Miraflores Locks at the Panama Canal - you can see the high water on one side of the gates

Do you know what a canal is?  It’s somewhere boats can travel where there isn’t normally a river or other water.   A really big trench is dug and lined with something like concrete and then filled with water.  The first canals were built a long time ago, nearly 300 years.  Canals meant that ships could carry coal, food and other goods around the country quicker and cheaper than by road.  This was long before trains and lorries were invented.

Well, in the case of the Panama Canal it meant that ships could cross between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, right through the middle of the big piece of land called the Americas.  This made it much quicker and easier to move goods around the world.  The Panama Canal first opened in 1914.

Sometimes, where there are hills or mountains that the canals cross they use a system of locks to carry the ship up and down.  Locks are created by putting in pairs of gates across the canal that stop the water moving up and down the canal.  This means that the level of the water inside the lock can be changed to the same level as the water either side of the gates.  This is how ships can travel uphill and downhill.  Unlike a road you can’t have a sloping hill of water!

The ship steers into the lock and a gate closes behind it.  In front of the ship is another gate trapping the ship and the water in between the gates.  To go uphill water is pumped into the area inside the lock until the water is level with the water the other side of the gate in front of the ship.  To go downhill water is let out of the area inside the lock.  Once the water inside the lock is the same level as the next area of water where the ship is going, it is safe to open the gate in front of the ship and let the ship sail out again.

What is called the Panama Canal is actually three sets of locks, a small lake and a very big lake.  We went to see the locks nearest the Pacific Ocean, called the Miraflores Locks.  We saw a big ship that was travelling from the Pacific Ocean pass through the Miraflores Locks.  Then it was going to pass through a small lake and another lock, called Pedro Miguel Locks.  Then the ship will sail through a much bigger lake called Gatun Lake.  Lake Gatun is much higher than the oceans either side of the land here so the ship then has to pass through another set of locks called Gatun Locks.  These lower the water level the ship is sailing into so it can sail out into the Atlantic Ocean.

Canals and locks are very clever ways of letting boats go uphill and downhill.

The front of a really big ship just as it is about to pass right in front of us as it travels through the locks at Panama Canal

And today we went to see one of those big ships travel up the canal.  These are the same locks as in the above picture.  But the water has been levelled and the lock gates opened.  Now the ship is passing through the lock.  That strange looking silver machine is called a ‘mule’.  It is one of four mules that were being used to steer this big ship through the lock.

A group of cows enjoy a wallow in the mud

Have you ever heard of wallowing cows before?  I’ve always thought it was only hippos that wallowed in mud.  Paul had heard about wallowing cows before but had never seen them.

Then we got to Panama.  Right beside the road we saw them.  A small group of cows wallowing in the mud.  The mud must have been pretty deep.

Paul got out of the car to take some photos and a little bit of video.  A couple of the cows started to look pretty angry.  I guess you might be upset if you were in your bath and someone stopped to stare at you.

The Ambassador and his wife pose with Landy

Do you know what an Ambassador is?

An Ambassador is someone who lives in a foreign country as a representative of his (or her) own country.

Today we met the Ambassador from Britain who lives in Costa Rica.  If anyone who is British has a problem they can’t sort out they can go to the Ambassador’s office and ask for help.  The Ambassador then tries to help the person solve the problem.

We didn’t have a problem but the Ambassador was very interested in Landy and wanted to meet us.

this is what Landy looks like underneath

Landy’s been really great, taking us bravely over rough roads and smoothly on nice tarmac roads.  But sometimes he needs a bit of loving care and attention.  So today we took him to see the mechanic at the Land Rover garage in San Jose (we are in Costa Rica still).  They gave him some new oils and some new parts and helped us get on the road again.

Sometimes we get asked about what food we eat.  Well, this morning I had something really strange for breakfast.  I ordered a beef sandwich.  The beef had been cooked in a casserole with onions and gravy, and was in lots of very small pieces.  The bread had been toasted.  Then there was a slice of tomato and a couple of lettuce leaves.  That was a bit strange but then I found out they’d put something called ‘rose marie sauce’ in the sandwich as well.   It’s a pink sauce a bit like salad cream usually eaten with fish.  It was a horrible mixture.

We visited an Eco Centre today.  It’s in a small patch of forest where some small animals can live safely.

