Fuerte Amador, Panama

Monday, January 28, 2019 – Monkeying around

We overnighted, anchored in Fuerte Amador where I woke up to Panama City in the daylight. Maybe not as pretty as the illuminated skyline view I had the night before, but impressive nonetheless.

For today’s adventure, I’ve signed up to participate in a little ecotourism. Much of Panama is covered in tropical forests, including a variety of islands created as part of the formation of the Panamá Canal. These islands that lie in Gatun Lake are accessible by small boat, and that is my plan for today; I’m going monkey hunting on Gatun Lake!

To get from Fuerte Amador to the monkeys (and other animals, too!) we start out riding in one of those damn tenders again. A ten minute tender ride delivers me to the dock in Fuerte Amador . There, I’m greeted by our tour guide for the day, Ariel.

Ariel escorted all of us to a bus that would take us to a little place called Gamboa. Along the way, as we travel through the old Canal Zone, it was very obvious that this area was once owned by the US Government. All of the buildings, many of which are now offices, stores and coffee shops, were once military barracks. Building after building, every one looked just alike. Even today they remain painted the same color: brown. Ariel gave us some history of the Canal Zone and of American-Panamanian history over the years. For a part of the drive, we are right along side the Panama Canal and we can watch the ships traversing the locks.

When we reach Gamboa, we head to a small marina where we board an even smaller covered boat to head out into Gatun Lake.

Once on the lake, we cruise north to a small area of islands where, we are told, we may see up to three species of monkeys, two kinds of sloths (three-toed and two-toed), maybe some crocodiles and some cayman.

Question asked by our guide: What is the primary difference between the three-toed and the two-toed sloth?

See answer below.

We rode in the boat over the lake for about 15 minutes and then pulled to the side and entered the area of small islands were the monkeys live.

The driver of the boat headed for our first stop. When we arrived there, two other boats from the same tour company had already made the trip and were making monkey noises in hopes of attracting monkeys from out of the jungle that completely and thickly covers the entire island. It became pretty clear that all of the tour guides come to the same places on each island, and that the monkeys have likely become conditioned to where to be if they would like to obtain a nice piece of banana. That sounds like a cheat, but after all, the guide gets to fulfill his promise, we get to see the monkeys, and the monkeys get a nice meal. Win, win, win.

As expected, the temptation of the banana draws monkeys down from the tree tops. One good-sized capuchin monkey, lured by the banana, jumped from an overhanging tree onto the canvas top of the boat, ran across the canvas to the front where Ariel was holding out a banana.

From there, we learned that this particular cheeky little monkey was very aggressive and was not happy with the small piece of banana he was being offered. Oh, no. Not this guy. Instead, he came onboard our boat and headed directly to our guides cache of tropical fruit!

On another island not far away, we came across a howler monkey and her baby. Ariel advised us that howlers seldom come down from the tree tops and that we were quite fortunate to see this little family so exposed out on a branch with no leaves.

We also saw many species of birds including white heron, black heron, snail kite, kingfisher, and falcon. I don’t have any photos of those animals because I forgot I needed to do so. The environment and the viewing was just that breathtaking that I actually forgot to take photos for a while.

After leaving our little island paradise we proceed back to the main part of the Panama Canal to return to the marina in Gamboa. Along the way, in addition to seeing large container ships heading in the opposite direction, we were fortunate enough to see this beautiful tall ship. She is the Dar Młodzieży, a Polish sail training ship. So statuesque and graceful!

We docked again in the marina and transferred from the little boat back to our bus. The bus then took us back to the Fuerte Amador harbor where the tenders awaited us. Or did they? Upon my return to the harbor the line to get onto a tender was a block long! I decided I’d rather wait with a beer in my hand so I visited one of the many local bars surrounding the terminal building.

Here I found Leñas y Carbón, a place that proudly proclaims its speciality is steak and seafood. I figured a place that specializes in steaks and seafood, perched on the side of the ocean in a country fames for its seafood would be a great place to enjoy a beer and a shrimp cocktail. I order a “Balboa” the local lager, and a $15 shrimp cocktail. (Yeah, they know they have the tourists by the balls.)

When the shrimp cocktail arrived I had to give it a second look. No cocktail sauce (like in the US) and no pico de gallo (like in Mexico) but a sauce made from mayonnaise and catsup. That would have been bad enough, but each of those giant and once beautiful shrimp had been overcooked to the point that they were tougher than beef jerky. I actually tried to choke down two of them, then pushed the glass away. My waiter noticed this and asked if everything was OK. I told him that the shrimp were inedible and that the sauce showed no kind of inspiration at all. He gave me a sorrowful look, them provided me with the bill. I was not compensated in any way.

I guess that I’d be stating the obvious if I wrote that I’m never going back to Leñas y Carbón.

Once back on board I treated myself to what I believe was a well deserved dinner of filet mignon and steamed veggies. Best meal of the day!

Answer: One toe.

Ariel, the guide

What is it?

As part of my last post, I shared this image and asked you all, “What is it?

I was very happy with the number of you who ventured a guess. But, if you didn’t guess “butterfly” then you don’t win this time.

By the way, I didn’t have the right answer, either.

So, what is it today? Well, take a look at this one and see if you can figure it out. Yes, this one seems much easier than the last one.

So, what is it? Answer in the comments section of this post or just send me a message.