Madre to Many: The Weight of the World...: Panama: The AMAZING RACE (Day 4)

Today was an adventure!

We started out this morning with a boat tour of Gatun Lake. This is the man-made lake that is used to help control the locks on the Panama Canal. On the way to the boat tour we learned some very interesting facts about Panama.

There are many streets, monuments, currency, and other things that have the name of Balboa. This is because Vasco Núñez de Balboa was the first to cross Panama from the Carribean to the Pacific Ocean. This was before the days of the canal and even before the Pacific cean was called the Pacific Ocean. He named it the Southern Sea. This discovery lead to his name being included in all of the fore mentioned things as well as the highest medal once can receive from the government of Panama.

We also learned several key dates in Panama's history today. On August 15th, 1519 is when Panama City was founded. On the 15th of August, 1914 the first boat officially crossed the canal. Over 23,000 people died in the creation of the canal when it construction commenced in 1881 due to dynamite involved in construction and the working conditions. Gatun Lake was man made and created using dynamite. It was flooded to help the canal in 1913 and measures over 70 feet deep in its deepest depths. The canal is over 51 miles and it takes about 8 hours for a ship to pass through. (More details of the canal will come in tomorrow's blog. Today we just visited the lake.

We have had a lot of firsts on this tour, including flights, foods, metro rides and now boat rides! Gwyneth is now able to say that her first boat ride ever was on Gatun Lake in the Panama Canal! Throughout the ride we enjoyed the waves from barges and were able to witness beautiful scenery.

We were also able to visit a place known as Monkey Island in the middle of Gatun Lake. We were up close and personal with three different species of monkeys, several butterflies, an iguana and various lizards. By up close and personal, I mean that we even had monkeys in our boat!

After our visit on Gatun Lake, we proceeded to the Metropolitan National Park in Panama City. Students took a hike up a very large hill/mountain in the park and learned about many different species of plants and animals. We discussed how certain animals and plants keep their predators away. We also learned several facts about leaf-cutter aunts. There can be over 10 million ants in 1 colony and 90% of them are females. Another interesting fact is that in Panama they are unable to tell the age of a tree from the rings like we can in the United States. This is because the ring on a tree is created when growth stops for a season, or winter. In Panama, the trees are in an eternal spring or a constant growing season so no ring is actually left. We also saw the tree that is supposedly the type of tree that was used for the head crown that Jesus wore, saw many termite nests, saw an old military building that was used by the U.S. during WW2, and talked about the symbiotic relationship that various trees in the forest have with the animals that use them as a home. We saw tucans, heard howler monkeys, saw a snake and learned about why a bird called the Moot Moot has two balls of feathers at the very end of his tail only. It is believed that way back when the earth was created, the Moot Moot was lazy and refused to help so they pulled him by the tail to help. They also banished him to the ground because of his laziness so now he forever has strange feathers and only lays his nests on the ground. The moral of the story is to not be lazy.

After a long hike, we had an incredible view of the city and are predicted to have an even better one tomorrow morning! BEAUTIFUL!

After visiting the nature park we returned to Casco Viejo for some extra exploration and shopping time. Below are pictures of our time here. We visited a church that has one of the only remaining golden alters. It survived because they painted it black so that it would not be stolen by the Spanish during the conquest.

For our last activity of the day, students went on an Amazing Race style adventure. We gave them the destination of the Mercado de Mariscos, or the "fish market" and they had to get us there using their communication skills. This was very high stress for a couple of them, but also very real-world if they ever plan on traveling by themselves in the future. They were only given their destination and no further instructions were provided by adults (unless we felt they were headed in the wrong direction or were doing something unsafe.) They navigated the Metro System and got us to where we needed to be by communicating with the little Spanish that they have, as well as their body language!