Gamboa Rainforest Reserve & Lake Gatun

Today we are heading inland to spend some time at the Gamboa Rainforest Reserve. I hope to be lucky enough to see at least one of the two varieties of Sloths, indigenous to Panama. An arial tramway through the canopy of the rain forest will hopefully allow me to acomplish this feat as well as providing me with an arial view of Lake Gatun, which forms part of the famous Panama canal.

Firstly we will travel through the town of Colon, discovering what it has to offer visitors.

Colon is the gateway to the canal and has all the infrastructure to suport the continuous flow of shiping through the Panama canal. Colon does its best to cater for visitors but it is no Cartagena. The local market and centre of town are worth a visit, along with the eastern carribean facing beaches. A massive restoration and reconstruction project, involving parks, avenues, historic buildings and monuments is underway, which in time will improve Colon,s appeal to visitors to this city.

The town of Gamboa is located on a sharp bend of the Chagres River at the point, which feeds Lake Gatun. Just south of Gamboa, Lake Gatun and the Chagres meet the Culebra Cut where the Canal cuts through the Continental Divide. Though Gamboa is closer to the Pacific side of Panama, its watershed is on the Atlantic side. A single lane iron and wood bridge that crosses the Chagres is the only road access to Gamboa.

Gamboa is home to Caymans, crocodiles, iguanas, and several hundred bird species. Given its location at the "end of the road" and the single road connecting it to the rest of the Canal Zone, Gamboa finds itself adjacent to significant tracts of relatively undisturbed rainforest. A trail that follows an old pipeline ("Pipeline Road") is considered one of the best bird watching sites in all of Central America.

As you can see i was very lucky to catch sight of many different animals and birds and the arial tram ride through the forest canopy was an exilerating expierience, though i did decline the offer of returning down via zipline, (nowhere to secure my caneras).

Seeing two toed slothes, here in the wild is somthing i will always remember and cherish.