Panama, March 19-29, 2024

After a fairly steamy two weeks in Colombia, we were ready to continue on to the jungles and cities in Panama. We flew from Cartagena into the “second” Panama City airport and picked up an Uber minivan to take us about 90 minutes outside the City, to the Gambia rainforest reserve. Our very safe driver pointed out Panama City sights (canal, bridge, museum, old town) along the way out of the city. After receiving a lovely souvenir and business card from our Uber driver (totally worked, we called her for another ride!), we checked into our fancy hotel! We had two sweet hotel rooms along the mighty Chagres River. The hotel offered free ‘night safaris’ so we checked in, ate some dinner, and jumped into the open air truck with two other people. We saw sloths, an eagle, and a submerged caiman. Not bad!

We took advantage of the large and strange hotel grounds (including the tennis-court ruins, ghostly old-American-dredging company housing, and forlorn playground equipment) and walked as far as those who get very hot and tired in jungle weather would allow. The kids swam in the pool and we signed up for a tour of the jungle canopy (very interesting open-gondola ride; over a tall jungle that had been totally clear cut about 50 years ago when the American-canal company was using the land, but was now very well grown and full of birds). The gondola ride was so quiet and peaceful, high in the canopy… and then.. as we rose higher and higher, we started to hear the squeals from the people who chose the zip line instead of the lame/tame gondola ride, ha, our kids were.. interested in this other choice.. sorry kids!

Alex and Luke impressed with the hotel’s cool atrium.

Swimming pool the kids swam in every day.

..and, we tested the medic response! Luke got a cut in the pool and without us asking, two medics showed up to assess him, fill out an incident respond, and put a bandaid on; he was so puzzled/ impressed.

Very cool buttress roots on this jungle tree.

Playing on the weird, semi-abandoned play area of the hotel grounds.

Four last tour, we visited a poison-dart frog, butterfly, and sloth sanctuary. We got to get very close to the sloths which was very interesting.

Alex at the sloth sanctuary.

More weird, totally abandoned-but-periodically-painted housing from before 1999 when American companies took care of the Canal. We learned these belong to the hotel grounds but they have not done anything with the little neighborhood of nice houses.

View of Chagres River from hotel.

On the gondola ride around the Gamboa rainforest.

From the top of a view platform in Gamboa rainforest.

After a cushy couple of days in the jungle, we headed to Panama City - This was the first city we stayed in during our trip where the airbnb host provided a list of things to to AND a list of neighborhoods to not visit. As we drove through the city with our trusty Uber driver, we checked out some areas with dreary cement buildings and somewhat dirty streets. We decided to be cautious and not go out much after dark.

We got right to the main attraction, I booked a Panama Canal tour for us our first full day in town - It was amazing, a great tour! We took a bus upriver to a ship (maybe 300 people on it) that was about midway through the Canal. Along with other touring ships, we cruised along the Chagres River awaiting a Big Ship; once that Big Ship is ready to go through the locks, then the touring ships squeeze into the locks with the Big Paying Ship (we think ships pay like $1 million to $2 million to go through the Canal). We found seats in the shade, along the deck railing and settled in to enjoy the wait. Amazingly, the tour guide, no joke, spoke something like nonstop for the 5+hour duration of the tour. It was truly something to witness; he spoke slowing, he had facts and stories and answered questions people would whisper to him as they walked around the ship. We 5 had all watched the American Experience show on the construction of the Panama Canal so we were pretty knowledgeable (in short: France, having successfully built the Suez Canal, tried to dig the Panama Canal in 1881; more than 20,000 people died in the attempt [malaria and other tropical diseases]; US helped Panama gain independence from Colombia, Teddy Roosevelt championed the project and right after Panama’s independence, the US signed an agreement to gain control of a “Canal Zone” in 1903; US started construction in 1904 and completed the project in 1914; Panama immediately tried to renegotiate the agreement to eventually gain control of the area; in 1977, the countries signed a treaty to hand back the whole area to Panama in 1999). Despite all our info, the adults still enjoyed this tour guide. Going through the locks was very cool!

On the Panama Canal tour; some extreme terraced land.

On the Canal tour; the ship is in the locks and awaiting the lowering of the locks.

Katie showing how close our ship was to the locks walls, on the right; the locks lower between 43 and 85 feet in height, depending on tides.

You can just see the gates open behind my hat.

The tour was long, braiding hair is fun.

Another way to pass the time: Katie and Luke making cup-cone-mouths.

Here you can see the gates closed behind me!

Scott, Alex, and Luke watching the lowering.

Panama City also has an old colonial town; we took a bike tour around the old town and part of the waterfront. It would be have been very cool, but we had just been to Cartagena and the area looked pretty similar (many fewer vendors than Colombia, though!).

We enjoyed our apartment pool but sorta felt like we did not need to visit Panama City again and were ready to our flight to Tucson, through Houston airport (where Alex and Luke begged and schemed to somehow, during our 6-hour layover, to travel to one of only a handful of Nando’s restaurants that exist in the US, in Houston proper; sadly, though Scott seriously considered it, we did not leave the Houston airport during our wait).