Panama

When we last reported from Panama, a three-toed sloth with baby in tow was being harassed by small boys in their underwear using the blue-tiled gravesite of one Harriet S. DeDowner as a launching pad for their slingshots. Not sure if she would have been amused or horrified, but I´m happy to report that the sloth was still there and quite intact several hours afterwards.

To be fair, much of the archipelago of Bocas del Toro outside of the main towns seems fairly well protected and is still teeming with wildlife. While there, an indigenous guide in the small community of Salt Creek on Bastimentos Island took us to see impossibly cute Western night monkeys, a very cool black and white owl, nearly crocodile-sized caimans partially submerged in a murky pond and thumb-sized bright red poison dart frogs.

And after a wonderful snorkeling session during which we saw a fish that could only be properly described as a small purple disco ball, a mother and baby bottle-nosed dolphin began playing in the wake of our motorboat, encouraging our driver to maneuver into wide circles so the baby dolphin could draft behind the boat, occasionally trying out its jumping abilities.

Panama City couldn´t be more different, with a Miami-ish feel to all of its palm trees and high rises. The city is booming, with well over a dozen skyscrapers under construction. The most compelling neighborhood, though, is low-rise Casco Antiguo, with beautifully restored colonial buildings standing side by side with crumbling ones, some little more than roofless stone shells. The president of Panama lives here and government workers share park space with traditionally dressed Kuna women selling colorful molas, or colorful textiles. We also found one of the very best restaurants of the whole trip there, a modern place called Ego that has awesome tapas like ceviche and octopus carpaccio (better than you´d think) served up with sangria in a wonderful outdoor square.

The Miraflores locks of the Panama Canal also exceeded our expectations. The justifiably proud Panamanians have built an impressive visitors center with good vantage points. The sheer scale of the locks is best demonstrated by seeing huge cargo ships being raised and lowered dozens of feet by water alone. And the very well-done three-floor exhibition of the canal´s history, watershed, logistics and future was fascinating, as were the science of the undertaking and its impact on ship size and shipping economics.

Still more than a few reminders of the U.S. presence there, with abandoned bunkers on the way up to a superb vantage point on the city´s Ancon Hill, the bombed-out former recreation center for Noriega´s soldiers and massive U.S.-style development that has turned a string of three pretty islands into something approaching a hideous megamall for the rich.

After an inconvenient layover in Miami, we´ve officially begun the South American leg of our journey with a stop in Lima, Peru. The late-morning changing of the guard at the government palace was impressive if somewhat odd: marching soldiers and riot police and huge tanks keeping guard while the military band played the theme from "Star Wars."

And I´m unhappy to report that roasted guinea pig tastes somewhat like chicken, only fattier, chewier and stringier.

First, some photo highlights from Costa Rica´s Osa Peninsula.

Here´s one of the many poison dart frogs we saw hopping along a path in the jungle:

Here´s the tent camp where we stayed (our tent is on the left):

And one of the ridiculously picturesque sunsets over Corcovado National Park and the Pacific:

And now for Panama. During the bus ride up to Panama´s western highlands and the agricultural town of Cerro Punta, it was almost possible to imagine ourselves somewhere in the Midwest, with dairy farms and vegetable fields all around us and contented cows grazing by the roadside.

OK, so not really. The horizon-dominating Volcan Baru was rather non-Midwestern, for starters, and the bromeliads clustered in moss-covered trees were definitely something you don´t see in Minnesota. Cerro Punta is part of Panama´s breadbasket, which produces the vast majority of the country´s vegetables, rice and milk. But it´s also the gateway to two spectacular cloud forests protected within the La Amistad and Volcan Baru National Parks.

And that brings us to the strange bird. Not any bird, but one that happens to share its name with the lodge we stayed at on the edge of the forest: Los Quetzales.

Sorry Jeanne, but it had to be said. We did, in fact, see a resplendent quetzal. Three of them actually, including a close-up of a nesting male and female. This may not be noteworthy to everyone, but quetzals are almost surreal-looking birds, with turquoise feathers, an unusually long tail and a brilliant red breast. They´re incredibly beautiful, hard to spot and the subject of a long-running commentary in which Geoff and his friend Jeanne have used rather unpleasant words to describe their frustration at not seeing any on a previous trip to Costa Rica.

Actually, the sighting was only one of our many highlights in western Panama. By sheer luck, we were able to spend a night in one of the lodge´s secluded two-story cabins in the cloud forest of La Amistad National Park, surrounded by lush green and so many hummingbirds they were literally buzzing around us. The next morning, we hiked along the Quetzal Trail through Volcan Baru park to the town of Boquete. No luck with the birds this time, though we did see some spectacular scenery, trees and flowers, like this one:

Once in Boquete, we spent Easter weekend at La Montana y El Valle, a very pretty coffee estate overlooking the town and Volcan Baru. During our stay, we were spoiled rotten by Jane and Barry, the wonderfully attentive owners, with fresh flowers, roasted coffee and orange juice every morning - all of it grown on their own property. We not only had one of our very best dinners there, but also did some of our most productive birdwatching from the back porch of our bungalow, sipping Chardonnay and eating smoked salmon. Um, not exactly roughing it. But communing with nature all the same.

On Good Friday in Boquete, we also took part in a fascinating and moving procession in which several floats and portable altars were led through the streets by altar boys, drummers and a priest along a route that passed the 12 stations of the cross. Here´s one of the floats, which depicts Christ in a glass coffin guarded by angels:

We´re now in Bocas del Toro, an archipelago of islands on the Caribbean side of Panama. Apart from our first huge thunderstorm of the trip, we´ve lazed on a nearly pristine beach and had another bizarre nature sighting: a tree sloth with baby in tow moving slowly along a tree branch. What made it memorable, and sad, was the fact that it was pointed out by a group of small boys standing atop the blue-tiled tombstone of someone´s grandmother in the local cemetery, each boy trying to hit the sloth with their slingshots.

Fortunately, their aim was a bit off. Tomorrow, we go snorkeling in a national marine park - and are hoping that the wildlife there will be far less disturbed.