Panama Discovery Details

Day 1, Thursday

Overnight in Panama City

You will be greeted at Tocumen airport by one of our representatives. We will have a sign with your name printed on it. You will receive your packet of information and travel vouchers. We will answer all your questions en route to the hotel and provide a short briefing of general details of your trip.

Day 2, Friday

Overnight in Panama City - Breakfast included in the hotel and Lunch is included during the tour.

Our city and canal tour begins at 9 am and will take you through modern Panama City, Old Panama, colonial Panama, and the Canal Zone. Last, we will visit the Miraflores Locks where you will see how the ships are handled in the chambers of the locks and lowered to the Pacific Ocean or raised into Miraflores lake. The museum at the Miraflores locks has three floors of displays dedicated to the operation and history of the canal as well as ecological displays of the plants and wildlife of the Panama jungles. Our last stop is at the Old American YMCA building in Balboa for some shopping at the craft market where indigenious people sell their wares. You are usually back in the hotel by 5 pm.

Day 3, Saturday

Overnight in Panama City. Breakfast is included in the hotel. Buffet aboard the vessel is included.

Full Panama Canal Transit. You will be picked up at the hotel at 6:30 for full transits, and 8:30 for partial transits for a transfer to the Pacific port and the vessel in which you will be transiting the canal. Full transits are usually completed by 4:30 in the afternoon and you should be back at the Pacific Port by 6 or 6:30 pm. HOWEVER, we have experienced returns to the Pacific Port as late as 10:30. Return time is completely dependent on traffic and conditions in the canal and on the highway. Partial transits are about 4 hours. Times will vary on partial transits depending if it is a north or south bound partial transit.Take lots of sun screen and floppy cotton hats are recommended. It seems that the Canal eats baseball caps or straw hats.

If you want to see more on the Panama Canal, The Panama Canal Authority has a great with lwebsite with lots of detail on the Panama Canal, and a live camera where you can see the ships passing through the Miraflores and Gatun Locks. There is also a live camera in the Gaillard Cut where you can see the new bridge over the canal. Tell your friends and neighbors to look for you transiting the canal. This page may open a bit slow, so be patient.

Day 4, Sunday

Overnight in Panama City - Breakfast included in the hotel and lunch is included in El Valle.

Pick-up is at 8 am. Today, we travel to the mountain retreat called Anton Valley. Also known as just El Valle. Here you can visit the Sunday market where everything is sold from household goods, gift items to plants and vegetables.

After lunch at the Restaurant Santa Librada, we will visit the Piedra Pintada (painted rock) which are petroglyph- that pre date Columbus. Here, a young local boy or girl will tell us the story of the Piedra Pintada. From there, we can enjoy a cloud forest walk along a mountain stream to a waterfall.

After we descend from the trail, will begin our trip back to Panama City.

Day 5, Monday

Overnight in Panama City - Breakfast is included in the hotel, and lunch in Portobelo.

And yet another early day. Our train leaves the station at 7:15 am. So we have to leave the hotel by 6:15 in order to have some time to shop in the Panama Canal train station gift shop and try to rush and get a good seat in the dome car. The one-hour trip across the isthmus by train is spectacular. Want more detail on the Panama Canal Railroad ?

You will be met at the Colon train station by our Panama Jones representative and begin your Atlantic side tour.

First is a driving tour of Colon City. Over the years (especially the Noriega years) Colon had fallen into a state of disrepair and crime was rampant. Today, the City is on the rebound (although it may not look like it to you, it has cleaned up tremendously). Although it is still unsafe to travel alone in Colon, our guide will point out many points of interest including American and Panamanian structures and monuments.

Next is a trip across the Gatun Locks to a location where you will be able to spot the same wild life and more that you saw at Plantation road. We almost always see toucans, parrots, monkeys and sloths here.

Following our wildlife observation, we will travel to Portobelo, with a stop at Los Ca�ones for lunch and a fantastic view from the quaint little restaurant of the Atlantic Ocean.

After lunch, Portobelo is next on the agenda. In Portobelo, we will visit the ruins of the Spanish fortresses, the customs house (which has been restored to its original condition), the Church housing the Black Christ, the museum of which robes from previous years yhat the Black Christ has been clothed. You can also look across the bay to Drakes Island, the final resting place of Sir Francis Drake.

From Portobelo, we return to the Colon train station. Our train leaves the Colon train station at 5:15 pm and arrives in Panama city at 6:15 pm. where we will be greeted by our guide and transferred to the hotel.

Day 6, Tuesday

Overnight in Panama City - Breakfast is included in the hotel and lunch in Balboa.

Pick-up time may vary today, so check with your coordinator. The earlier the better for seeing lots of wildlife on Pipeline road. this portion of the day lasts about 2 - 3 hours, then it is on to Summit Gardens and the Harpy Eagle display. The Harpy Eagle is the national bird of Panama and one of the most magnificent birds in the world with a wing span of up to 7 feet. Two of these birds are in an aviary at Summit and displays and a short video depicting the habits of the Harpy Eagle are available.

Lunch at Nikos in Balboa is included in this tour. total tour time is about 6 hours.

