Sunrise on Sunday, January 12
We spent the morning doing boat chores. At around 1000, Eric went up to the marina office and saw three raccoon-like creatures in the parking lot!
At about 1215, we headed out to lunch. There were three people standing under a tree in the parking lot, looking intensely up at something. Eric and Keith kept walking, but Christi stopped to see what they were looking at. It was a sloth!
The plan was to have lunch at the pizza place in the strip mall closest to the marina, called La Eskinita. When we’d walked by yesterday, the sign had said it opened at noon. Much to Eric’s dismay, they said that, while they were open, they wouldn’t be ready to serve pizza until 1400.
None of the other restaurants were open in the strip mall, so we crossed the street and headed to the next strip mall. We passed a playground, a tiny skatepark for small children, and a lot of vendors selling assorted snack foods (most of them were setting up and not yet open). There were stunning views of downtown.
Behind the strip mall was an area with carnival type rides, but it was closed.
We wandered through the mall looking for places to eat, but not many restaurants were open. We settled on La Hacienda Colombiana. We were all craving burgers, so we didn’t try any Colombian food, but the burgers and fries were good.
After lunch, we went to the Smithsonian Punta Culebra Nature Center, which was literally next door to the marina. Nowadays the entrance fee is $10 for non-resident adults. The stunning views from the Nature Center are the same, but we’re reposting because nowadays we can take and can upload better quality photos than we could back then.
The Smithsonian runs one of the oldest research facilities in the region on an island in the middle of Lake Gatun. This nature center that showcases the work done on the island. The Nature Center was small, but informative. After looking at our post from 15-years ago, a lot has changed!
We believe the aquarium portion hasn’t changed since then, but now there are a lot more exhibits, including an indoor exhibits on artifacts from the ancient indigenous people, an indoor frog exhibit, and a netted in dome with butterflies. The employees were all quick to point out sloths in the trees.
This time the turtle pool was open
After we’d finished at the Nature Center, we went back to the boat to rest until dinner time. When we headed out for dinner, we saw that the full moon had already risen.
We went back to La Eskinita for dinner. We are happy to report that the pizza was great, and so was the service!