Fuerte Amador, Panama (01/08/23 & 01/09/23)
After going through the canal, we stopped at this
port for an overnight stay. This is the normal routine, but in
the past, this was a tender stop. Now there is a dock for two
ships and a new big terminal under construction.
The Volendam was already docked in the other berth. Since the
area around the terminal was under construction, walking out of
the dock area was not allowed. We took the shuttle bus (shared
between the two dam ships) to the nearby shopping center/restaurant
park/amusement park after dinner thinking that we could at least
check our emails, but the next day, a Monday, was a national holidays
for martyrs, so the whole area was filled with locals and the
traffic was a mess. We just stayed on the bus. The round-trip
was about a mile, but it took more than a half an hour. The next
morning the first shuttle didn't leave until 8:30, so an early
start to the day was not an option.
The sunrise from the ship was beautiful.
Views from our verandah...
The Museum designed by Frank Gehry and a bridge in the background.
 
The shuttle bus dropped us off at the public bus stop. We had
a bus card from our last trip here and we had decided to visit
the same 400-acre municipal rain forest park again, because there
are always new things to see in a forest. So we took the bus to
the hub, walked across the pedestrian bridge, and then about a
mile more to the park.
 
We stopped at the headquarters, paid our entrance fee, and answered
some questions about where we lived and how old we were. We began
our hike on the long trail up the hill. We spotted a spectacularly
beautiful hibiscus flower growing on a vine just off the trail.
There were a few groups of other hikers on the trail--mostly families
on this holiday.
Panama City in the distance.
 
A huge cluster of palm fruit and a lovely turkeytail fungus growing
on all sides of a dead stick.
 
This gnarly vine looks like a hunched over stick figure with a
paddle, maybe. The many-stamened flowers fall in great numbers
from trees with with swollen trunks.
 
Termites occupy big nests stuck to tree trunks and leaf-cutter
ants scurry with their leaves back to their nests where they will
use the leaves as food for fungi that the ants eat. They are farmers
for all practical purposes.
At the top of the hill is a good view of the city and if you look
the other way, there's a view of the canal, but only if ships
are traveling through the canal--there were no ships passing by
while we were there. We'd found a vacant bench and sat down and
had our lunch.
The trail passed by a pond filled with many turtles back down
near the entrance to the park.
We stopped at the shopping mall to check our email, but we had
to pass through the gut of a huge dinosaur to get to the second
level where there were a bunch of tables and chairs where we could
sit. After that, we headed back to the bus and back to the ship
after a 7-mile day.
 
After a refreshing shower, I was up on the pool deck on the Lido
Deck--deck 9--to download photos and to wait for dinner, which
is also on that level. When there was a huge boom. The ship had
been struck by lightning not 30 feet from where I was sitting.
It shattered a pane of glass in the pool deck roof. The electrical
charge was immediately grounded when it hit the steel structure
of the ship. So even though I was pretty close, but I felt no
electrical charge in the air.
After this port, it was 8 days at sea across the
South Pacific to our next port.
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