Day Three - Panama Canal

Today was the day we got to sleep in! YES!!

It was also the day we were going to do some things the kids actually wanted to do. Like go to the Panama Canal.

I've been hearing about this canal my whole life, how it was one of the major miracles of the world, one of the greatest things man had ever accomplished. After seeing it, I must agree. Pretty danged cool.

We watched some smaller boats go through, but seeing how they close the locks, let the water out (or in) and fill the adjacent locks to the same level, then open the gates and let them through was pretty cool. I found myself wishing I'd see Ginger and Mary Ann out for a three hour tour, but no. Just some drunk guys on the deck of the catamaran. Oh, well. Next time we go to Panama, maybe.

The photo on the left above is of Hannah and me before we went up to view the locks. That's the visitor's center in the background. We were at the Miraflores locks. If you want to look it up on the map, it's here.

The second photo is of the gates that closed so they could even up the water levels in the different sides. If you look closely, you can see the different levels of water on either side. It only takes them about ten minutes to level them up, too. Danged cool.

The third pic is of Hannah at the controls. Note the quality of the haircut on the guy next to her. Now that's comedy! "What do you mean you're giving it all you've got, Scotty? I need more power!!"

After the canal we headed over to the Caiz de Armador, which connects Naos Island, Perico Island and Flamenco Island to the mainland. These islands, were not there when the world was created. They were created by all of the dirt that was dug out for the canal. Imagine, if you will, that you are the head dude digging all of that dirt out of the Panamanian landscape. What in the world do you do with it all? Sell it for topsoil? I think not, McDuff. Of course, you make a new island, or two, or three. Instead of making the mountains higher, they made the ocean lower, making islands where the people can go and goof off. And goof off they do!

The two pictures on the far right above are of Hannah and Jacob riding Segues on the islands. Fun times, man. Hannah wrecked, I got run into by some kids on a bicycle built for two, and Jacob nearly ran into the Pacific Ocean because he couldn't make the danged thing stopped. I kept yelling at him, "Lean back! Lean back!" He finally got it to stop, but after that he went A LOT slower.

Now look at the fourth picture from the left. If you blow it up you'll see a bus in the water. Not a great shot, but it's a bus in the water, nonetheless. We were sitting eating lunch (just before the Segue rides) and saw what looked like a bus gliding through the water. As it got nearer it looked more and more like a bus. "But, Ralph. How can a bus float on the water?" "Good question, Ed. I don't know." But it was a bus, I swear! It floated right up to the a road and drove up into the parking lot. Amazing! Gives new meaning the old term busman's holiday.

Nothing left to do today but put the B&B address into the GPS and drive home. Bless Garmin for their wonderful little invention. I don't know how we would have gotten around Panama without it. Of course, we had to drive through some of the nastier parts of Panama City, as evidenced by some of the pix below, but it was a good edumacation for the kiddos. Not everyone in this beautiful world lives in the same semi-luxury they do. I think that goes way underappreciated today.

By the way, don't let me EVER give you the impression that Panama is nothing but a gorgeous land with WONDERFUL people. They have problems just like everyone else.

Peace out!

Coming soon - Day Four - Pipeline Road

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Sitting at My Window on a Beautiful Day (with thanks to Robert Frost)

I sit in my cube, the window bare.
I look outside at what is there.
The clouds, the birds, the rain, the sun.
Such pretty things. I sit and stare.

Inside of me a war is run.
It aches my heart when even one
Of God's good children turns away.
From this good fight we've all begun.

Can't they see the beautiful way
That God's created the world today?
The things beheld from my window keep,
Fill me with joy as I make my way.

Please think to see and then to keep
The sacred things we hold so deep.
For at the end, ere we fall asleep
The beautiful things we all can reap.
The beautiful things we all can reap.
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Wall of Cold

I like to go on vacation
where there's a lot of surf and sun.
I like to put on the sunblock
and bake until I'm done.
But the best is going back to the room
(I treasure it as gold),
And opening up the hotel door
and feeling the wall of cold.

I've been to the jungles of Panama,
and seen lots of birds and such.
I've been to Costa Rica where
the bugs are just too much.
I've skied in Utah, laid on the beach,
gone wherever my life has rolled.
But the greatest thing about any trip
is feeling the wall of cold.

I've seen dart frogs in the rainforest,
and sailed on the ocean blue.
I've rafted in West Virginia, and
visited old Yellowstone, too.
Visited Mickey and all of his friends,
where joy is so uncontrolled.
But the thing I like best at the end of the day
is feeling the wall of cold.

England, Germany, Holland and Wales.
Ireland and Belgium and France.
I've seen them all and had a great time,
And even had some romance.
Caught some games at the old Yankee park
With joy that I could not withhold.
But the greatest of these was turning the key
and feeling that wall of cold.

I've climbed a volcano on the Big Island
and bungeed in Charlotte, NC, too.
I've ridden some roller coasters
and driven without a clue.
I'd do them all again someday.
I say it loud and bold.
'Cause anywhere you go is great
if you can just feel the wall of cold.

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Day Two - Parque Metropolitano

I never imagined how miserable life could be without a camera battery.

You see, I left mine at home.

Knucklehead!

Dope!

Dimwit!

IDIOTA!!

