At long last....PANAMA!!!!
Watching the monkeys eat fruit from a balcony where we were staying in Panama City
The 1960's Indiana Jones plane we rode on to Bocas del Toro...so scary!
Thousands of BATS!!!! The guys hiked in a cave through knee to waist deep water (only lights they had were their headlamps). Bats and cave spiders littered the walls. The cave got so small that the startled bats actually ran into the guys!!
The boys at the cave opening
We drove scooters to the bat cave and starfish beach. It rained all day. Makes driving scooters very fun! Our scooter only slid out sideways on the mud once with only one other scooter running into us ;-) haha
Our room at Beverly's Hill (and yes, we had to use the bug net when we slept...there were bugs EVERYWHERE!!!)
The outdoor sink and bathroom 6 of us shared
Very rare night monkeys. We woke them up so they would come say hi. That's as far as they ever came out of their tree home.
Our group
Andy pretending to eat a sea cucumber (but it kind of looks like something else...it grossed everyone out!!)
From the deck looking in. I think 8 or 10 of us stayed in this room for a few nights. We had so much fun!!! We played lots of euker (a card game)
Top of Volcan Baru. It was a 14 mile round trip hike. Took us just under 4 hrs to hike up and just over 4 hrs to get back down. The trail was very steep and rugged. We started hiking at 2 am in order to summit at sunrise....absolutely breath taking!! Volcan Baru is the highest point in Central America and the only place where you can see both the Pacific and Carribbean Oceans in one spot.
The trail to Volcan Baru
There are radio towers at the summit...workers who maintain the towers ride up in this tractor and then stay on the summit for about a week before coming back down to town.
4 wheeling our rental in order to get to the trailhead
After the hike, we joined up with the rest of the group at an animal santuary that rescued animals from human owners.
We had an awesome opportunity to get into a cage with monkeys and feed them craisens. They jumped and climbed all over you!!
The little stinker looking for more treats in my camera case!! Haha.
The pathway to the bathrooms and sinks
The hike we had to make to get to the place we stayed in the cloud forest. Our cars were parked down on that road.
Panama Zoo
A wild caiman living in the pond at the zoo....it wasn't in a cage!!! You could walk right up to it, if you were really sneaky. We weren't and it immediately submerged itself.