That’s right folks.
When we were in Panama we went to an uninhabited research island with mysterious bunkers and research stations throughout. The island was created when the canal was constructed and they flooded the area to make a huge lake (the canal that was dredged was only part of the way, the rest is a huge man-made lake).
The island is called Barro Colorado and was designated a nature preserve when created. It is run by the Smithsonian Institute. The U.S. owned the entire canal zone until 1999 when the Panamanians kicked them out. In fact, the U.S. sponsored the Panamanian independence from Columbia so that they could finish the canal (the French started it).
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We took a boat out to the island (not a submarine).
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On the hike through the island we had tons of animal “encounters” (as they call them at my mom’s fav place Sea World).
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Neil got up and close with this Cane Toad (that are native here not like in Australia).
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We also saw lots of frogs like this little guy.
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This hollow tree was full of bats. Creepy, creepy bats.
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Neil and our trusty guide Israel found a lizard.
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Luckily, they spotted this poisonous snake on the trail before we passed by. Yikes.
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We were warned about crocs, but we didn’t come across any. (Much to Neil’s chagrin).
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We were also warned about tics, and since we didn’t pack for hiking we got scared the night before and went out to look for tick-proof gear.Neil found this hilarious shirt in a Panamanian mall. We laughed and laughed thinking, “who would EVER buy this?” The next day we saw two tourists wearing them.
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Somehow Neil ended up buying these Panamanian business socks and tucking his pants into them. (Because it was the cheapest tick-proofing job he could think of).
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This is a pic of him prancing in his socks in the hostel the night before.
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This is one of mysterious research stations.
Other than the crocs and ticks, we were just waiting for the smoke monster to come get us!
We also saw Tapirs and Howler Monkeys, but were unable to get any pics of them. The Holwers were pretty amazing. You could hear their calls from really far away. We just stood under the trees and listened to them for a long while. Pretty amazing hike.
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Here’s a pic of us the day before at the Panama Canal locks.
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They have a great museum (which makes sense since it costs over $300,000 for a ship to pass through the canal) there where you can pretend to steer a barge. It really feels like you are on a ship. Pretty trippy.