2022 January - Day 04 - Panama City - Monkey Islands

Saturday morning…neither of us slept good.  Not sure why.  But last night before bed, I found a tourist company that takes people in boats out to the Monkey Islands in hopes that we might see some monkeys in their natural habitat.  The trip started at 8 AM.  They picked us up at our hotel in a nice sized van that already had a family of 5 and another couple.  The family of 5 is traveling for a year.  The father is a young man who is a plastic surgeon for Kaiser Permanente.  The other couple was from Toronto.  The drive to the boat went along the canal to a town called Gamboa….I believe.  There we stopped at a small market to use bathrooms and get a snack or two.  We then drove nearby to a small boat launch where many boats were.  But one was waiting for us.  We boarded the boat, put on life preservers and off we went.  The  captain of the boat had his 5 year old son (Isaac) as his first mate.  It took about 15 minutes or so to get to the Monkey Islands that are in Gatun Lake….the lake made when they damed the Chagres River to allow ships to come into the area as they passed through the canal.  As we traveled to and from the islands, we went along large shipping ships that were traversing the canal.  It was pretty amazing to be in our very small boat along side such large ships.  

After arriving to the islands, we went around various islands.  Our captain would call out like a monkey…a howler monkey.  It took a while for us to finally come in contact with a family of monkeys.  The first set was not of the Howler variety though.  There were about 5 or 6 of them in the trees staring at us.  Eventually, though, we came across some known howler monkeys that knew these boat captains.  A couple of the monkeys came down into the boat trying to grab food from us.  The captain always had something to give the monkeys to lure them down.  Anyway, it was fun to see them interact with us all for a short time.  

We also saw dense vegetation, insects, many hawks real close and a Toucan in the trees with their colorful beaks.  All in all the trip took about 4 hours with a stop on the way back to an artesian market to get us to try and buy souvenirs.

In the afternoon, we decided to get our Covid testing done.  For some reason the video on my IPad would not function with the emed application.  But thank goodness my really old iPhone worked!  Both of us tested negative.  So one hurdle cleared to get home.  Flights look tight tomorrow.  And with Biden’s single day testing rule, puts a lot of stress on one if for some reason you can’t fly the next day.  If you don’t fly, you have to get re-tested before you can fly.  Just crazy this silly rule is.   Not sure what the difference is between 1 or 3 days.  They just want to make it tough.  And now United is asking for proof of vaccination.  Anyway…it is a real pain now to fly internationally.

After testing, we went out and swam and hung out by the pool.  This morning, by the pool, we saw two monkeys going from tree to tree.  I meant to mention that.  We eventually came in and got showered then went to the restaurant in the hotel to get some food.  We did not want to go out again.  I guess we are ready to come home.

Tonight, I think I spent two hours trying to get everything up loaded to United so I could pseudo-check in.  We’ve checked in to two flights…one to Houston and one to Newark.  We hope we get on one of them.  If not, we get to wait until 11:30 PM when the next flight to Newark flies.  It’s going to be a sleepless night for me and possibly a long day tomorrow.

Photos:

Look closely to see the monkeys in the trees…..

If you look closely, you’ll see a vulture perched on one of the balcony edges of our hotel.

Us passing one of the large container ships on our way to Monkey Islands.  We passed a number of these ships as we came and went today.

Our guide, Ariel, at the front of our ship.

Can we be any safer?  Head protected, eyes protected, can’t breath and a life preserver.  Fortunately the water cooled the air and it felt pretty nice.  The water was amazingly warm.

One of the cranes at the small port where we launched in the small boat for the tour.

This is the small port with our boat (green one) behind Denise.

Denise made a nice friend (Isaac).  He jabbered in Spanish and she blew him away with her English.  But in the end, they understood and became great friends.

Sunsets have been amazing here from our balcony.  This is one of many pictures of sunsets that we have.

There you go…one of the monkeys that came on to our boat.  At one point, I was nose to nose with one that came on my side but my phone\camera was in my pocket.  They did not stay long.  Once they determined there was nothing more to grab…off they went.

They would just jump on the canopy over our boat and look in.  This is a good shot of one of the howler monkeys.  They can sure make a large sound if they want to and can be heard from quite a ways away.

Proper way to end our trip….testing negative for Covid.  They look like lollipops!