Panama Day 2: Boat Ride in the Canal

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.