Helen sitting next to a two toed sloth that had just arrived at the Eco Centre - he will be cared for until he is ready to look after himself

We saw some Sloths and learned lots about them.  They move very, very slowly (sloth is an old fashioned English word for lazy).  The three-toed sloth has a green moss growing on it and a moth that feeds on the moss lives with the sloth.  Once a week the sloth comes down from his tree where he eats the leaves, digs a hole and poos in it before covering it up again.  He does this so that other animals won’t be able to find him from the smell of his poo.  While he’s doing this the moth goes off and lays some eggs in the soft ground at the bottom of the tree, then settles on the sloth again to go back up the tree.  It seems pretty amazing to us how nature works together like that.

caterpillars that will soon shed their skin and turn into a pupa in which the adult butterfly will grow

The Eco Centre also has a small butterfly breeding program.  We saw three different types of caterpillar and pupae.  The adult butterfly lays its eggs.  The eggs hatch into tiny little caterpillars.  When the caterpillars are fully grown they shed their skin and turn into a pupae.  The butterfly then grows inside the pupae and hatches out again as an adult.  No growing up and going to school for them!

from underneath this pupa looks a bit like a bat

The pupae use different types of disguises to put off other insects and birds who might eat them.  One type of pupae is coloured gold, just like a very poisonous beetle.  If you look at another from underneath it looks like a small bat hanging upside down, not very nice to eat!   We watched one caterpillar shed its skin (it took about 20 minutes) and then very slowly change shape into a pupa that looked just like a bat as it’s body started to dry out without its skin.  Paul filmed the caterpillar shedding its skin so hopefully we can show that to you soon.

butterfly feeding on a ripe banana

Then we watched some adult butterflies feeding on rotting bananas.  They like this food very much.  You can see how the butterfly is feeding in the photo here.

we were shown how to hold a butterfly safely

After we left the butterfly house we saw a tiny little green tree frog asleep underneath a leaf.  One of the men who work at the Centre said it was OK to wake it up and hold it.  As the frog stretched we got a shock.  From being the same colour green as the leaf it showed us the bright blue on the inside of his legs, and his bright orange feet, and his bright red eyes.  Paul had seen photos of the tree frog years ago and had always wanted to see one for himself.  When he held the little frog it peed on his hand and then jumped up on his shoulder.

red-eyed tree frog - when he tucks his legs in and closes his eyes he cannot be seen against the green leaf he usually sleeps on

Paul does a Tarzan swing

Are  you scared of heights?

If you are, you would not have liked our latest adventure at all, because it was very high indeed.  And very fast.  And involved hanging off of a wire strung between trees. A long way apart!

Yesterday, Paul and I braved our fears and went on an exciting trip through the canopy of the rainforest near were we have been staying in Costa Rica.  Normally, you can only see the trees from the ground, but by taking to a ‘zip line’ you can get a monkey’s view of the forest – from right at the top of the trees – sometimes even above them!

A zip line is a strong metal cable that has been stretched between the trees, and you clip onto a small wheel that allows you to travel along it.  The wire is sloped downhill, so you can go very fast.  You use thick leather gloves on your hands as brakes to slow down if needed – but we never did!

Zipping along through the rainforest canopy

It was amazing to see the forest from above, and quite scary to go hurtling through the air hanging in a harness beneath the cable.  At times we reached 50 kilometres an hour, and one cable was over a kilometre long and ran really high over a deep valley in the forest.  It was about 150 metres high, and we were dangling with nothing beneath our feet!

The lines are used for fun, but also to study the wildlife in the treetops.  Three types of monkey live here: Howler Monkeys; Spider Monkeys; and a little white faced monkey – we are not sure what that one is called.  There are lots of Iguana (like big lizards), and really colourful birds and butterflies here.  It’s a beautiful place.

At the end of our little adventure, Paul did a Tarzan swing.  Do you know who the character Tarzan was?  He was a man in a story who got left in the forest as a young boy and grew up with the monkeys.  He learned to swing through the trees like monkeys do.  Paul is not really like Tarzan, so he had a harness to keep him safe, but he was very brave because he had to jump off a really high platform and fall down a long way before the rope he was connected too went tight.  Then it swang him right out over the valley – just like Tarzan.

He made noise a bit like Tarzan too, but I think it was more of a scream!

this iguana is the same colour as the grass - if it was in the grass it would be very hard to see.

