Panama Travel Journal - Day 3

By Bob Chastain
The day broke clear and wonderful. As the other group that stayed at the first hotel arrived at Casa de Campo, we compared notes from the few hours since we last saw each other. The night for those who stayed at the other hotel was as we thought it would be. Blaring, thumping music until 4 am in the morning, followed by a 6:30 am start. Our night was restless but peaceful as we all eagerly awaited our 7:00 am departure. The trail head was one and a half hours of bumpy and curvy driving away from us, as we started our trip. The first stop was the ranger station where we found our jungle survival-trained ranger would not be going with us. At least that trip to the station allowed us to see the only three-toed sloth of the trip thus far. Another 40 minutes and we came to a hill that was so steep and muddy that we could not make it any further. That was the end of the road, so to speak.

The plan had been to drive another hour up the road and park at the trailhead. This little change meant another two hours of walking. At this point, this mattered little, as we had convinced ourselves that what we were told would be a six and a half hour hike we could do in two to four hours. Boy, were we wrong! Two hours into the hike we stopped on hill and took a photo for the Zoo’s blog site. We are holding our Zoo banner. It was at this point we began to change the hiking style from a causal pace to something that began to resemble “worry.” We were not even at the trailhead yet, so hiking in the dark seven hours from now became a pretty big concern.

I can hardly even begin to describe the difficulty of this hike. Imagine starting out on what you think is a four hour hike and eight hours later, nearing the end. I make this journal/blog entry sitting on a big muddy hill, a five minute slosh above a camp I have yet to see.

Dr. Mark Kombert trying to navigate down muddy trail, already five hours into the hike. Bob Chastain is shooting and narrating.

Everyone is “hitting the wall” and I am here awaiting the arrival of the last two members. I have found on this trip that sometimes leading a trip means not being in the front. Leading sometimes means being where you are needed. In this case, it is in the back. Even though this is the height of the rainy season in Panama, it hasn’t rained all day. And we have been following a ridge for eight hours and there has been no water. I stopped sweating three hours ago, as I had to ration the one quart of water that I had brought thinking there would be stream crossings. We literally followed a ridge for hours and hours with not a single stream crossing. I passed water at a house in the middle of nowhere because I thought we were almost there. That was four hours ago. You can see that house in a valley on the blog site, as well. I ran out of water shortly thereafter.

I have been keeping a close eye on one of our members. He hit his wall five or six hours ago and has been cramping badly for the last two hours with every hill, and there are a lot of hills. Things began to get so desperate that I left them and told them if camp is more than twenty minutes away, I would get water and send it back. 15 minutes later, I sit here just about at camp, waiting to give them the news camp is just below us. I ran into Kevin and Jamie here at the top and Kevin went below with a radio in search of the camp. That is how we know we are almost there. I asked him first, “Is there clean water?” When he answered, “yes, there is clean water just below camp,” my heart lifted.I was to the point that I looked at every dirty mud hole and wondered if I could filter that water to a safe point.

Panama Travel Journal - Day 2 Continued

Now that we have reconnected our communication links with our Panama team, we will be giving you journal entries on a day-by-day basis from Bob Chastain, CMZoo’s President/CEO and the leader of our Panama group. We have already published Day One of the expedition, so we will begin now with an updated entry for Day Two, November 14, 2009. Keep with us as we go through the trip, one day at a time.

Market
As you will see from our photos, we spent the morning in a market in Panama City just killing time while Roberto Ibanez made final trip preparations. We bought a machete for the trip but mostly just observed life in Panama. Roberto is a very soft spoken man who is what we would all call an EXPERT. He literally wrote the book on frogs in Panama. In his 50s, he has spent 30 years studying frogs in Panama. He is the direct opposite of a “Jeff Corwin” type. So quiet and reserved in his knowledge you would think he may have some secret frog DNA that keeps him quietly observing the world of frogs that we all pass by every day. He wears glasses and must move them down on his nose and hold the frog very close to his face to see them well enough, while he studies tiny frog parts to make a correct identification.

Near dark today, we drove to the next hotel. Definitely not your normal, serene out country hotel. Visualize people hanging around partying and playing music so loud you can hear it in the whole complex and you may get the picture. It is a complex with one overhead picnic-type shelter where you get food and the rest is a strip-type collection of rooms, all on the same level. It is the sort of place Americans can never relax because every cell in their body is saying “Be on alert!” Because of a mix up in communication, Kevin, Jamie and I were to stay at another hotel.

We dropped the rest of the group here and we went on to Casa de Campo, a wonderful hostel/bed and breakfast nestled in the natural areas that surround us. I immediately began to feel bad that Mark and Della were having to stay in the other hotel and made a plan to move all of my staff to my room. As soon as we arrived back at the first hotel, Della came up to me and I could tell from the look on her face something was very wrong. When I asked her and Mark to stay with me you could see the look of relief on her face. Remember, this is a group of people who tomorrow night would stay in a jungle shack with six species of venomous snakes, spiders the size of your fist, and insects large and mysteriously gruesome and wonderful. But this was not the same. We are trained our whole lives to be aware of the human threats and this was one of those times.

