April 4 – 6
Day 10 Panama Canal Miraflores, Gamboa
Heading back to Panama City, this time without stopping in town, except for quick grocery shopping at Supermercado Rey across the street from the airport and coffee at Kotowa Coffee House a block away. Uber picked us there for a short ride to Miraflores Locks Visitor Center. Museum closed for renovation. Interesting movie about canal from US perspective, complementing what we learned in Canal museum in Casco Viejo. Crowded Saturday, but still possible to find a spot on the viewing platform to watch the “ships & locks” show – we stayed longer than we thought.
Another Uber to our accommodation in Gamboa. With dinner set for 8 pm, we had enough time for walking loop including Sendero la Laguna. Perfect time for jungle sounds at dusk – birds, cicadas, howler monkeys, caymans – it was incredible. Insects were there too and sandflies liked our legs.
Our room was nice and clean with large bathroom and we could use kitchen. Very peaceful. Many birds in the garden and nearby trees, including parrots, toucans and woodpeckers. Agouties visiting the garden and wandering in town. We really enjoyed spending time with our host, talking about everything. Joanna was working on her Spanish, our host worked on her English. She prepared delicious dinners and we ate together. Our host helped us arranger a private boat tour to “Monkey Island” for next afternoon.
Day 11 Pipeline Road in Soberania National Park is the destination for bird watching, the earlier in the morning the better. After some bargaining and fast walk to the trailhead we were there around 8 am. Still many birds seen and heard, around 9 am it started getting quieter and then by noon just a few birds were active here and there. Harpy eagle flew over the trail in front of us! We also saw capuchin and howler monkeys, lizards, leaf cutter ants, butterflies (several morpho). Many people and birdwatching groups at the beginning of the road, less and less further on – we walked to Rio Frijoles with a bridge down, 14 km round trip.
For bird-watching/listening beginners it was quite a show. We returned home for late Easter Sunday lunch.
Boat trip was postponed to next morning so we opted for earlier dinner and had time for after dark visit to Sendero la Laguna.
Day 12 Our host was very nice and allowed us to use our room until 3 pm to rest, eat quick lunch and take shower before we were heading to the airport to fly back to Chicago. That allowed us to go on a private 2.5-hour boat tour from Gamboa public dock along Panama Canal to islands on Gatun Lake. The experience was great as we were able to look into the jungle and check on wildlife without hiking through it (impossible). Our guide Nelson was good and easy to communicate with even though he was trying to improve his English speaking with us. Took us to interesting palaces without rushing and found animals: crocodiles, monkeys, sloths, birds, iguanas… and explained/demonstrated lake/canal navigation system. We watched big ships passing by as we sped from bank to bank. We loved Gamboa, very quiet, peaceful and relaxed, right in the jungle, very glad we decided to spend last days here instead of the city.
Uber and even taxis work very well in Panama, most not expensive and fast. Plus we learned how to make our own arrangements with drivers. For the trip from Gamboa to the airport we hired the driver who took us to another airport a few days earlier. Everything was on time, no stress. Plus he turn out to be very knowledgable so we finished our trip to Panama with a car guided tour.
