Rainy Season Roadtrip

It’s two o’clock in the afternoon and it’s dark.  Dark enough to require electric lights inside.  Welcome to the wet season y’all.

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In commemoration of the end of summer (AKA the dry season for all you northern types) here are some pics from a road trip that was a direct result of the beginning of the wet season (in 2006).  Drude and I tried to do our usual Saturday morning hike that day.  We headed out to Gamboa, but by the time we got halfway there it was pouring.  We decided that hiking would be miserable, so why not go for a drive? (Famous last words).

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The Gamboa road doesn’t actually go anywhere except Gamboa so we had to drive back out and make a choice – right towards Panama City? Or left towards Colon?  Colon it is.  We drove out through Camino de Cruces, to Transistmica (the road that, like the name implies, crosses the Isthmus).  Transistmica could be a contender for the ugliest road in the Americas (wall-to-wall billboards for Zona Libre in Colon). So we decided to take what we thought was the old Colon road.  To be honest we had no idea where we were going – but there just aren’t that many roads in Panama, how lost could we get?  So we were slightly surprised to find ourselves driving over this:

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It’s the Madden Dam on the Chagres river that creates Lago Alajuela.  A quick lesson on the Panama Canal – it’s only a “canal” in the strictest sense for about half it’s length.  The rest is a channel through an artificial lake, Lago Gatun, that was created by damming up the Chagres river and flooding the river valley and some of the surrounding valleys. But it was soon discovered that the Gatun Dam and the Locks didn’t provide sufficient control of the lake water level so a second dam and lake were created to better control the water levels.  Thus demonstrating two of Panama’s perennial problems – not enough water and too much water.

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Anyhoo, just past here we discovered that the road that we were on merged with Transistmica, so we went on out to Colon.  However, Colon is not exactly tourist friendly; once there we were at something of a loss as to what to do.  So we decided to go find the Gatun locks.  Not that we actually knew how to get to them (signs? In Panama?  Are you JOKING?). So after getting lost, wandering through some neighborhoods and asking for directions about three times, we finally found the locks.  Which I didn’t take any pictures of because I am D-U-M (and it was raining).  And we couldn’t go all the way to the locks and not cross, Right?  So what’s on the other side of the locks?

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Not much it turns out.  National park land, the former Fort Sherman (now crumbling to bits, sad really) and San Lorenzo, the old Spanish fort built to protect the mouth of the Chagres. We’d come all that way, we couldn’t turn back without seeing it, right?  Only one problem.  San Lorenzo is nine kilometers up this road:

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I drive a Toyota Yaris.  It’s the smallest car that Toyota makes. Unpaved forest road, rainy weather, and my car?  Not a great idea.  Not that that stopped us, of course. So after about 45min of white-knuckle driving at about 5 mph, with only 1 or 2 minor slides, we arrived here:

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It doesn’t look like much from this angle, but that’s because the majority of the fort is actually below the level of the surrounding land.

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It’s surrounded by a dry moat (we weren’t the only visitors that day – I have no idea who those people are) and has a commanding view of the mouth of the Chagres.

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Plus it’s just a cool ruin.

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That’s Drude walking through the arch.

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A lot of the fort is inaccessible because it’s below ground –

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– or flooded (rainy season, remember?).

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There’s still a lot standing – not bad for 300 years in the tropics, eh?

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The most conspicuous thing about San Lorenzo are these vaults – there’s a bunch of them.  They were probably used for storage – there’s stone studs sticking out of the walls to support a floor about five feet up from the floor – no way could any one be expected to stand up in there, even taking account pre-modern nutrition shorter stature.  Anyway, San Lorenzo was always primarily a military fort, not a city like Portobelo.  They were pretty isolated so they probably had to store a lot of supplies.

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All of this is supposition, of course.  We didn’t exactly have a guide.

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There’s still  few cannons in place.  No where near as many as at Portobelo (one of these days I will post pictures from there as well).  This one is almost perfectly aimed at the car park (the little gold one just behind and to the left of the tree is mine).

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They must have built these guard towers really well – there’s one still standing at almost every colonial ruin.

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This little cove is on the other side of the fort – the grey rainy day doesn’t really do justice to the Caribbean.  It’s really a beautiful spot.

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And finally – it wouldn’t be a Lyra post without a critter, or in this case evidence of critters:

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Those are Oropendola nests – they’re fairly large tropical birds but these hanging nests are probably their most conspicuous feature.

