Panama Adventure

Warning….very long post….

As many of you know, I (Lesley) go to Panama most Dec/Jan with a study abroad course that I lead.  It  is always a bitter sweet time as I hate to leave my family during the holidays, but I love being in the tropics studying birds during the winter (as I have lamented in an earlier post - click HERE for the reminder).  This year, with the boys 4.5 and 6.5, we decided to bring the whole family to Panama!  We left on Christmas day, departing early from the the Bulluck's house in NC, and Jason and boys returned on New Years Eve.  Cheapest tickets we could find.  In retrospect, this was not enough time, but I am so glad they were there, at least for part of the time.  My students arrived late on Dec 28 so that we had 3 full days alone to enjoy a few things I had never done in my many trips there.  After a rough travel day such that we did not arive at our destination (pictured below) until 1am…..we took the first day very easy.  After breakfast, we actually returned to our beds and slept most of the afternoon.  

This coupled with the fact that Jason was still not in a normal shoe dictated that we take it pretty easy and I am glad we did.  As the pictures show, we made enough memories to last a lifetime and to entice us back to the tropics very soon.

Here is a shot of our room.  It was perfect for us; we could all be together with space to spare.  The boys loved spreading out the legos and books on the floor between their beds.

Here we are at our home base in Gamboa.  This is where we stay each time we travel to Panama.  It is a town that was built in the 1930s by the US when the Panama Canal was being built.  It is really a neat place, mostly housing a mix of Panamanians and Smithsonian researchers.  

One thing we did was visit the local zoo/botanical gardens.  I had been wanting to do this for years, especially since hearing that it had been transformed from a not very effective money-making endeavor to one funded by the governnment that rescues injured and confiscated (from the illegal pet trade) wildlife.  We were very impressed and so were the boys.  Here is Alder looking at Macaws.  They also go to see anteaters, jaguars, spider monkeys, ocelots, tapirs, various other primates and birds…..

 Walking along enjoying the shade.  Did I mention it is really hot in Panama…..really hot.  especially in the sun.  The property this zoo is nestled in is enormous; giant open spaces, several hand-made kids playgrounds, gardens, picnic areas and forests with walkways.  There was way more space than just for animal exhibits.

This is one of our favorite moments.  The Harpy Eagle (Aguia harpia en espanol) is the nation's bird and also the boys favorite bird of all time.  It is after all the largest eagle in the world…it eats sloths and monkeys.  Such a powerful and majestic creature.

We were able to get literally face to face with it.  We quietly walked up and it cocked its head as birds do to get a better look at us, and the boys cocked their heads too….just like Sam in My Side of the Mountain does with an owl (one of their favorite books/movies).  We all loved interacting with this bird.

When we walked around the back side of the enclosure (quite large too, though minuscule compared to its natural home range) we found the remains of a huge rabbit carcass draped over a tree branch.  We think they released it live for the eagle to catch and eat.

Here's its enclosure, pretty spacious actually.  This also gives the feel of this zoo a bit more.  I think this enclosure was partically built out of old ship and barge parts.  There's no shortage of such material by the Panama Canal.

 And I liked how everything, not only at the zoo, but elsewhere as well - parks, school grounds, bus stops, wherever - is decorated.  "Function" is simultanious with "form".  Its common to come across something that is not even near completely constructed, but the painting has already begun.  I am sure its partially to protect things from the humidity too.  But, with the U.S. as your standard, its odd and beautiful, and a good challenge to our conformed ways of thinking.   You will find something that is thrown together out of random materials, yet it is painted, and re-painted, and painted some more.

This bench is a good example.  The layers of paint and algae and paint and rust, make for quite a story to be told by otherwise ordinary objects.

The plethora of handmade playground equipment, another good example.

We spent lots of time lounging around, finding water spigots, resting in the shade.  For some silliness.  Heath blew his nose into a large leaf from the rubber tree (yep, the one that tires used to be made from)….to get some laughs from big brother. This is something we are dealing with actually: Heath trying to be very silly to get laughs, and Alder dying laughing which eggs him on and on and on…..

 Cute on this occasion, but not always.

Keel-billed toucan…this was at the zoo, but we hear and see them regularly in the wild as well.  In fact we see them, as well as other Aracaris, all over the neighborhood in Gamboa.

And this is a Coatomundi in the back yard of where we were staying in Gamboa,

and brilliant red-legged honey-creepers drinking from the hummingbird feeders at the house.  We saw tons of exotic (to us) birds and wildlife at the feeders outside the open air kitchen at our house.  Countless Agoutis, Pacas, Blue-crowned Motmots, Chachalacas, several species of Hummingbirds and Tanagers.  Howler Monkeys were within earshot from the house (of course that can be as far as a mile away).  Geoffrey's tamarins come in to the yard there too.  All this and more, not to mention great local food, makes time in the dining area a highlight multiple times a day.  Fruit skins, bananas, and other leftovers and food scraps are just put out in the yard for the animals.

Another day we went to swim in a local stream (versus a river with crocodiles, which we also did see swimming in the Chagras River, which we cross everytime we enter/leave Gamboa) with a really nice waterfall.  The water was unexpectedly cool and refreshing and Alder was brave enough to jump in and swim.  This picture does not do this waterful justice. It was quite big….which also means the photo is not doing the trees justice either….  That cascade is probably 18 feet vertical drop.  The trees in the jungle are immense, as a standard.  

Speaking of which…here is a great example of buttress roots - the soil is actually quite thin in most tropical forests and the butresses are adaptations to keep the giant trees stable.

