Chagras river

We went on a boat trip on the Chagras river the other day with the Dunns. We all climbed into a dug out canoe with 10 seats and headed up river through the tropical rain froest. Looking out at the layers of the rainforest is amazing. The four layers are the forest floor, the understory, the canopy and the emergent trees. We first went to a beautiful waterfall for a swim in delightfully refreshing cool(not cold) water. Then we were off to an Embera (an indiginous group) village. Here we siphered through a spanish presentation on their way of life, ate their local foods of fish and yucca served in a banana leaf cone and then listened to their music and watched their dances. At one point the Embrera ladies and men came to us and grabbed our hands and encouraged us to dance with them. Imagine Chris's horror or delight that he got to dance with one of the topless women. We all laughed as he turned many shades of pink. The sun was cooking and we had forgotten our flashlights for a cave tour so we returned to the waterfall to swim some more. The ride back was exhillerating as the winds had picked up and some of us got drenched by the spray. We were actually cold at that point.

The next day we set out for a fishing trip in the Panama canal and monkey viewing. The fishing was poor because we got such a late start due to submarine going through the canal (they block and guard everything when the subs go through). We saw white faced monkeys and howler monkeys. The whiteface monkeys came and ate from the bow of the boat. Then we watched all sorts of container ships go by on lake Gatun. The Canal is very fascinating. The girls will post there reports on it on the blog and they are putting together an awesome power point presentation of it to give when we get home.

Love to all lisa