This is a whirlwind tour of Panama, and today we transferred to our next hotel in the Gamboa Rainforest which is only about a half hour outside of Panama City. Our transfer wasn’t until noon, so we decided to squeeze in a morning activity to the Panama Canal visitors center.
We had 9:30 reservations, but we decided to try and sneak in early. So yes, we got there about 9:20. So early! Hey, we are slow. Anyways, when we got there there was a big group of people and a lot of grumbling. Apparently the boats had already passed through the locks, and there were no more scheduled until 2pm. They recommended we come back in the afternoon. However, since we paid $8 for an Uber to get out there (that includes the tip), we weren’t going anywhere! And the Imax theater was closed due to Covid. And the museum was also closed due to Covid (confined spaces). The only possibility was to go up to the observation level and look at the locks where the boats were supposed to be. Which is exactly what we did. Now the thing is, to get upstairs to the observation deck you have to walk through the museum. Most of the museum is roped off. You can take pictures as you walk through, but you aren’t allowed to be in museum mode and stop to read anything. I found myself taking way more pictures walking through not looking at anything than I ever would have taken had I been in full on, nerdy, museum-mode.
Anyways, we went up there and looked at the engineering marvel that continues to marvel even more than 100 years later. But let’s be honest, we would have been bored rather than marveled, had there been marveling taking place. We went because we didn’t know how you could come to Panama and not visit the Panama Canal.
After that, it was back to the hotel to begin the next chapter of our Panamazing adventure–the rainforest! We saw several cappuccino monkeys through the van window on the way here, and some very large iguanas, so we have high hopes of wildlife sightings!
Did I mention we are in the rainforest? Do you know why they call it the rainforest? I think it has something to do with rain. Lots of rain. It was pouring rain during lunch, but it did stop for the afternoon so that we could take the aerial tram up the mountain and climb the 10 story observation tower (ramps, not stairs thank goodness!) to get a bird’s-eye view of the rainforest and Lake Gautan. They give you a little audio guide to listen to while you are riding the cable car up the mountain, and it talked about all of the animals that live in the rainforest and the sounds they make. Except when your sister’s audio device is about 4 seconds ahead of yours, you get really excited when you hear the cries of the howler monkey until you realize it’s just part of the dang audio program. So distressing! And even more distressing is that we didn’t see any of the wildlife it talked about. No rain-hating sloths, no howler monkeys, no cappucin monkeys, no tamarinds (Jefferson? tamarind), no swarms of parrots flying above the canopy, no poisonous frogs, nothing.
And while we were gone, some of the other guests saw a group of 3 toucans right off our back balcony. I’m hoping that these toucans live nearby and we can see them tomorrow. I’m also hoping that they saw them while we were gone, and not during the hour I spent laying on the hammock not looking for toucans when we got back.
I digress, back to the tram. They told us it was a 15 minute ride each way. But I think that’s when there’s lots of people because it has to stop to load and unload? She told us that you can usually spend about 15 minutes in the tower, but since there were no hoards of people waiting in line behind us we could spend longer up there if we wanted (oh we wanted because that’s what we do). Picture it in your mind, dark ominous clouds overhead and sounds of thunder in the distance. A deserted tower except for thetwinsontour. No one else around for miles. Just empty cars in front of us, behind us, and every car that passed us. Now there were people coming down as we started, but we had the whole observation tower to ourselves. We love these private travel moments! But the whole time we were there, we had this sense of urgency because of the thunder rumblings in the distance. Not enough to make us actually move faster, but a sense of urgency that maybe we should be moving quickly. It didn’t start to sprinkle until we started the return journey (and so you don’t think the place is abandoned, there were 2 groups of people that arrived at the top station as we were leaving. They didn’t get private selfie time like we did).
We pulled out our raincoats in anticipation of the rain we feared was coming, but that just made me sweat. Luckily, the rain didn’t start in earnest until we made it back to the hotel. And this was epic, monsoon, cats and dogs, biblical rains that just kept raining and wouldn’t stop. We were supposed to go on a night walk at 7pm, but by 6:45pm it was still raining. Needless to say, we didn’t go out on a night walk. That rain didn’t stop until at least 7:20 or 7:30 while we were eating dinner.
And now it’s bedtime so we can dream of all of the excitement to come tomorrow.
Love,
thetwinsontour
ps. We have 7 followers on TikTok. That’s probably enough for us to make a living at, but we would always appreciate a few more. So as the signs I saw today outside the government building that I couldn’t get a picture of from the Uber said #DaleUnLikeA #democracia, which means #GiveALikeTo #democracy, but in this instance let’s switch out #democracy for #thetwinsontour in a bit of poetic license, ok? Good. Thanks.
thetwinsontour 