We’ve just arrived in Costa Rica and we’re camping in a spooky forest full of big big trees.  It looks a bit like a scene from a Harry Potter movie.  There are big, menacing looking birds sitting in the trees, and at night the bats start flying around our heads to make it even scarier!!

During the day though it is very different.  There are quite a few deer here.  They don’t like to get too close to people, but they are close enough to see them eating.  At the slightest sound they look up and straight at us.  If we stay very very still, they keep eating, but if we move too quickly, they run off.

We’ve also seen an armadillo and iguana and at night we can hear the monkeys in the trees around us.

There are lots of bugs and spiders here that we haven’t seen before, so we make sure we have our zips on the tent done up tightly at night. 

We are visiting Costa Rica in the ‘wet season’, which means that nearly every day it rains really hard for an hour or two.   When it rains, our camp site floods into a huge puddle up to ankle deep, and small rivers form where the water is running away into the forest. 

At night, the noises of the jungle are quite loud – lots of croaking frogs, chattering beetles, and chirping chicadas make it an entertaining place to stay.  There are fireflies too, that blink on an off in the darkness like little LED torches being switched on and off. 

Often, there is thunder and lightning that rumbles and flashes for hours.  It’s quite easy to imagine being in a Harry Potter movie here!

It was very very dark.  There were a few stars in the sky but most of them were hidden by clouds.  We could not see the moon.

This turtle has just laid her eggs in the sand

We crept quietly along the beach.  Every so often we flashed our torch to see if there were any signs of any turtles on the beach.  After a little while we could just see a wide dark line in the sand.  We got a bit closer and shone our torch on the dark line.  We could see that it was really where the sand had been disturbed by somthing very big crawling along it.   There were what looked like ‘dents’ in the surface of the sand.  We realised straight away that these were the marks made by the flippers of a big female turtle who had just come up the beach to lay her eggs in the sand.  We were very excited.  To be on the beach at the same time as the turtles laying their eggs is a very rare experience.

These scraps of white are old egg shells after baby turtles have hatched in their nests in the sand on the beach

We very quietly followed the flipper marks until we could just see a very faint light reflecting off the back of a turtle.  She had already dug a big hole in the sand and was right down in the hole.  We kept very quiet while she laid her eggs in the hole.  Then, when she had finished, we heard her climb out of the hole and use her flippers to brush the sand over her eggs to cover them up.  Then she used her flippers to pat the sand down firmly.  When she had finished doing this the female turtle turned around and hurried back into the sea as fast as she could.

The eggs she had just laid will stay in the nest under the sand for about 50-60 days.  That’s nearly two months.  After that the eggs will hatch and the tiny baby turtles will run down to the safety of the sea as quick as they can.  Big birds such as seagulls and some animals will eat the baby turtles if they can.  That is why the eggs hatch and the turtles rush to the sea during the night when it is dark and not so many birds and animals are around to eat them.

It sounds horrible and cruel to us to think of other animals and birds eating the baby turtles but this is normal in nature.  That is how lots of animals and birds live and survive. 

Paul is holding a baby turtle at the Ranger Centre

It is harder for us to understand why some people come along and steal the eggs from the nests and sell them.  Some people will eat the eggs but some just collect them.   That is why when we were on the beach there were armed guards patrolling the beach to make sure there were not any egg thieves around to take the eggs before they can hatch.

Sometimes the rangers at the beach rescue some of the baby turtles.  Here’s a picture of one Paul held in his hand.  It’s still very small.

We saw this frog near the beach where the turtles were laying their eggs

Yesterday we went to visit Lake Tiscapa where Helen wanted to go on the zip line around the lake.  But there was lots of wind and rain and the people who run the zip line said it was not safe.  So we went back today.  Paul stayed behind while Helen went off on her own to look down at the lake hanging from a very thin wire.  This big lake has formed in the hole that is right at the top of a big volcano in the middle of Managua city in Nicaragua.  It’s been a long time since this volcano has erupted, that means it is a long time since molten rocks and lava have been thrown out through the hole at the top of the mountain and into the air from deep underneath the earth.  Here’s a photo of Helen on the zip wire just above the water of the lake.

After we left the lake and the zip line we went and stayed in a town called San Juan del Sur on the coast.  Tomorrow we are going to drive to the beach to watch the turtles laying their eggs in the sand.  Which do you think is more exciting – the zip line or the turtles laying their eggs?