Barro Colorado Island

Barro Colorado Island (BCI) was our destination on our last day in Panama.  BCI is located in man-made Gatún Lake in the middle of the Panama Canal. The island was formed when the waters of the Chagres River were dammed to form the lake in 1913. When the waters rose, they covered a large part of the existing tropical forest, and the hilltops remained as islands in the middle of the lake. BCI was set aside as a nature reserve in 1923 by the US government.  Since 1946 it has been administered by the Smithsonian Institute.
The Smithsonian has maintained the island with as a scientific research facility since that time, and the flora and fauna there are among the most studied anywhere in the world.  Hundreds of scientists conduct research projects on Barro Colorado Island every year.

The biodiversity of the island is incredible.  They marked off a square mile at the top of the island and catalogued every tree over an inch in diameter.  They remeasure every tree at five year intervals.  It turns out that there are more species of trees in that square mile than in all of North America!

We made our way to the Gamboa dock for a 7 am departure.  The boat ride lasted an hour and passed through the canal on its way to BCI.

Sunrise over the Panama Canal

Approaching the Smithsonian research facility

Visits by tourists are limited to one group of ten per day, five days a week.  Rules are very strict on the island.  Visitors are not allowed to alter anything as they pass through the trails of the jungle.  They even put cement blocks on the major trails so that visitors will not compact the soil or cause erosion.

Our guide Irisol spoke good English and explained the sights along the trail.

Irisol pointed this flower out to us and told us it was called "Clitoria"

She even pulled out her guidebook to prove she wasn't making it up!

This little lizard was getting some sun

No, this is not a green snake!  It's a vine wrapped around the tree.

A Jungle Almond tree

We came upon a group of howler monkeys, the same kind that we used to hear in Chepo.  When they first heard us, they howled very loudly, and even tossed a few nuts in our general direction.  After a few minutes, though, they calmed down and went back to eating leaves and playing in the trees.  This was the best look we had gotten at howler monkeys in all of our time in Panama.
Click here to hear their howling.

This is called a "Monkey Condom", though we suspect it has other uses.  Of course we had to return it to the exact spot where we had found it.

After lunch, we stopped by the BCI museum.  These croc heads caught our eye.  Up until the end of 1999, the US controlled the Canal Zone, and they allowed crocodile hunting.  Since then, however, hunting is prohibited, which means there are a lot more crocs than there used to be.  There have been cases of people fishing from the banks of the canal being attacked by crocodiles.  Evidently they are really good at sneaking up on their prey, human or otherwise!

During our first few months in Panama we were in our training community not far from Lake Gatún.  We did go swimming in the lake a couple of times but didn't see any crocs!

We met a couple of scientists from Dartmouth who were studying katydids, which look like small grasshoppers.  There are 145 species of katydids on the island!  Katydids communicate using ultrasound, as do bats (only 74 species of bats on the island), and these scientists were testing to see if bats would hear the katydids and come to eat them, and also to see if the katydids could hear the bats and take cover to protect themselves.  In any case they said they were going to protect the katydids with netting so they wouldn't get eaten.  So thoughtful of them!

With that, we returned to the boat, leaving BCI behind.  The next day we would fly home to the US.  We had such a great time in Panama that we are already thinking about when our next visit should be!

We'll keep you posted here!

Steve and Heather

Visiting Chepo

After leaving San Blas, we headed to Chepo for a week which was to include the school graduation, excursions to waterfalls, and visiting families.  We were lucky enough to stay with Kelley and Dillon Robertson, who are the current Peace Corps Volunteers in Chepo.

It didn't take long to organize a trip to El Salto, the big waterfall almost a two hour walk from Chepo. The water was flowing strongly as it was the end of the wet season.  We were accompanied by Orme, who teaches English in the middle school and two siblings from the town, Zuli and Kevin.

Steve, Dillon, Kelley, Heather, Orme, Kevin, Zuli

Steve, Orme, and Dillon swam in the upper pool

We had hiked downhill almost the entire time to get to the waterfall, so the walk up was hot and tiring.

