Panama Canal & Barro Colorado Island
Welcome to Panama! This unique country, in the narrowest section on the isthmus of Central America, possesses a vast culture and outstanding natural features.
We started last night with the first section of the Panama Canal: Gatun Locks. After completing our transit through the locks around 10:30pm we were blissful and looking forward to our next visit early this morning: Barro Colorado Island. This island in the middle of the Gatun Lake is one of the major research facilities for tropical ecology in the world. Their work is conducted to understand the dynamics of biodiversity, geological processes and land use within the tropics. They have at this moment around 38 permanent scientific staff, which eventually will publish their work in order to add another step for understanding the ecology in our treasured tropical areas.
After walking through the trails and exploring the island’s coastline with our fleet of Zodiacs, we had some close encounters with the wildlife of the area: mantled howler monkeys, American crocodiles, and Central American spider monkeys, among others. Even in our group, we were extremely lucky to see flying above the forest canopy two elusive birds of prey: a white hawk and a black hawk-eagle.
As we were returning with a high level of emotions, we noticed that our pilot from the Panama Canal had arrived to the National Geographic Sea Lion. Thus, we continued with the last element of the crossing of the Panama Canal: Gaillard or Culebra cut, the Locks of Pedro Miguel and Miraflores.
By early afternoon, we celebrated a successful transit of the Panama Canal with a cocktail and a local ceviche in addition to a Panamanian dinner buffet. We closed our activities with an amazing presentation from National Geographic expert Christopher Baker. Christopher has an ample knowledge of the area besides a great perspective of showing the emotions of people through his photography.
