Recommend September 2013 - (Page 41)

through March), and Saturday only during the rest of the year. All sailings come with lunch, soft drinks and narration by very knowledgeable guides. Two companies offer partial and ocean-to-ocean transits of the Panama Canal. Panama Marine (pmatours.net), which offers the full transit on the third Saturday of the month, except in May, and Canal & Bay Tours (canalandbaytours.com), which makes the full transit on the first Saturday of the month. Both offer partial transits every Saturday, as well as additional departures during January/ February/March. DAY-TRIPPING AROUND THE CANAL ZONE Founded by Americans in 1923, the 300-acre Summit Botanical Gardens are an easy visit from Panama City. The lush tropical environment is home to more than 15,000 tropical plants, many of which are sign-posted along the gardens’ trails, as well as a zoo, with animals and birds native to the tropics. Along well-maintained trails, of special interest is the compound housing endangered harpy eagles, the world’s largest predator bird that stands about three feet tall. Tours are available through the harpy eagle rotunda, and visitors will also find on site Baird’s tapirs making themselves at home around the watering hole on their own private grounds. Soberania National Park, a 55,000-acre rainforest park protecting much of the Panama Canal watershed and extending along the eastern bank of the canal and ending at Lake Gatun, offers a remarkable diversity of wildlife just 30 minutes from downtown Panama City. Here, 1,000 mammal, 79 reptile and 55 amphibian species make themselves at home. This is one of the most accessible wildlife areas in Central America, and along well-maintained trails, one meets sloths, coatimundis, toucans and kinkajous. Among bird- Centennial Bridge spans the Panama Canal watchers, the park’s superstar attraction is the Pipeline Road, where more birds have been sighted in a single day (385 species) than anywhere else in the world. For days at a time, birders tuck into the privately owned, hilltop Canopy Tower (canopytower.com), elegantly fashioned into a boutique hotel from a former U.S. military radar tower and a major birdwatching site in its own right. The favored place to stay by all visitors who want a wide rainforest experience is the nearby Gamboa Rainforest Resort & Spa (gamboaresort. com), which occupies a splendid tropical setting overlooking the Chagres River and the canal. The resort treats guests to a pool, spa, an aerial tram that rides through the jungle canopy, lake fishing expeditions, hiking and boating activities. Chagres National Park protects the watershed of the Chagres River basin, which supplies 80 percent of the canal’s fresh water, as well as drinking water for Panama City. It’s made up of rugged tropical landscapes, Lake Alajuela and the Chagres River, and its local inhabitants include several Embera Indian communities that welcome visitors to their villages. The park shelters 500 bird species and five species of resident cats; however, on boating trips by kayak or canoe, the river otters, crocodiles and caimans are the sure sightings. Barro Colorado Island, a 166-sq.-mile biological reserve in the middle of Lake Gatun, offers an excellent introduction to tropical ecology. The flora here are almost as magical as the fauna (120 mammal species including monkeys, tapirs, coatis, anteaters, peccaries, ocelots and 385 species of birds) that occupy the island’s hilly forests; since 1946, the island has been administered by the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. A tour (organized by local tour operators) will include a boat ride on the Panama Canal and a rainforest hike with a naturalist, all of which must be reserved far in advance because visitor numbers are limited. CANAL TALK It took 10 years for the U.S. project team to complete the canal, using a workforce of 75,000. The canal uses a system of locks that raise ships 85 ft. from sea level to the level of Lake Gatun. Some 13,000-14,000 ships use the canal each year. Nearly 4.5 percent of global seagoing trade passes through the waterway linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. A typical transit of the canal by a cargo ship takes approximately eight to 10 hours. A boat traveling from New York to San Francisco saves 7,872 miles by using the Panama Canal instead of going around Cape Horn. For clients interested in the canal, there is no better book to recommend than “The Path Between the Seas” by David McCullough. edu.recommend.com/panama 9 8-9 PanamaCanal.indd 9 8/22/13 9:43 AM http://www.canopytower.com http://www.pmatours.net http://www.canalandbaytours.com http://gamboaresort.com http://edu.recommend.com/panama

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recommend September 2013

Editor's Notes
Hotel Desk: Aston Hotels & Resorts
Tour Talk: Learning Journeys
Norwegian Breakaway
Family-Friendly Cruise Options
Moon Palace Golf & Spa Resort
Top Family Resorts
Four Seasons Resort Costa Rica at Peninsula Papagayo
Panama Travel Planner
Adventures by Disney's Scotland: A Brave Adventure
Club Med Punta Cana
Top Family Resorts
Hawks Cay Resort, Florida Keys
New Fantasyland at Magic Kingdom
Globus Bridges Generation Gap With Exciting China Tours
Far-Flung, Family-Friendly Destinations

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