Wow, time flies! We should be posting daily but it gets away from us. 

We have been quiet for a day, sat around and read and sunned on Thursday. Better weather than my weather app indicates. Even if it rains though, it isn’t uncomfortable, plenty warm!

Friday we headed for Gamboa. There’s a nature park and hiking trails, and the sloth sanctuary. Going to see the sloths (we kind of feel for them as what we were doing on Thursday is what they do all the time, move slow, eat and sleep). The road trip itself was longer than we thought, if only because the signage and road system are really confusing. Siri was no help, ‘go west’, doesn’t help when you have just turned a complete circle on a very strange set of traffic circles.

We did make it to Gamboa, they want $80 to take a two hour boat ride to monkey island. It is raining intermittently and any monkeys we have seen in the trees are hunkered down to try and stay dry, no activity. We take a pass on monkey island, maybe we’ll go on moving day (Jan. 8).

A little exploring finds a road to a resort and also to the nature park, sloth sanctuary and trails. While wandering around the hotel resort we saw a wild sloth high in a tree and a few monkeys waiting out the rain. There was a restaurant by the river with a nice view, they wanted $32 for a buffet lunch. I can’t eat that much! The resort hotel seems a better choice. A nice lounge/restaurant with a good view. Lunch here then on to the sloths.

 While driving we encounter a number of interesting things, we caught the train to Colon crossing the river. The same river the canal uses. Looked nice. Also we found the huge old crane they used during both wars. I understand that this Titan was used to lift submarines into dry dock. It’s really old but looks operational still.

Ok, back to the sloths. The sanctuary isn’t huge but they have several sloths in residence. Not sure why other than they are endangered and need protection. There are other things as well. Butterflies and frogs. Couldn’t get a good picture of the butterflies, go figure, they never landed! The frogs were more cooperative, they were small, poison dart frogs. Lots of colours, they interpreter said that these specimens weren’t poisonous as they didn’t have the diet that made them that way.

We drove to the trail head and got there just in time to watch them lock the gate. Missed it by that much!

Heading home we encountered a couple of unexpected sights. An Agouti browsing at the side of the road. A relative of the Guinea Pig, with longer legs.

We also saw a Coati. Kind of lemur like. He was shy so we didn’t get a good picture.

Going home was easier as we had driven all the roads already. I forgot to mention, while exploring we got turned back by security a number of times. There are roads and trails that us tourists cannot access ‘prohibido!’. Not scary, they were all very polite and friendly, just authoritative.