Day 4, January 16th, 2011

Day 4, January 16th, 2011

Dawn Chorus. The tour began at 6 this morning, after a great hot breakfast, coffee and juice and some of the best yogurt I’ve ever had (btw… I always talk about my meals because of a friend, Eric, mentioned every meal he ate in his blog from New Zealand, so I carry on the tradition). The bus was late for our tour, we were headed to the famous Pipeline Road to take in the sounds of the birds as the sun came up, so we started walking down the hill to listen. After the bus arrived and found us, we were delivered to the Pipeline Road. It was supposed to be a great place to be in the rainforest to see wildlife, it was a little quiet. The birds hid from us, but we got a chance to see an animal from the raccoon family, called Coati Mundi, it lives in the trees along with the monkeys. We got to see some more Howler Monkeys, White Faced Capuchin Monkeys, a few Parrots flying and some kind of spotted cat crossed out path quickly. The group was picked up again by the bus at 9 AM and had the afternoon to ourselves and we would be picked up again at 4:30 pm.

Polly and I spent the day in the resort relaxing, these early morning were really wearing me out. We spent some time at the gorgeous pool, eating lunch (Sea Bass Ceviche) and drinking.
I attempted to update my blog at the pool, but I decided to take a nap instead. It rained a little bit, but the warmth and sun was delightful. Afterwards, we walked to an area of the resort that was formerly the Canal workers lodging, they are cute villas. Then we wandered to the marina and looked at the boats, as well as taking a bunch of pictures.

The evening activities were to visit the Maraflores Locks Museum, for an after hours tour, then dinner overlooking the locks. The museum was beautiful and we had a guided tour and lesson about the history and future of the Canal. They are adding a third lane to the Canal to help with the traffic. This project should be completed in August of 2014, which is the 100 year anniversary of the Canal opening. Dinner was a buffet; great salads, paella, and some really great fish, then a wonderful dessert table. The locks were really awesome to watch, several boats worked their way through and it is fascinating the way the water raises the boats and they float into the next stage of water, I was awestruck.

Once we all returned to the hotel, we had to prepare for departure, our flight is at 6 AM, so we have to leave at 4:50, yikes. So we packed our bags and went to bed, but not before we had our last drink with my little waiter friend at the lobby bar, I had to be sure to say goodbye to him. He had to tell me, via Polly’s translation, that I was pretty, he was such a cute kid. But everyone laughed at how many free drinks I got from him! LOL