Day 7, Wednesday

Overnight in Panama City -Breakfast included in the hotel and lunch is included at the Embera Indian village.

IMPORTANT NOTES:

Pick-up is at 8 am. You will most likely get wet today. You should wear, fast-drying adventure wear or a swimming suit under your clothing. Blue jeans do not work in the tropics. Your foot wear should be wet water hikers or sandals (NO FLIP FLOPS). We tell this to everyone, and guess what? We have still had people show up with flip flops, blue jeans and once even had a woman show up wearing high heels and make up.

Today, we can sleep in a bit. Well, a little anyhow. We won't depart for the Embera Indian until 9 am. and travel by mini bus to Lago Alajuela (Madden Lake), where we are met by members of the Embera Indian tribe.

We will be provided with life vests and seated in a motorized piragua (canoe) and travel up the Chagres River for great photo opportunities of beautiful scenery and wildlife. If the river is not too low or not too high, we can travel by boat up a little tributary as far as we can go by boat, then bail out and slosh up the creek to a beautiful waterfall and cool pool of water where we can take a relaxing swim and just bask in nature.

From there, we travel back down the river to the Embera Indian village of Tocipuno where men, women and children of the village happily greet us. We are then welcomed to a community building (a hut on stilts) where the leader of the village (Tonio Tocama) tells us about the Embera history and culture. You can ask all the questions you want and take all the pictures you want while at this village.

Lunch is served in a gourd or on a banana leaf and is usually fresh water fish and patacones. Patacones are fried plantains. After lunch, our friends will entertain us with their cultural music and dancing and most likely you will be asked to join in. Handcrafted wood carvings, tagua carvings, baskets and bead work can be purchased directly from the person who made it.

The Embera Indians use a fruit called Jagua (pronounced ha-wa) that makes black dye. Originally the dye was used as an insect repellent, but later they began putting Intricate designs on their bodies for decoration. For a dollar, you too can have one of these designs painted on your body. However, we don't recommend putting any of this on your face. It lasts about 10 days, and we haven't found anything with will remove it before its time.

After a fun afternoon, we will return across the lake by piragua and back to the hotel by mini bus. You are usually back in the hotel between 3 and 5 pm.

Day 8, Thursday

Breakfast is included in the hotel.

Today you will head for home. We will pick you up at the hotel and get you to the airport.

Before signing up, consider the following

You are a guest in a foreign country and it is a 3rd world country. Things are done differently here. You will most likely experience some difficulty or inconveniences, especially in some of the remote areas of this tour.

You should travel as light as possible. You will be responsible for handling your on bags. Our guides will assist you with some things, but we will not carry your baggage or equipment. There are laundries nearly everywhere we visit where you can get clothing washed while we are out on tour. best times to take care of laundry will be pointed out in the Itinerary detail and also by your guide during your stay in Panama.

Light weight adventure clothing such as Columbia wear is recommended. This type of clothing can be purchased on. This type of clothing can be hand washed and dried fast. You should have a good pair of hiking sandals or wet hikers and a good pair of hiking shoes or boots. You should also bring one set of clothing with long pants for evenings out while in Panama City.

ETIQUETTE WITH THE INDIAN CULTURES WILL BE EXPLAINED TO YOU THE MORNING OF THOSE TOURS. On the Indian village tours, our Indian hosts will most likely assist you with bags. Let them. They will be careful with them and will be offended if you refuse.

Physical and mental abilities - All we have to go by when the tour is booked is your word you will be fit for this tour. You must be a strong walker and be able to keep up with the group and especially the guide. Please respect the group and the guide by keeping pace and listening carefully so the guide doesn't have to repeat him or herself. Other group members are usually not happy when they have to listen to details more than once due to inattentive tour mates.

Be on time so as not to delay the group. We can encounter enough delays due to normal logistical situations, out of our control, in Panama. Things will run much smoother if everyone is on time and adaquately prepared for the day. Each day after each day's activities are completed, your guide will explain to yout the next days activities and answer any questions you may have.

Although some of our more serious travelers have suggested that all complainers, whiners, and dawdlers should be left, and unruly children should be sold, we have not done this yet. Respect the guide and other group mates by not openly expressing discontent. This should be done in private as to not disrupt the group. We will do everything possible to address concerns in a timely maner.

We absolutly do not allow smoking in any of our vehicles, or at the table where other travelers are eating.

Slow or poor service will be encountered in Panama, and it will get worse the further you get from Panama City. The food in some areas may also not be to your expectations but is safe to eat including fruits and vegetables. Water is safe most places but we do recommend that you take bottled water in some areas. Your guide will inform you of the areas where water may not be safe. We really have no control over the service but we use the best establishments we have found in each area. When eating meals on your own allow more time than you normally would to compensate for slow service.

You WILL get wet in some areas on this tour during any time of the year. EXPECT IT at the Embera Indian village. However, it can happen anywhere even in dry season. You would be surprised at all the amazed looks we get when we tell travelers that we can't definitely assure them that it will not rain.

There are lots of photography opportunities and our guides know where they are. We will not stop in unsafe areas.

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