Back in town, it was time to visit families we hadn't seen in two years:

Our host parents Odilia and Aristides

Augusto and Livy had a new baby since we left!

Yeselin, Heber and Yenifer on their way to church

Carolina was in first grade when we left - now she rides a horse!

Steve shares photos from past years with a family

On Tuesday it was time for the ninth graders to graduate.  When we left in April of 2014, they were just starting eighth grade.  It was a great opportunity for us to see so many families in one place, and to see the students for one last time.

Soon to be graduates

Perfecto Pinto and his son Ovidio

Heather with former student José

The president of Panama had visited Chepo in the fall, and frankly he was concerned at the state of the dorms.  After his visit, he sent a team to make improvements.  As you can see from the before and after pictures below, there was quite a difference!  Notice that there are new ceilings and lighting as well as new beds and lockers.

Before

After

The day after graduation it was time for another excursion to another waterfall.  This one was also almost two hours walk downhill.  It was not so famous as the first.  In fact, of the twenty people who made the trip, only five had been there before.

The last part of the trail was overgrown, as the family who used to maintain it moved away.  Fortunately we had a volunteer (Isaac) to chop away the underbrush with a machete.

The waterfall is called El Pantalón, because it looks like a pair of pants.

It was an idyllic spot

Hector checks out the view from the top

You can see that there was a wide range of ages in our group!

Steve slides down the left leg!

The custom in Panama is to make muñecos to be lit on fire on New Year's Eve.  We saw several around town, but we weren't there for the burning!

Our visit was over far too soon, and we had to say goodbye to Chepo and our friends Dillon and Kelley.  They were wonderful hosts and we had such a good time sharing stories with them!

Dillon and Kelly and their home in Chepo

San Blas Islands

 This past December we revisited Panama, where we served for two years in the Peace Corps.  We started with a visit to the San Blas Islands in the Caribbean.  We had planned to go there in December of 2013 with Dave and Melissa, but Heather's accident prevented that.   We went to the Yandup Island, which is an eco-tourism resort, owned and run entirely by the Kuna Yala people.

The island is quite small, with just 12 cabins and a restaurant.  Six of the cabins are over the water and six are on land.

Yandup Island from the air

The only way to to reach Yandup is to fly in a small plane to the town of Playón Chico (little beach).  The airstrip is minimal, ending at the water's edge.  The pilots, however, make the trip daily and have no problem.  Sometimes they have to fly low to avoid the clouds in the rainy season.

The Kuna people live in the island community of Playón Chico, just offshore.  Yandup is beyond it and farther out to the right.   Three thousand people live in Playón Chico, which is barely a quarter mile long.  We asked why no one lives on the mainland, especially given the lack of space on the island.  They are considering it, but their long-held custom is to only live on the islands.  The mainland is used for agriculture, and the state-run school is also located there.  There are 49 such communities in the Kuna Yala indigenous region, which is independent from Panama.

We flew over another Kuna community, which was equally crowded.

Yandup Island

Our Cabaña

You could walk out to the bar from the restaurant

The birds liked the railing a lot

Each morning we hopped in a boat for an excursion to one of the nearby islands for swimming and snorkeling.

On many of the islands, the Kuna people raise coconuts, which they trade for goods which arrive on ships from Colombia and Panama City every day.  The going rate is 40 cents each.

The snorkeling was very good!

This shark did not even notice us!  He was a tiny one.

Brain Coral

A school of sardines

Steve and a sea cucumber

In the afternoons, we did cultural excursions.  The first one was to the community of Playón Chico.  The Kunas do not like to have their pictures taken, but our guide, Domicio, was glad to pose with his wife in front of their house.  The Kuna women make molas to sell to tourists.  Most of them are exported to Panama City.

 Our second afternoon excursion was to a cemetery on the mainland.  The dead are always buried on hills overlooking the ocean.  They are buried in their hammocks, which are suspended from two poles, the tops of which you can see.  Because of this, they need to dig down eight feet instead of six.

 We loved our time on Yandup, and the three days passed quite quickly.

Next stop:  Chepo and the school graduation.