Hotel Cook
The restaurant had the look of one of those places where you were just sure you would “pay for it in the morning” and that was a very serious thought when this morning you start a long hike and five days in the jungle. There were big considerations on what would be safe to eat. In the end, I ordered what I thought would be a frozen hamburger, Della got fried plantain chips and Mark threw caution to the wind and ordered some sea food concoction. To be completely honest, the food was OK, in fact, Matt’s chicken and rice looked wonderful and thankfully no one got sick.
-By Bob Chastain

Panama - Hike Though the Hills

The Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project expedition, including the five person team from Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, has been in Panama for slightly less than a week. We have heard from Bob Chastain, CMZoo president and team member, that they made it out of the jungle last evening, finishing an eight hour hike in about five hours, arriving back just before nightfall. It was a strenuous hike with mile after mile of steep sloped trail and lots of mud. The team was exhausted after the hike out, and exhaustion took over, as seen in this photograph of CMZoo’s Director of Conservation, Dr. Della Garelle.


This morning found everyone enjoying the amazing scenery and the wonderful hotel, and Bob was attempting to dry out some clothes so that “my bag smells less.” Maybe too much information, but a testament to the rough and tumble conditions they endured while collecting frogs in the ultra-remote Cerro Brewster locale in Panama’s forest jungle.


As we wait for full details, Bob has sent word that two of the frogs saved by the group from the grip of the chytrid fungus on their trip where the Atelopus limosus and the Hyloscirtus colymba. The status in the wild for the Atelopus limosus is endangered; due to limited distribution in severely fragmented forests. As a lowland species, it is probably less vulnerable to chytrid fungus than its highland counterparts where Chytrid is more prevalent, but it is still vulnerable to the fungus. The status in the wild of the Hyloscirtus colymba is critically endangered: due to projected populations declines greater than 80% in three generations. This species has disappeared from western Panama.

Atelopus limosus


Hyloscirtus colymba

Once these frogs are taken to the holding facility at the Summit Zoo in Panama City, they will wait as we work to find a cure for the chytrid fungus. But where specifically will they wait? There is a converted shipping container, as you see on the enormous sea-going barge, that will be the holding facility. The container, immense by frog or human standards, has been outfitted with ventilation systems and holding tanks that will be the homes for the rescued species. As you can see, there is room for a considerable number of amphibians. Subsequent rescue trips into the Panamanian rainforest will bring back more of these endangered species.


We are now waiting to hear more from the Panama rescue group, details of their expedition and photographic evidence of what the did in saving these frogs and how they achieved that.

As we receive Bob’s onsite blog entries, we will pass them along to you in this forum. We’ll start with Day One, back on November 13, and go day-by-day as he relates the work that they did in Panama. Stay tuned.

Panama - Expedition Team Out of Reach

Panamanian Golden Frog
Photo Credit: Joel Sartore

With the Amphibian Rescue team out of ear shot without cell service in the middle of the Panamanian rainforest (go figure!), we here back at the Zoo can only go by the written schedule we’ve been given on their comings and goings.

This is Day Three of the efforts to collect frogs around the Cerro Brewster camp, swab them for chytrid fungus and put them in safe keeping for the trip back to Panama City and the Summit Zoo. We haven’t spoken much about where our team is staying while on the mountainous slopes around Cerro Brewster.

There is a structure there, the empty work house, where all of the partners on the mission can store their gear and keep the equipment needed to go out “a-froggin’” in the evening hours. Our team plans to string hammocks up outside and sleep (when they can steal a few winks during the day), swinging above the porch. We are all anxious to see photographic evidence of this, if anyone is awake long enough to snap a few shots. We will see at the end of the week when news, photographs and video start trickling back to us from our re-connected team. Stay tuned for that.

These photos of the work house at Cerro Brewster were taken in July of this year, right after a reconstruction project was completed.



In all likelihood, the Rescue Team will not be seeing the national symbol of Panama in the forests around Cerro Brewster, the Panamanian Golden Frog. As our partner in Panama with us from National Zoo, Brian Gratwicke writes:

“If we keep an open eye in Panama and we might just see a Panamanian Golden Frog. Local legend used to promise luck to anyone who spotted the frog in the wild and that when the frog died, it would turn into a gold talisman, known as a huaca. Nowadays, you’ll see the frogs on decorative cloth molas made by the Kuna Indians, on T-shirts, as inlaid design on a new overpass in Panama City and even on lottery tickets. In the market at El Valle de Antòn, you will see them by the thousands either as enamel-painted terracotta or on hand-carved tagua nuts. The one place you probably won’t see a Panamanian Golden Frog, however, is in their native home—the crystal clear streams of the ancient volcanic crater of El Valle de Antòn. In the mountain forests you may spot other similar-looking extant species such as Atelopus varius, but the only local and true Panamanian Golden Frogs Atelopus zeteki are those breeding in captivity at the El Valle Amphibian Conservation Center (EVACC) at the El Nispero Zoo.”

Tragic, but true.

Frog Finders

Hemiphractus fasciatus banded horned treefrog – Panama
Photo Credit: Ron Holt, Atlanta Botanical Garden

In response to a supporter’s inquiry about a map showing the location of our team’s expedition in Panama, we wanted to provide this map:


View Larger Map

Additionally, here are some helpful links for those who want to know more about the amphibian crisis:
• Africam Safari
• Cheyenne Mountain Zoo
• Defenders of Wildlife
• Houston Zoo
• Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
• Smithsonian's National Zoological Park
• Summit Municipal Parque
• Zoo New England • Amphibian Rescue


We leave you today with the first in the “Frog Finders” cartoon series drawn by popular cartoonist and artist, Sandy Carmical. This series was drawn in dedication to the Zoo’s Panamanian Frog Rescue expedition. Watch for more coming soon. And a big Thank You to Sandy for the great cartoon!