December 27, 2023 Panama City, Panama

 Oh what a day! You know when you travel there will be some hiccups. We arrived at the staging point for our Gamboa Aerial Tram. The Viking staff were there to let us know what bus to take to get everyone going the right direction. They called our bus, and we went out with the group and were loaded into our bus. We had a wonderful guide who gave us interesting facts about her city.

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Our view this morning, that is Panama City in the distance.

This is the Panama Canal Port Authority building. To honor the achievement. the building was built 85 feet above the road bed to signify the distance ships are moved up in the locks. The stairs leading up to the back of the building are a set of 3, that signify the levels of the locks.

Half way to our excursion our guide starts talking about loading us up into boats. I wave at the guide, and let her know we were suppose to be on the excursion for the Gamboa Aerial Tram. Oops! We were on the wrong bus. Luckily the two excursions were close together, and this bus was ahead of the correct bus. We were let off at the Gamboa hotel. This is a picture of the lobby. It was very nice. Our bus arrived and we were back on track WHEW!

Our aerial tram was suppose to be a tree top view of the birds, monkeys, sloths, and butterflies in the rainforest. We were about 125 feet above ground. The rain forest was beautiful, we saw butterflies, Mike saw one Sloth, I can't confirm. Going back down we could hear some birds. The early morning bird watchers said they saw a good number of birds, so maybe we were just to late for the show.

At the upper end of the tram, there is a ten story tower, which was an amazing view of the lakes around the canal. During the tram ride we did see some platforms, which we decided were for zipline. This was confirmed when we heard the howling monkeys who were the tourists on the zipline.

The zipline in action.

Here you can see several of the ariel trams. Each held up to 6 people.

This is a termite nest. We saw these and then brown ones which were ant nests. They said don't touch any part of the tree, as the ants protect the tree and will track you down. Enough ants biting you can cause harm up to death if enough of them get on you. Yikes!

Our next stop was amazing it was a sloth sanctuary, but had a butterfly area, I have shown some of the ones we saw.

Do you see the cross on the shell?

Some of the frogs in Panama are poisonous. There are two green and black frogs in the top picture. The second picture, one frog and a lizard.  They also had red frogs, some were the size of a large fingernail clipping and up to the size of my thumbnail.

The captain and a Viking rep who is enticing us with additional cruises.

Tonight was a night to cut loose. Viking has a sense of humor as their band is called Seasix. Get it? This is the pool deck, notice the retractable roof? They pulled it back just aways as it was threatening rain. The pool and hot tub really warm and humidify this area up, so thankful for the fresh air. As you can see from these pictures, we are traveling with fun loving people. We sail out later tonight.