Monkeys and Sloths
I went on the excursion by myself asDavid was feeling under the weather when we awoke and didn’t want to potentially infect anyone in the group. The excursion was called Gatun Lake Wildlife Adventure and was arranged by someone I met through Cruise Critic. There were 5 of us on the excursion plus our guide Miguel who picked us up at the port about 8:30AM.
Our drive out to Gatun Lake, our first stop took about 45 minutes. The drive took us back past the final locks to a remote area where we boarded a small, old hard shell boat that had pulled up on a boat ramp. We proceeded out into the open part of the lake and passed areas where shipping containers were being unloaded and large dredging cranes were working along the shore. The ride was pretty smooth except when we passed a large freighter. After about 10 minutes the boat slowed and entered a narrow inlet where we could see multiple islands and other inlets. The driver was able to spot a number of monkeys, birds and reptiles and pulled us close enough to get some great photos. At one point some of the small monkeys jumped onto our boat.
After about an hour we returned to our starting point and boarded Miguel’s SUV for a short trip to The Panama Nature Center, a very small and relatively new animal rescue that looks to be part of a university. We had a guided walk though an enclosure where we got up close to sloths, anteaters, a porcupine, land tortoise and a crocodile. Some of the animals were rescued as babies and will be retuned to the wild, while others had injuries that will prevent them from being returned. There are other animals that are cared for in other structures that are not open to the public. Currently the organization is working to build a larger, more permanent public structure to expand the number of animals available to visitors. At the end of our tour one of the guides gave a brief talk on snakes and had few different venomous vipers and non-venomous boa snakes in plastic tubs.
After our visit to The Panama Nature Center we headed back to the ship and arrived about 30 minutes before boarding. I had a few minutes in the terminal to look at some of the souvenir displays and found a few things to bring home.