Believe me, I've called myself every one of those names and way more since discovering early that second day that I had indeed left the battery at home. In fact, the Geoffrey's Tamarin (which species we saw) above has the look on his face that Kelly had when I told her. "You did what?"

I just left the battery, though, not the camera nor the lenses. Nothing like carrying around a useless paperweight while on vacation.

Oh, well. Pucker up and kiss the ugly fat girl on the jaw (sorry). There's nothing else you can do, because evidently Nikon does not supply Panama with any of their fine products. I tried.

So, every picture you see here was either taken with my Ipad, my little point and shoot Kodak, or is borrowed from some anonymous user on my Google machine. Talk about disappointing.

To finally get down to it, day two was dedicated to birding. We hired a dude named Gonzalo to show us around, and show us around he did. I think we got a good 30 different species of birds at the Parque Metropolitano, a large natural park in the middle of Panama City. To give you a little better understand of where it is and how big it is, there's a map here.

Just a few of the birds we saw on this day (not my pictures) were:

Blue Dacnis Dusky Antbird Common Potoo White-Necked Puffbird Red-Crowned Woodpecker Squirrel Cuckoo

It was a long walk around the park, most of the morning. We also saw Howlers (my favorites), a Coatimondi (look it up here, some Tamarins, and a Two-Toed Sloth. All in all, a great first day in the country, except for the fact that I was almost mauled by the Coatimundi. Thank goodness there were no Coatimundi ankle-biters with dear 'ole dad. He would have been on me like stink on a skunk.

Then Gonzalo would have really earned his money.

Coming soon - Day Three - The Panama Canal

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Panama - The Adventure Begins

Huh?
What the heck?
What's that sound?
The alarm?
Why's it going off at 2:27 in the blessed AM?
Pana-what?
Oh, yea!

Panama!!!

Yea, baby! Get up, take a shower, get ready. Three o'clock taxi. At Dulles Airport by 4. Check in, through security (take off your shoes, Alice!), hurry up and wait at the gate for a couple of hours and then on the plane by 6 and out of the US by noon. Early morning to be sure. We were all dog-tired, as evidenced by the picture to the left, but as the next few blog entries should attest, it was so, so worth it!

The first stop on our itinerary was Miami. Very nice airport with trains and everything, but boy is it crowded. So many ants endeavoring to get to their own hills. After a few hours of layover, we got on our plane and headed over the Caribbean Sea (first time I've ever seen Cuba) toward Panama. Flying in there was all kinds of rain. It's the start of the rainy season in Panama, and my heart sank a little when I saw how much rain there actually was. Not to worry. It hardly rained at all while we were there, and I don't remember it once coming down in buckets.

After claiming our bags, we headed to customs. Now, if you're a local, all it took to get through customs was your driver's license and a smile. Walk on through, brotha, and get on home. If you're not Panamanian, however, well, that's another story. See the photo to the right? That's the Disney line to get to customs for Los Yanquis. It's kind of a blurry picture, but it gives you the idea. Once we were at the front of the line we had our pictures taken as well as our fingerprints. See that cop standing over there? That's an Uzi he's got in his hand. Dude, there's no messing with the Panamanians.

Once the government had exacted their pound of flesh, we got our rental car and headed out. To say that this car was small is to say that Paul Bunyon was an average sized guy. Just a little bit of a understatement. Just a little. I called this thing our clown car. There were four of us who rode in this car most of the time. Each of us had an average of 2 1/2 bags, one of which you could almost crawl into and shut the lid. When we were in this car without any bags, like when we were going birding or something like that, the people in the back seat could almost literally read the tag in the back of the driver's shirt. I mean, it was SMALL!

You couldn't have fit more than 10 clowns in that thing, and some of them would have had to be kids. Good thing the other four of us had a larger car in which we could put a sizable amount of our bags. Still, the two people in the back had to sit nearly on top of each other. It was awful. I just laughed when I looked at it for the first time.

After we used a borrowed shoe horn to get everyone in the two cars, we broke out the GPS I'd brought from home and high-tailed it to our first Bed and Breakfast. More like a Bed and once-in-a-while Breakfast, but a nice place, nonetheless. Pool. Tennis court. Basketball goal. Outdoor kitchen/dining area. Beautiful. You can see Jacob lounging by the pool in the photo on the right. That is the house we stayed in. The rest of our party (Kelly's mom and her husband, and Kelly's brother and his wife) stayed in the main house. The solitary life was very nice. Lots to be said for privacy.

We used the rest of that first day (Friday) to rest up from our trip, to get acquainted with our surroundings and enjoy the hospitality of our hosts. Nice folks at the Coconut Lodge.

But I must mention here that Panamanian drivers are NUTS! If they are in the next lane and are ahead of you by two millimeters, they are going to try and come over in front of you, mostly without signals. Pedestrians just walk out into traffic without the slightest worry. Motorcycles driver between cars. My mouth is still agape that we didn't see anyone killed. Dogs sleep right next to the road. Kids walk to and from school IN THE ROAD. People ride their bikes in the middle of the lane. It's absolutely amazing. It seems there are no rules whatsoever. I will give you one piece of advice, though. ALWAYS carry your drivers license. I got stopped three times and once didn't have it. Almost landed me a ticket. Lucky for me I have a cute body. Ba ha ha ha ha ha!! Anyway, view the video here as evidence that I lie not.

Coming soon - Day Two - Parque Metropolitano

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