It was also interesting to compare the infrastructure.  These are two bridges on this very popular trail, mind you, in a national park, where an armed guard mans the timy parking area.

Another natural wonder that the boys were amazed with were the leaf cutter ants.  They are quite abundant around Gamboa and we even found an amazing trail along the road.  They typically carry leaves, but this trail was carrying peices of orange flowers and using the curb as an easy path to their nest where they will use the leaves/flowers to grow fungi that their young will eat.  We followed them as far as we could until they headed underground…..

and then back the other way (to find the source of the flowers) up this tree...

I had actually seen this same colony two years before, using the same trail….which explains the beaten path.  Everytime we saw these guys in the forest, we were amazed as the path they could clear, no matter what.  It was cool when they would find a twig to cross a gulley or ditch with, too.  Ants (and social insects in general) are truly amazing creatures.  We think WE dominate the earth!!

These pics are day one after Lesley's students arrived.  The boys and I (now Dad, here) climbed into a canopy tower, about 120 feet high at the Discovery Center.  Federal and private parks like this were so different from in the US.  In the case of the waterfall mentioned earlier, part of Soberania National Park, you have this very nice trail leading in, but a terrible parking situation and an armed man in fatigues charging five dollars a head to walk back there, and only on weekdays.  Then this private park, you enter along a very rough path (rocks knocking the oil pan), going through an open gate with an unmanned pay booth, wondering if you are trespassing, then to drive a couple of miles into the jungle to find a very clean and well-maintained, sustainably built nature center.  You never know what you are in for in that place - if we could only tell all the little stories of interactions getting around!

This is on the way up the canopy tower.  On the way in we thought we saw our first sloth in the trees above the car.  I stopped, shut the engine off and we all got out to realize it was a troop of 5 Howler Monkeys right above us.  They promptly began urinating towards us, and tossing feces, so we made it a quick hello.  Still stood there 2 or 3 minutes as they tolerated us hairless primates staring at them.  Pretty wild experience.  The boys didnt even really get a chance to react to this, but I know it will not be forgotten.

Atop the canopy tower was a great view - a sea of lush forest.  Hot though.  If there in the early morning, you have birds and monkeys right under your nose.Les and her students went up there for a sunset and had howler monkeys eating flowers within 10 meters of the tower.  We were up there at mid day when there was much less activity.

Every tree there is a whole community in itself, dripping with ferns, orchids, mosses, bromeliads and all the living things that depend on those plants.  We saw lots of Blue Morphos in this area.  This pic is about halfway up the tower.

 Boys and I hiked 4 or so miles in there, all with a stiff-soled orthopaedic shoe.  Oh, how I hated that thing, limping along.  The vicious chiggers just loved getting around the edges of that shoe; still have scars.  Suffice to say every afternoon we (I, really, and thus all of us) HAD to lay low at the house and rest up some.  The mornings were active in the cool part of the days.

Azteca ant nests were everywhere.  They basically use the tree as a substrate for their nest, whilst predating on the other insect pests of the tree. 

On one of the last nights there, the entire group went for a night hike around some ponds at one of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute properties, walking distance from the house.  I have never seen such thick insects in the air.  No such thing as swatting or dodging.  With a group of 20+ eager naturalists you dont miss much.  

We spotted a tarantula in the grass, actually VERY dificult to see.  And tons of frogs, including the trophy of the hike, a red-eyed treefrog.  They are quite abundant here in the rainy season, but more difficult to spot in the dry season when we were there.

Here's a dead cayman.  Even the roadkill was exotic and exciting?

In the evenings, before and after dinner, the boys loved to draw and color with Lina, the daughter of our hosts, and Lesley's students.  

There was a great deal of anticipation about buying souvenirs from a local market.  This one was rather touristy, but a mall full of Panamanian crafts and goods.  Heath knew exactly what he wanted within 5 minutes of being there: something made from the stitch work patterns of the Kuna people.  He got a little pouch.  

Alder just toiled and toiled over how to spend his money, but settled on a Harpy Eagle charm, carved from a native nut (Tagua).

Lastly, I got to take the boys to where Lesley and her students were banding overwintering songbirds, to gather data, to better understand how they use relatively intact mangrove forests versus those that are being lost and fragmented due to development and conversion to other landuses.  

Here is atiny remaining patch of mangrove forest very near downtown Panama City, with the Corridor Sur in the background.  This wetland forest floods daily with the tide and is a lush foraging area for insectivorous birds, despite its small size.

Here are the students banding birds caught in nets they had set up throughout the mangrove forest.

This study site is at Panama Viejo, or "old Panama".  This is now a historic park with the 500 year old remains of the original city center, which was built after the Spanish made it to Panama.  Alder and I walked up into the original tower and got to spend some time reading interpretive signs and talking about how natives once lived there, then Spaniards found it, 

 ...the ways of life changed and… here we are today.  It just blew my mind to stand in a tower in the first "Panama City" and look out on the present day "Panama City".  Looking straight down at the remains of the first metropolis there, where archaeologists were picking through an old foundation, and scanning up to see one of the largest cities in the world.  Five hundred years....  

These are but a few of the many photos taken, and far fewer of the memories made and things learned, from huge to minute, about this wonderful far away place.  So glad we made this happen.  It was not always easy, traveling in this way with young kids, but well worth it.  Heath said just yesterday that he wishes we lived in Panama.  Not sure if that was spurred on by all the cold weather or maybe his memories of us altogether and not rushing off to work and school each day.  Regardless, it is good to know he has fond memories.