Sunday 18 December – a walk into the jungle

No lie in for us as John came to do some jobs on the boat. Much nicer for him to do them in the cool earlier hours. By lunch time he was done fiddling with the electrics, and I could get the generator on and catch up on loads of laundry.

Luke and George departed today and had a really good time in Panama City. They had a few trips planned which were a great success.

Luke found a sloth!

Late afternoon, when it was a bit cooler we went on a walk into the nearby jungle. The whole place used to be an American military base, and has been abandoned for many years. The marina has a couple of the old buildings it uses but the rest has been overgrown by the jungle. It is not near any town or village here so it is pretty remote. A shuttle bus runs to Colon from here twice a day which I plan to do at some stage for re-provisioning.

We had a great walk, although I found the decay of the place a bit creepy. The palm trees and density of the jungle was impressive. We saw some little black monkeys and heard Howler monkeys in the distance. We saw a few toucans who were being very noisy, they remind me of hornbills.

The walk into the abandoned US military base

Big abandoned buildings

Not a lot left of the church

Toucan and Black vulture (we called them Turkey vultures in California)

Very pretty ant lines, carrying leaves and petals

Gorgeous big trees around the enormous bunkers

Battery Baird

Rowan visiting Cell 6

It really wasn’t possible to get off the road, so it was not a particularly long walk but great to stretch our legs. We ate supper at the marina restaurant which was pretty underwhelming, but pleasant enough and a treat not to be cooking