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Hiking Camino de Cruces

This was another hike that Drude and I took at the end of April 2006.  Camino de Cruces (the Road of Crosses) is the gold road – it's the second of two roads the Spanish built to haul gold and silver from Panamá City to Portobelo where it could be shipped off to Spain to fund the Empire.  The hiking trail follows the old road out to the Chagres river – there are parts where you can see some of the old cobbles still in place (though most of the road was never paved).  So many pack trains went through there that there's one narrow rock cleft where you can still see mule prints carved into the stone.

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Now it runs through Parque Nacional Camino de Cruces – one of the large national parks that forms the Panama Canal watershed.  Because of the Canal watershed, large portions of rain forest have been preserved within driving distance of Panama city for our hiking pleasure 🙂

On to the Critters:

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There's a stream that crosses the trail not too far from the road and these mayflies were just swarming all over.  I can't tell you what kind they are (even an entomologist would probably need to put their genitalia under a microscope to narrow it to a species – and I'm no entomologist).

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Very badly behaved – just FILTHY. 

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This is a golden ant -they're large solitary foraging ants.  Also, they're hard to photograph because the gold color comes from fine hairs all over their body.  The iridescence makes them look out of focus.

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Can you spot the Mono Tití?  Here's a bit of help:

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He's a squirrel monkey – a Geoffrey's Tamarin.  This little guy ran through the canopy over the trail and I just managed to capture him for a second.

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Rain forests are, well, wet.  Wet means fungus – these were just some particularly pretty ones that I spotted next to the trail.

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I have no idea what kind of plant this is – probably a bryophyte (some sort of moss) – but it kind of looks like a face, doesn't it?

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Isn't that tail just the coolest thing?  It's a juvenile whiptail lizard – they loose the blue color as they get older.  This one is an adult (at least I'm pretty sure it's the same species) that we spotted further down the trail.  Usually you hear them before you see them – rustling in the undergrowth.  Always pays to hike with your ears open.

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We actually saw a couple of these guys.  They're Poison Dart frogs (Dendrobates).

The ones in the Canal zone aren't quite as colorful as some of the other species, but I still think they're pretty.

Interesting factoid – these guys do parental care – if you click and look at the full sized pic, you can just see that the one on the left is carrying a tad pole on it's back – it's probably looking for a likely pool to deposit it in.

Drude spotted this harvestman on the same tree as that poison dart frog above on the right.  Can't identify the species – you'd need to look right in the horse's mouth, so to speak. But look at those legs!

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Geckoland

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Let me say up front that I don't have anything against geckos.  I LIKE geckos – they're cute, they've got bright little eyes, funky splay-fingered hands and feet, and they make this adorable chirping sound in the middle of the night.  It's hard to be afraid of something that cute that's only 2 1/2 inches long.  Plus they eat mosquitoes – which BELIEVE me, I appreciate.

But enough is enough.  This isn't the occasional gecko hanging out on a window, chirping.  This is like some sort of horror movie:  Day of the Gecko

It's a plague of geckos.

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They're on the wall, on the sink, behind the light switch, hanging out by the trash can, scuttling across the ceiling, perched on top of the knife block so they fling themselves off and land with a little "thwap" sound every time I reach for a knife.  (There's something very disturbing about that thwap).

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I can't leave a glass on the end table for five minutes without a small lizard investigating the little puddle of juice at the bottom.  I almost swallowed one once because I went to take a drink without looking first and ended up spitting out a mouthful of gecko and juice — leaving the poor gecko paddling around in it like it was doing some sort of demented doggy paddle.  There are two of them that chase each other up and down the legs of my end table hissing at each other (fighting over the best juice stalking spots I imagine).

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I'm tempted to try and catch them and put them outside but 1) they're territorial – they'd probably find their way back or else new ones would move in.  And 2) I'm afraid their little tails will fall off if I touch them.  Pathetic, I know, but I'm squeamish.

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Right in my backyard…

I was incredibly lucky to find my house – I looked for almost three months at one overpriced, badly decorated, high-rise apartment with a pokey kitchen after another before finally deciding to take my current house – I originally thought it was too big for one person (it kind of is) but it was way better than any of my other options.  So in addition to having cool neighbors like Drude, La Pirata de Panama, and the eejit, I'm surrounded by green space even though I'm smack in the middle of Panama City.  My landlord is inordinately fond of fruit trees – which attracts lots of birds.  These are just a few of the things I've seen in my backyard – nothing particularly rare or exotic, but after having grown up in the north-east US, the variety just amazes me.      

