Our New Office

Part I – Metropolitan Park

In case you were wondering, this is me doing the “bird watching pose” at the Parque Natural Metropolitano in Panama City. According to Frommer’s, this is the only protected tropical forest within the city limits of a major urban area in the Americas. As a side note, and just in case you were wondering this as well, my blond highlights are real.

While this was a nice hike and a nice afternoon break, our bird watching was not all that successful. I think bird watching may be one of the most difficult sports I’ve done. You hear them, but they’re darn near impossible to see — especially in the rain forest with all that foliage.

But it wasn’t entirely fruitless. We did manage to see a few birds and even the infamous “Jesus Christ Lizard” who ran over a little pond as we finished up our hike.

This is a red-headed woodpecker that Jason managed to get a shot of.

Part II – The Non-Bird Watching Part

On Saturday we went to Panama Viejo, which is a part of town where you can find the ruins of the “oldest capital city in the Americas.” I could go into the details of the history here, but Wikipedia will be much more informative and accurate. Suffice it to say that Captain Henry Morgan came here in the 1600s and destroyed the city. After that, the survivors relocated to Casco Viejo, the other “old town” in Panama City. The good news is that many of the old ruins remain.

It rained in the middle of our tour so Jason and I played an impromptu game of cherades in the old cathedral. Here he is looking for birds.

Part III – Soberania National Park

A few days after our in-town bird watching trip, we drove out of town to Gamboa where you’ll find a rain forest and Gatun Lake — the man made lake that allows all those ships to pass through Panama. We got up nice and early so we could see the much-heralded toucan, but like I mentioned before … there are no toucans in Central America.

We did, however, see a lot of amazing sights. We climbed up a 90-foot tower to look at the tip tops of trees and we hiked down several paths to find monkeys, leaf cutter ants, and other fun jungle creatures.

This is Gatun Lake – quite a sight.