Day 2 (March18), Working with the STRI team

From Ed Gillen ‘09…

We were up at 7 a.m. and ready for our first day in Panama. The day started with a delicious breakfast from our host Ivan who runs the bed and breakfast where we are staying. As we ate, Ivan and another guest, Ken, taught us the finer points of bird watching, and we also had an in-depth conversation about classical rock. Who said this trip wouldn’t be educational?

We headed to Rick’s house around 9 a.m. where we started working on our project.  For the next three hours we reviewed the database that we have been working on for a semester and a half and received a lot of great feedback from the group. Turns out we have a lot more work to do.

At noon we left Rick’s and headed to a restaurant situated on the river that dumps into the Panama Canal. We finally had some interaction with the wildlife of Panama as we waited for our food.  In the water below were a handful of turtles fighting over the pieces of bread we were throwing to them.

We later returned to our meeting place and spent a few more hours working until we were done for the day.  After sitting all day, we decided to take a walk to a lookout post situated upon a hill overlooking the canal.  We had an amazing view of Gamboa and the Panama Canal while we received a short history lesson about the area, as well as some of the local wildlife from Rick.

In the evening we had another fantastic meal at a local resort where we discussed the events of the day and what was in store for us for the rest of the week. We headed back to Rick’s around 8 p.m. and returned to Ivan’s shortly after to turn in for the night.