Panama- Day 3

We got going very early on Friday, headed to the Canal to catch Peacock Bass but before we boarded Carlos' boat, we made a pit-stop at Gamboa Resort and I have to show a few shots of this little paradise.

No, we didn't stay here but my fellow travelers had a hard time dragging me back to the van to leave. Carlos said this property and some of the remaining out buildings were once an American convalescence hospital. sigh...... I could do with 2 weeks of convalescing..... couldn't you? if it were at this place?

(Deci..... heads up: this would be an awesome Christmas get-away destination)

Okay, back to the bus, but check this little guy out:

I spotted him on the way up to the entrance and wandered over to see if I could get a photo. He either didn't see me or is totally unimpressed by humans.

So eventually, we climbed into a covered boat with our Captain, Roger and first mate, Ali in the Chagres River, which feeds the Canal. It's a tremendous amount of water and very impressive when one considers the source of this water comes from rain.

And after a 30 minute wander, passing these mangroves and forests, we toss the anchor in a shallow lagoon and caught these:

Peacock Bass

John got the first one, which looks exactly like this one,

which I caught but because I'm a girl, John took the hook out and held it while I stayed clean and took the picture. Girls get grossed out......and then have privileges.

Mo caught this a few minutes later:

I love that shot.....

Everywhere we went in the water, we saw these trees and Roger told us that in the days to follow, the whole place would be alive with this yellow:

Here is a close-up of another flower we found. Roger called it "little chicken" and I guess that tickled me.

One of the islands in this massive canal/Gatun Lake is named "Monkey Island" and sports 3 varieties; the Howler, the tamarin and this:

The white-face Capuchin monkey. Three of them came scrambling down, one with a baby on her back, but I was so busy trying to catch a good photo, I never actually saw that one.

We were told there is a sloth hanging up-side down under one of those, but I could never see it either!

We were out a total of 3.5 hours and had a great time. As we disembarked, I found mister man standing on the pier and sidled up to him slowly to get a good shot. He never took his eye off me as he pretended to ignore me. He finally had enough of this kabuki and sailed off.

We got back to the hotel and took a quick rest. Mo and I did a walk-about to the grocery store. I love seeing food marts in foreign countries. I always compare prices (about the same) and buy things like toothpaste and boullion cubes. I know. I'm strange.

For dinner, we stuck to the seafood theme and walked to Seven Seas, a very nice, very lovely restaurant. Once again, "do you have a reservation?" mmmmmm, no. Again, we were completely surrounded by no customers and we get this query. They managed to seat us in a perfect table and we admired the decor. It was both modern and, yet, it seemed also slightly modern in the same way Danish 60's modern was modern. I loved it. Here is the waterfall near the front door:

This was the starter, a ceviche

I ordered prawns in a white wine sauce. mmmmmmm

So there you go........ Siete Mares. Interesting, when we asked for a recommendation for seafood at the hotel, they suggested the one which ended up being next door to this one. I am grateful Gary wanted to go with the one he found/read on the internet. But now I want to compare the two! too bad we were scheduled to fly to David the next morning.