Barro Colorado Island and the Gatun Locks, Panama Canal
Amazing, would be my description of how this trip has been since we started almost a week ago in Costa Rica, followed by incredible and topped with speechless. We have seen the luxuriance lushness of the rain forest, the love of a mother Humpback whale with her calf, monkeys in every branch possible, loud toucans, squawking macaws and scary crocodiles. Not just the animals have been amazing but the weather as well, sunny blue sky days, calm cruising waters and a chill breeze to cool down.
Today was no exception to the perfect pattern we had so far. The outing of today took place at Barro Colorado Island, which has been a tropical research station since the 1940’s, with important information that had helped to better the understanding of tropical ecosystems. So not just have we been lucky to walk the trails of this island, but in order to do this, we are the only ship allowed to interrupt our two days transit through the Panama Canal.
After breakfast we were welcome by Dr. Egbert Leigh, one of the most recognized tropical ecologists in the world. As soon as he finished with his lecture, some guests decided to take their last walk through the rain forest that headed off to shore. Not long after walking, our guide spotted a poison dart frog, then a single howler monkey and then a white-faced monkey. Afterwards more surprises: a troop of howler monkeys were eating, hanging from their tails and swinging from branch to branch, while we were trying to take their pictures someone spotted a different colored monkey, more reddish and bigger, it turned out to be a small group of spider monkeys. These two species can share the same feeding area because each one feeds on a different source.
I could keep writing about what we saw on our hikes but we returned to the ship, the other guests that went on Zodiacs to explore the perimeters of the island, had amazing views of a troop of howler monkeys. They decorated the gorgeous yellow Tabebuia trees. Large size crocodiles were seeing patrolling the edge of the forest while two inch size bats hung on tree trunks. The bird life was pretty prolific as well: toucans, parrots, King Vultures, Crested Guans were spotted and two different species of trogons, a Slaty-tailed Trogon and a Black-throated Trogon.
Lucky enough we were able to do the second half of our transit during daylight hours. Around 3:00pm we entered the first chamber to be lowered around 85 feet and by 4:30pm the National Geographic Sea Lion was back at sea level in the Caribbean Sea. Seamless crossing of the Panama Canal, spectacular wildlife views and fantastic weather, we couldn’t ask for more… thank you Central America.
