Barro Colorado Island and the Panama Canal
We began our Central American adventure last night by crossing the first half of the Panama Canal. We spent the night anchorage in the huge man-made Gatun Lake, and we got to Barro Colorado Island (BCI) by 6 AM. We were delighted by the lush vegetation of this world class rain forest. We could hear the howler monkey’s calls coming from the deep forest in front of us. The Barro Colorado Reserve is famous for the depth studies of tropical forest ecosystems that have been ongoing since the 1940’s. Officially managed by the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, the reserve has been the area of study for hundreds of graduate students and professors over the last decades. Much of what is known and will be known about ecology of the tropics has resulted from studies on this reserve.
After breakfast and after meeting the resident’s naturalist, which some of them are still working on their master degrees, we disembarked on BCI. Not much time had passed when some amazing wild life started to be spotted by our groups: red brocket deer, howler monkeys, toucans, colorful woodpeckers and several different kinds of antbirds. Just when we were heading back to the little dock to get on the Zodiacs returning to the ship, a little group of spider monkeys crossed in front of us on the trees. A very young one took its time to check us down below, before he decided to catch up with its mother.
The rest of the day we spent it crossing the second half of the canal, and by the end of the afternoon and with a cocktail, we said “salud” with the Pacific Ocean in front of us.
We began our Central American adventure last night by crossing the first half of the Panama Canal. We spent the night anchorage in the huge man-made Gatun Lake, and we got to Barro Colorado Island (BCI) by 6 AM. We were delighted by the lush vegetation of this world class rain forest. We could hear the howler monkey’s calls coming from the deep forest in front of us. The Barro Colorado Reserve is famous for the depth studies of tropical forest ecosystems that have been ongoing since the 1940’s. Officially managed by the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, the reserve has been the area of study for hundreds of graduate students and professors over the last decades. Much of what is known and will be known about ecology of the tropics has resulted from studies on this reserve.
After breakfast and after meeting the resident’s naturalist, which some of them are still working on their master degrees, we disembarked on BCI. Not much time had passed when some amazing wild life started to be spotted by our groups: red brocket deer, howler monkeys, toucans, colorful woodpeckers and several different kinds of antbirds. Just when we were heading back to the little dock to get on the Zodiacs returning to the ship, a little group of spider monkeys crossed in front of us on the trees. A very young one took its time to check us down below, before he decided to catch up with its mother.
The rest of the day we spent it crossing the second half of the canal, and by the end of the afternoon and with a cocktail, we said “salud” with the Pacific Ocean in front of us.
