Fun In Panama

We met Gisela yesterday at the Smithsonian Marine Research Labs complex on Naos Island, at the mouth of the Panama Canal. She's a research staff member who supervises and maintains the freshwater fish collection there, which is pretty intense: one small part of it is an entire wall, floor to ceiling, of shelves with preserved characins, tetras, etc., most of which I'd never heard of. She has also done some work with various Brachyrhaphis species, which is of course what drew us down here. She offered, and we accepted, to visit the most inaccessible part of the Soberania National Park next Tuesday to visit several streams to collect Brachyrhaphis. This involves borrowing a 4WD vehicle from the Smithsonian, and also getting the Smithsonian's key to the gate at the beginning of the famous Pipeline Road into this area. There are 3 streams that I want to visit there, the Rio Macho, Rio Frijoles, and Quebrada Juan Grande. The rainy season has begun here, with daily rain, but for the entire day, just a shower now and then. Even so I suspect it will be an amazingly muddy trip.