Welcome to the Land Where Screen Savers Come From

Pru Warren
3 days ago
6 min read

Tuesday, December 9, 2025

Gatun Lake

Ferny palms (or palmy ferns) in the rain

This morning I saw a crocodile heading for the ship. It was highly sneaky. Just drifting closer and closer. Everyone else thought it was a log, but I was not fooled. Not even when it came close enough to be eyed…

Well. Maybe it was a log. Twig suggested that it might be a rare and endangered Panamanian plank, which was at least a kind effort on her part.

Today I have not seen any crocodiles. (I saw the tail of an eight-inch baby when it fled off a log and into the water, but just for the flash of time.) I have seem other things, though. We were able to have a tour of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute…or rather, we were walked around part of the island by a nature guide because no one in their right minds would let a bunch of chatty, busybody strangers into the labs.

The farther we went on this island, the more it reminded me of "Lost." I fully expected to come across a hatch in the ground with the Dharma logo on it.

Lexie sets off. She's wearing the adorable t-shirt I bought that didn't fit me. She looks cute!

The path was short and very hilly. Apparently one lone guy, whose name I’m ashamed to say I’ve forgotten, wheeled cinder blocks up and down this top-of-a-mountain island and staked the cinderblocks into place exactly where a foot would want to fall. And he put up guide ropes for the parts of the path that were more like a very steep staircase. Because we rode to the top of the nearest hill in a little funicular on a track, I was thinking—oh, hey. No problem. Then we hit the mud areas and the guy’s cinder blocks became exceedingly valuable.

He did the whole thing with a wheelbarrow. The mind boggles.

We were told that the walk would be steep (which it was) but slow so we could watch and listen and search—but in reality, I spent the overwhelming majority of my time watching my feet on the cinder blocks while other people spotted things that I (typical) mostly couldn’t see. I tried to see the howler monkey everyone else saw but I failed. I’m very used to this, so I turned away happily and scanned the underbrush on the other side of the path. “Hey!” shouts I, “there’s a little brown guy, running along!”

Fortunately Ignacio the trail guide saw it too; he said it was an agouti, which…that’s cool! Small and brown and kind of like an appealing, pudgy rat…although calling it a rat doesn’t sound very appealing. How about a really tiny, cute pig?

Then Ignacio (from the Smithsonian) and Richard (from the Quest) conspired to show me the howler monkey, which I eventually saw. Here is a photo that shows monkey hands. It is my best howler monkey photo, so you can see just how challenged I was!

Little monkey hands and a little monkey tail. Nat Geo photographers have nothing to fear from me.

Don’t I wish I’d been fast enough to make a video of the howler monkeys in full bitch! I think this is the root of the sounds Spielberg used to make “Jurrasic Park.” Those monkeys—who we are told are very peaceful—sound absolutely alarming. What an impressive noise they make!

Ignacio stopped us at the foot of a massive, smooth-barked tree.

He felt this was significant, and he told us a lot about it, all of which I have forgotten. But I did take a picture. He said it’s hollow inside. Richard added that there are seasons during which this tree smells far worse than a skunk, so hey. Now you know too. What shall we do with this exceptionally limited knowledge?

Big tree using the panoramic setting on the phone. It didn't really bulge in the middle.

Some eagle-eyed person spotted a (spider?) monkey about a million feet overhead. He or she was looking down at us with as much interest as we were looking up. Sure would have been nice if I could have gotten a decent photo, huh?

I cropped and zoomed in. A terrible way to take a nature photo.

Lexie took a photo of me as I was coming down a steep section of the path. Don’t I look like Explorer Jane? Have backpack, will travel.

Not quite gasping for breath...but pretty shiny from the sweat!

And here’s Lexie with a sign that was the closest as I got to a crocodile. (Other than the one masquerading as a log at breakfast, of course.)

Lexie is not loosening her grip on the single most important thing to bring on a rainforest walk: A towel. How every Douglas Adams. This makes her a hoopy frood.

Ten people fit into a Zodiak; Lexie was number eleven and so we left her behind. Actually, I thought she looked fairly pleased to be shed of her family for a little while. She looks pretty pleased in this photo, huh?

No, please--I'll take the next boat. Take my family the hell away from me!

And here’s Scott. Most people have this backdrop as the thing they show on Zoom calls so no one sees how messy their home is, but here he is at the real place. Don’t worry—he’s coated in sunblock. Not to worry!

The Canal authorities are sending their pilot to the Quest at around five this afternoon, so Lindblad found two local boat drivers to take us out in their…sounds like panda. Panga? Pagda? Can’t remember. A low fiberglass boat with an awning…but we were not fooled. Despite everyone taking showers after the sweat-fest on the island, we loaded up with sunblock again and climbed aboard for a boat tour of the local islands. Here’s Lexie, looking romantic and adventureish.

She’s looking at the clouds that drew relentlessly in. We left in sunshine and drove right into a very localized drenching rain. Forewarned is raincoat-armed; we’d all been told to prepare so the raincoats came on and we carried on. Our first stop was a place where the local guide knew that someone was feeding little tamarind monkeys. (Being with a Lindblad/Nat Geo group, he looked astonished that someone would resort to this interference with the natural world—who, ME? Never!)

Our naturalist, Jose, benefited from someone else’s banana-throwing and we drove right up to tiny, inquisitve monkeys who wanted to know where their damned bananas were. This is the best photo I got, and I’m sorry it’s not better. Cute little guy, huh?

They really are cute. You should probably Google a good image...

And then I spotted a sloth! At the same moment, another passenger saw it and called out “monkey!” but I proudly disagreed; “Sloth!” This means, according to international law and the law of the sea that this is now my sloth. I claim it. I have formed a psychic bond with it and it loves me the most. As you can see, my sloth was feeding. Head-down, and feeding.

What a babe. That's a fine looking sloth

Another screen-saver photo. As I took this picture, I was thinking of how much Jonathan liked to go to DisneyWorld. He adored the Jungle River Cruise and this looked SO much like that. But, you know, less on a track in the water with fiberglas hippos waiting around the bend.

Here’s what was around that bend—a big ant nest, dipping down almost to the water. I don’t care to think about the number of ants it took to make this structure. I offer it to you for your consideration because DAYUM. Right?

Looks like a warning from the cannibal tribe you shouldn't be following, doesn't it?? Yikes!

The torrential rain picked up again on our way back to the ship, which made things even more entertaining. The parbo driver had opened up the throttle and most of us just kept our heads down and held on to our hats. Lexie took a picture of Twig who put her raincoat on backwards and covered her face with the hood, but I didn’t get that image. You can imagine, though. Fun, right??

Here's the back end of the Quest. I’m sure there’s a way that this ultra-smart camera could tilt this image so everything looked straight but I can’t figure it out, so you’ll just have to assume that the entire lake was tilting from the Caribbean to the Pacific.