On Wednesday, February 5, we decided to start the day off with a walk in the jungle. We took the road that led to the former officer’s housing, but this time, we turned at the intersection where the church was.

The paved portion of the street didn’t extend very far beyond the church. The pavement ended at shed which marked another intersection. Straight ahead was fenced, but the gate was open and we presumed there was a pathway behind the gate. We didn’t go in there.

Instead, we chose to the path to the right, which once had a fence that was now on the ground. 

We came to a concrete battery built into the hillside.

We were guessing that this was the place we’d visited 15-years ago, but it looked so different that it was hard to be sure. Keith was super creeped out by the battery. He turned around and went back to Kosmos, while Christi and Eric went deeper into the area to check it out. 

It was surprisingly large.

Most of the doorways led into rooms of varying size.

Several of the doorways led into long corridors that went much deeper than we were comfortable exploring. 

After walking the length of the battery, Christi and Eric went back to the marina entrance and took the road to the left, the one that led to Gatun Bridge. The former gas station was now completely gone. 

When the road turned south, we continued walking straight east into what was once an airstrip. There were vultures all over the place! The airstrip was flanked by a group of buildings – these were the buildings that were visible from the marina in the sunrise photos.

Our understanding was that this was the base for Panama’s Coast Guard. We walked past the buildings to the ocean. Here is the view looking northeast towards Colon.

Here is the view looking south. No, those boats aren’t anchored. They are part of the graveyard that we’d mentioned in a previous post.

Zoom in of part of the graveyard.

Upon returning to Kosmos, we did the normal morning routine of school/chores. Eric led another D&D session in the afternoon. 

In the evening, we had dinner at the marina restaurant with two other families that each have a son close in age to Keith. We keep forgetting to mention that all three of us have a new favorite drink: passionfruit limonada, which is basically lemonade, but with lime and passionfruit juices instead of lemons. At this restaurant, you can get it frozen

For dessert, we tried a flan made from coconut milk. Eric likes both flan and coconut, so he really liked it. While Christi likes the way flan tastes, she doesn’t care for the snot-like texture. This flan was rich and delicious with a thicker, creamier texture than traditional flan, but it was still a little too close to snot for Christi’s liking. 

We are sad to report that Colon’s water pipe was not turned on today. We tried to use as little water onboard as possible, but it’s impossible to not use any at all. The water levels got so low that Eric had to tap into the emergency reserve water.