Barro Colorado Island & Gatun Lake, Panama
I am back in my room and it feels really good! Partly it is because of the air conditioning (it is hot and humid out there!), but mainly it is because I have access to my computer and I can start typing away, trying to translate in words what it feels like to be in the middle of the rain forest here in Panama. It has been so long since I felt ninety percent humidity in the air; mind you, this should not discourage you at all from coming to the rain forest. This is just the way it is down here, and it is the main reason why the foliage all around us looks so healthy and unspoiled. We visited Barro Colorado Island today and let me tell you — it was impressive! I am naturalist and a field biologist, so I am very exigent when it comes to visiting natural areas, and the visit to Barro Colorado Island made my day.
It was almost nine in the morning when we started to explore the island, formed back in 1914 as a consequence of a well-planned project to flood the area and to form a lake named Gatum Lake. The Panama Canal exists because of the formation of the Lake, but as collateral, a new island was also formed: Barro Colorado. It is precisely here where the Smithsonian Institute settled in 1946 and started to develop a series of projects and research that has continuously provided us with updated information on the ecology of fragile ecosystems. Once on the trail, the well informed guides from the Smithsonian gave us all detailed information about the forest and the wildlife that we encountered. I thought I was prepared for the excursion, but with the occasional sightings of birds and our continuous stops to analyze plants and their permanent inhabitants, insects, I came to realize that I really need two more arms! With the only two arms that evolution has provided me so far, I managed to switch quickly between binoculars, camera, a bird book and a plant book!
Our morning went by really quickly, and back on board we continued with our transit through the Panama Canal. This time the transit gave us a view of the last three sets of locks that would eventually allow us to end up in the Pacific Ocean. As we expected, the transit went really well and everyone enjoyed one of the most monumental project of engineering ever created by humans.
