Its A Zoo Out There…

While our friends from New Mexico were here, we wanted to go up to El Valle and see the El Nispero Zoo & Botanical Gardens, the Butterfly Haven and the mud baths. Two out of three ain’t bad. We rented a car and headed up the Pan American highway and turned off at El Valle, and headed up into the hills. Normally, where we are, if you turn off the highway, you either get to the beach or the hills, depending if you turn left or right. It’s also a bit cooler if you head up into the hills. We found the zoo and paid our admission ($3.00) and went in.

Entrance to the Zoo…

Now, this is not your typical zoo. It is actually an animal sanctuary. There are no sidewalks or paved roads to walk on. There is a trail with signs pointing the direction to go. There are no safety fences between the animals cages and you, no moats. You also won’t find elephants or giraffes or the normal zoo type animals here. Here’s what we did find:

Flowers being grown for replanting…

Beautiful flowers…

All kinds of flowers…

Even cactus…

The first exhibit we came to was more bird than animal. A beautiful parrot just hanging out in his cage.

The first “animal”…

Caimans…

Do NOT sick your fingers in the cage…

Turtles…

Quail…

Ok, quails…

Next comes a favorite of mine…

Monkeys…

So cute…

And you can buy corn to feed the monkeys and other animals.

Yes, that close…

Off over the trees, we saw two large bird cages.

Huge bird cages…

We followed the trail and found beautiful red and blue Macaws …

So far…

Yet so close…

Also blue ones…

So colorful…

No zoo would be complete without this…

The Toucan…

And then there were these strange looking guys…

Donald Trump look-a-likes???

Very pretty birds…

Beautiful views along the trail…

The zoo even has built-in places for a break…

My beautiful wife…

Into the reptile house…

Brown frog…

Horned frog…

Green and brown frogs…

Back outside we came across Bambi…

Baby deer…

Yes, you can feed Bambi too…

Feeding the deer…

A noisy addition to any zoo…

The goat…Not a GTO…

Baby pigs

Raccoons…

Just relaxing…

chillin….

My buddy…

The 3 toed sloth…

Smile for the camera…

Never a bad day…

A good zoo for all the family…

A family zoo…

Iguanas, a hawk and monkeys in a box…

Iguanas…

Hawk…

Monkey in the box…

And even more monkeys…

Wise old souls…

More parrots…

An alligator…

A friend from back home…

A coyote…

And this cool cat…

Just taking it easy…

And a few more monkeys…

As an animal lover, going to this zoo was something I was looking forward to. It is not a world class zoo by any stretch. And while the animals for the most part seemed to be ok with their surroundings, I did see a few signs of stress in a couple of them. I can only hope that more people will make the trip here and go to the zoo, and maybe generate more income to help the animals live a better existence.

From the zoo, we headed to the Butterfly Haven. A beautiful facility where you can walk among the various native butterflies that live here in Panama. We paid our admission ($4.00) and went inside the enclosure.

Beautiful colors…

Slight wing damage on this guy…

Yes, they will land on you…

And of course, there is the family dog, Fred!

Fred

I highly recommend both these places to see if you are in the area. They are worth the drive and are also child friendly. We hope to find the mud baths soon…

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Our Return To The Panama Canal…

Our good friends from New Mexico came down to spend a week with us and see why we were so excited to go to Panama.

Wayne, Penny, Suzi and Me…

So, one of the places they wanted to see, was the Panama Canal. We boarded our little coaster bus to the main road (30¢) and caught the bus into Panama City and Albrook Mall. ($2.50)

Bus station at the mall…

From there, we went through the mall and got a ticket for the Hop-On, Hop Off tour bus. It’s $30 a head but you can hop on and off for 24 hours.

Hop-on, Hop-off bus…

We enjoyed the tour until we got to the Miraflores Locks Visitor Center. We got off the bus and bought our tickets for the locks.

Once inside we went right to the theater and watched the 10 minute movie on building the locks. It has early history and even later history including what led to the American turn over of the locks to Panama. Once the film was over, we went into the museum. The museum has four floors and includes exhibits about building the canal up to and including the new canal expansion project.

