color as the tree. The are about the size as a koala and have really, really long claws.
These are seven bats asleep on a tree
A howler monkey in mid-howl - we have a lot of capuchin monkey pictures which we'll include in a separate entry.
Smithsonian biologists making their morning rounds in the park