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Two of my favorites: this is the Barred Antshrike and his wife.  They're both pretty shy – it took me forever to get this pic of him and you can see that blurry and mostly blocked by leaves is the best I've been able to get for her.  I just think they are so pretty!  And they really like my orange/limon tree.

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I'm totally cheating with this one – it's a Blue-Grey Tanager – of which there are TONS in my yard, but I actually took the picture while on vacation on Isla Grande.  

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There's lots of woodpecker species in Panamá – I think this is a red-crowned woodpecker. They are very common.  They also seem to love the Avocado tree – probably because it's completely termite infested.  I've lived here for three years and this is the first time I've ever seen the poor thing produce fruit.

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Random little finch or seedeater that I caught in the avocado one day.  Anyone able to ID it?

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I can never remember what these guys are called – Crimson Backed Tanager, I think? There's a couple of different morphs with varying amounts of red and black.  This one is either a female, a juvenile or a hybrid, since it's markings are pretty muddy.  The males are bright red with black wings and tail and striking white patches on the sides of their beaks.  I haven't been quick enough to catch one with the camera though.

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This little guy is some sort of flycatcher – there are ton's of species of those though.

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This butterfly sat and posed for me on the trunk of the mandarin orange tree for more than half an hour.  Click on it and look at the full size version – it has the coolest eyes.

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These are Grey-Headed Chachalacas. They're normally forest birds – I've had people express outright disbelief when I tell them we get them in the city.  They're really primitive looking – my friend R once described them as what you picture Archaeopterix looking like – you know if it had a beak instead of teeth.  They also have the weirdest call – somewhat like a combination of someone knocking two blocks of wood together and someone killing a chicken.

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And finally my favorite friends of all – the hummingbirds.

I call him Earl.

Actually there's probably a few Earls- all the same species.  It's hard to tell humming birds apart but I think these are what's known as Rufous-tailed Hummingbirds.  According to most of the guidebooks they are the most common ones.  They're also pretty brave and aggressive so they don't have any problem visiting feeders (or driving other birds away from feeders).  There's lots of other flowers they like in the garden, which is good because I'm always forgetting to fill the feeder.

Anyway, Earl likes to sit on my clothesline right outside the window in front of my dining table (look at those tiny feet!).  I see him almost every day for breakfast.  He's probably my most regular visitor.

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Hiking in Panamá

Drude and I were neighbors when she lived in Panama and we used to go on hikes on the weekends. Both of us liked to take pictures of any wildlife we came across.  These are from a hike we took in Parque Metropolitano (the city park in Panama City) in April 2006.

I’m working from memory to identify the wildlife, but actually going back and looking it up will probably result in me never posting the pictures so if anyone wants to help out, just leave a comment and I’ll go back and edit.

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A Coati (AKA Gato Solo) ran out in front of us and I snapped this picture. Fortunately/unfortunately I had the flash on, thus the devil eyes effect.  OTOH it’s pretty dark under the trees so I probably wouldn’t have gotten the pic at all without it.

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I’m not sure of the name of these butterflies, but they are incredibly common on the trail that runs close to the road – there must be some plant there that they like.

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This green Iguana ran across the trail directly in front of us – I was incredibly lucky to get a picture – these guys are FAST.

These flowers were littering the trail under the tree they came from.  That’s Drude’s hand by the way.

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We were walking up a particularly steep trail when movement out of the corner

of my eye alerted me to the presence of this little guy.  I had to stand really still for a while before he (she?) got up the courage to stick out more than his nose.  So Cute!

He’s a baby Neque (AKA Agouti).  I didn’t see her, but his mom must have been near by.

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I have no idea what kind of wasps these are – but they didn’t seem at all bothered by me getting real close to take the picture.

If you ever wondered where Cashews came from it’s from fruits like this.  Actually it’s the green part that’s the fruit – the cashew “nut” is inside.  The red part is actually a “pseudo-fruit.”  Thats as technical as I’ll get with plants – there’s a reason I study genetics in animals.  In Spanish it’s known as marañon and the juice is very tasty.

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