Early Steam Shovel…

Early Dredge…

Info Card…

There were displays on the different wildlife that can be found in the area.

Native Butterfly…

Beetle…

There were displays of the lock control room…

Lock Control Room…

And even a chance to “pilot ” a ship through the locks…

Suzi tries out for Captain…

The view out the windows…

Info and pictures about the expansion…

The Expansion Project…

It’s a very informative and well done museum.  Once we were done with the museum, it was time to head out to the viewing decks and see the locks and hopefully a ship going through the locks in person.

You can view the locks from 3 locations. The top floor of the museum, which has a snack bar, the second floor, which has a full restaurant, or the ground floor. We decided to check out the restaurant on the second floor since we had a bit of time to kill before the next ship came through. At the time of this writing, ships DON’T go through the locks between 10am and 2pm. Turns out, there is a very nice restaurant on the second level. It was a buffet ($37.00 per person) the day we were there and the outside seating was by reservation only.  However, inside seating was open. So we ate from the buffet and then we saw the first ship coming toward the locks

First of two ships…

We watched as it drew closer and they lined it up with the channel…

Making adjustments…

Just a tip here, you can reserve seating outside to watch the ships go through the canal, but if you do, those of us who are eating inside will just come out and crowd the rail anyway.

The crowd gathers…

Fourth floor viewing area…

Heading to the gates…

These locks are small…

Everybody’s watching now…

Young…

And old alike…

Going down…

Almost there…

Locks open and…

The journey continues…

Going down again…

Almost finished…

The Pacific Ocean awaits…

My wife and I loved coming here because it was just a year and a half ago that we were viewing the visitor center from the deck of a ship

The view from ON a ship…

These engines keep the ships centered in the locks…

The gates of the locks…

Without that cruise, we wouldn’t have known what a beautiful country Panama is, and we might not have decided to come here at all.

 

This Is Living Home Free…

My wife has wanted me to show you all just how we are living down here now that we are “home free”.  We have shown you the outside of the building we are living in,

Playa Serena
Gorgona, Panama

now its time to show you the inside. Keep in mind, we are staying in a resort area. As an example, the next town over, Coronado, is a gated resort area. There is a gate to get into the “town” area off the main highway, and then all of the living areas have gate access. When we leave our condo building, we are in an area where native Panamanian people live.

Some streets are paved, some are not…

I have NEVER felt unsafe walking around the streets of Gorgona. The people here are all very friendly and just want to live their lives like we do. So, first is our living room.

The living room…

We did move the glass coffee table into the corner to prevent yours truly from getting any more cuts & scrapes on my legs. Damn glass table!!! 😦  Also, each room has its own air conditioner. Next is the dining area and the view out of the balcony.

Dining room and view…

Yes, the dining room looks out on the balcony (4th floor)  and that looks out on the ocean!!! It’s very nice to sit and have dinner looking out at the waves hitting the beach. Moving around now to the kitchen. Gas stove, micro wave, water & ice in the door of the refrigerator, granite countertops. Very modern.

Kitchen…

My beautiful wife in the kitchen…

Directly opposite the kitchen is the laundry room.

Laundry room with washer/dryer…

All of the floors are tiled as are the walls in the kitchen, bathrooms and half way up the laundry room wall. Next is the hallway to the bedrooms

Hallway with built-in linen closets…

Guest bathroom and bedroom come first.

Guest bath with shower…

Guest bedroom…

With built-ins…

Now on to the master bedroom/master bath… Master bedroom…king size bed… Huge walk in closet…

Master closet…

With built-ins…

And the master bath…

Huge shower…

Double sinks & granite counter tops…

And square toilets…

So, thats our current home. We will not always live this nicely, but we had the chance this time so we took it. To anybody coming down here to visit, we would certainly recommend this place or any of the other places in the area. It IS kind of isolated here so if your not into walking a bit and taking the buses, you might want to consider a car.

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