Panama Without the Hats

We pulled into Panama on another beautiful sunny morning. The ship anchored in Puerto Amador, just outside the Pacific end of the canal, with the modern Panama City skyline before us.We had signed up for a nature tour to El Valle, which is actually the area inside an extinct volcanic crater. We thought we were back in Hawaii judging by the terrain and vegetation.
One of the stops took us to a hidden waterfall which we hiked to by way of four very rickety swinging bridges. We were given walking sticks to aid us in our navigation of the tricky, rocky, twisting paths to and from the falls. The sounds of tropical birds helped make the walk an enjoyable one through the thick forest.
Oh yes and we rounded the corner in the hike and there it was the amazing waterfalls or should I say water trickle. We found out that the rainy season in Panama was from May through December. I thought it rained here all the time! Well the photo tells the story on their rain. They have not had much since December and it shows.

One of our next stops on our tour was at a small zoo. We had a picinic lunch and leisurely walk through the zoo. They had many exotic birds. I guess they aren't exotic down here since many of the birds are native to South and Central America. The zoo was unique in that they put the humans in a cage and the birds came around and looked at us. The next photo shows what I am talking about. :-) This is one of the Toucans who stopped in to see the humans. He wasn't allowed to feed us!

After lunch we headed back onto the bus for the drive back to the ship. On the way we went over the Bridge of the Americas which links Central and South America and crosses the canal near the Miraflores locks at the Pacific end of the canal. The bridge was built in the 1960's and is now going through a massive renovation project. They are replacing the road bed on one side of the bridge right now. This worked to our advantage because the traffic was stop-and-go across the bridge, allowing us to get some great photos of the canal while on the bridge. The following two photos show the bridge and a ship coming down the canal after exiting the last lock.

Once we crossed the bridge we headed back to the port to catch our tender back to the ship. Five miles on either side of the canal was the area called the Canal Zone. Up until 1999 it was a possession of the United States. Most of the housing and commercial buildings were located on military bases belonging to the Army, Navy, or Air Force. Since the transition to the govenrment of Panama, most of the housing has bene converted to residences for the Panamanians. They have built many new restaurants, night clubs and stores in this area. It was really nice to see that they are putting our old bases to good use.