Gatun Lake

The day after we transited the Panama Canal, Susie and I went on an excursion that took us onto Gatun Lake in a small motorboat. Our group from the Coral Princess sat down in three of these boats, actually; here's one of the other boats, just like ours, as we headed out toward the main part of the lake.

Needless to say, ours were not the only boats on the lake, it being a big stretch of the Panama Canal. We resolutely avoided the big boats, some of which had striking looks. This ship, which I think carries automobiles, reminded me a lot of the sand crawler from Star Wars.
Pretty soon, though, our small boats left the main shipping channel to explore the lake's more remote arms.
We came right up the shore lines, wildly overgrown with tropical forest.
We saw wildlife all around, including multiple iguanas, to which our tour guide referred jocularly as "chicken of trees."
Directing our gaze to somewhat slower animals, we saw turtles sunning on a log.
And probably slowest of all, here's a sloth. These were difficult--no kidding--to distinguish from termite nests, which tended to have the same colore and shape and to be in trees at the same height.
The best for last: monkeys! We saw numerous white-faced monkeys, also called Capuchin monkeys. This group was far from shy. In fact, they were waiting for the boat to approach ...
...so that they could clamber aboard and search for food. Our guide asked to make sure that all bags were closed. Here's a young white-faced monkey, who was not as aggressive as his or her older relatives.
This monkey showed no fear. He came right onto and into the boat, looking around. As the boat began to pull away from the shore, he leapt for the trees, planting a solid paw on my leg as he jumped.We then motored back to the dock and got back into the bus, which took us to the Miraflores Locks visitor center. I'll blog about that part of the excursion tomorrow.