June 16 Discovery Center, Pipeline Road & Gamboa Activities

foggy morning from our balcony

Today we hiked the trails of the Discovery Center. You could hear the Howler Monkeys way in the distance and there were no Capuchins to be found.

 mushrooms

 

The hummingbirds at the visitor’s center are always a treat. We made 2 stops there since the lighting wasn't great so we went back after hiking to try and get a few photos.

 

We hiked to the lake which we couldn’t get close to since they were repairing the platform for viewing. The water was quite low anyway from the long dry season and despite some rain, it hasn’t been enough to really replenish things yet. We hiked around some of the other trails and found a few birds. We weren't in serious "bird mode", but there didn't seem to be much around.

 there were tons of these caterpillars

 mushrooms

Violaceous Trogon aka Gartered

 Antbird

 tree roots

 Greg & I

 Sonya

 Scott & Sonya

 mushroom

 

Most of us climbed the tower for the view.

 steps to the top

 the top

 cool spider at the top (Orb?)

 Sonya waving to us from below

the view

We walked just a short distance on the Pipeline road. We weren’t hearing a lot of birds on either trail, but wanted to show them the little bridge and a bit of the trail. The monkeys were all in the distance so it's a good thing we saw a lot of them on the Monkey Island Tour the day before.

We did see Howler Monkeys on our way out.

 

The plan was to eat at the Marina, but it was closed today. So, we went back to the Resort and ate in their dining room. Again, they didn’t have buffet so we ordered off the menu. We had hoped to spend some time at the pool, but it started to rain, so we just chilled out for a while.

After lunch we made reservations to visit the frog exhibit, orchid gardens and butterfly farm in an hour. We didn’t expect much of the exhibits, but they were quite nice.

 young sloth in a tree

 Poison Dart Frog

 

Later Greg and I went out walking the grounds in search of some birds. We were almost back when we ran into Scott going out to explore as well.

 Parent & Baby Caracara

 turtle

 

We met up for dinner and they had the buffet so we got to try a lot of different things.

 Sonya chillin' on their balcony

Scott out cold...

 

 couch outside of the restaurant

 

 

 

Here is a link to a cloudy sunrise at Gamboa taken with the Go Pro using time-lapse.



https://flic.kr/p/JsGSxc

Tomorrow we have reservations for the Canopy Tram Tour. We have done one in Costa Rica, but have never done the one here in Panama. The kids have never done one and are quite excited to do it.