Globetrotters

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Hans noticed El Toro Rastrojero on one of our first visits to ‘town’. Rio Hato is the closest town to where we live & was a hotspot for Noriega during his heydays. There’s a landing strip nearby built for his use & his beachside villa is a short walk away, totally bullet ridden & no one wants to buy it-bad juju. We like to shop in Rio Hato to support our local economy, even though it doesn’t offer much.

Back to El Toro! Hans pointed out a small stand with LOTS of wooden creations on the side of the road as we drove into town one day. Of course since he’s a woodsman we had to stop to check it out. That first time Arelis came out of the house to greet us & show us around the shop. She had a baby on her shoulder & proudly pointed out her husband’s beautiful works of art in wood. Various types of wood lent different swirls of color to tables, chairs, desks, signs, even portable bars & barstool sets! Anything you can imagine in wood Juventino can make it!

He was away that day so we simply browsed but decided right then that we’d buy some items to decorate our new home Panamanian style. We returned a few days later & Arelis remembered us & introduced us to Juventino.
What a jovial friendly guy! He took us around the shop, showing us his wares. When we shared that Hans had owned a sawmill too & created benches of wood, it was instant male bonding! Juventino invited us to visit his ‘fincas’-small farms in the country. The next day off we went! Happy to ride in our Fortuner, we bounced over rutted dirt roads as Juventino happily told us about his plans for his land.

How do we communicate? My rudimentary Spanish serves as a primitive foundation but it’s Juventino’s energy that converts our ignorance to understanding. He keeps talking away & if we fail to get it the first time around he speaks more simply & slowly. Next he resorts to acting it out-all amidst hilarious laughter as he cracks himself & us up totally with his antics. His vision is to build an eco-tourist camp on one of his farms, next to a small stream, & reforest both plots of land.

The land here suffered severe deforestation 300 years ago when the Spanish invaded. Now the soil is devoid of nutrients & basically dead & dry, with erosion causing problems with silting in rivers & the ocean.

A few days later we visited for Hans to take some photos of the wood creations & Juventino decided we all needed to go on a picnic to the finca by the stream, to celebrate the last day of school vacation for his kids. He & Arelis have 6 children ranging in age from 14 to 7 months (though Arelis appears no older than 25 herself!). She told me they’ve been married 15 years! Of course they cannot believe we never had kids after 30 years together…especially since I have such FUN with the kids. I told her I love OPC-other people’s children-LOL!

I relayed the invitation to Hans who looked at me & asked “How the hell will we talk all day with them?” Just as we wondered this 2 women drove up to the shop. They spoke perfect English & chatted with Juventino, who promptly invited them to the impromptu picnic. They politely began to decline & I burst out “NO! You have to come to translate for us! It’ll be FUN! Come on!” They decided to join the group & the next Sunday found us all in the shop by 10 AM.

Now what I haven’t told you is that the farm by the stream has a STEEP slope to hike down to the water. We wondered how we’d get all the picnic food & accoutrements down that hill…not to worry! Those kids pitched right in & BAGS of food & drinks, cooking pots, water containers, baby items (& Baby!) were hauled down that hill! We too hauled our share & soon we all gathered by the stream with our goodies.

They began to build a fire pit-Hans’ specialty! He helped set up the rocks to balance the pots on & went to get firewood. The lady serving as chef for the day was totally impressed with Hans’ fire making talents. As he poked & prodded the fire to life Arelis said “Hans buen trabajadoro si?” Translation: Hans is a good worker right? Oh yeah!

The cook set beans & rice to boil while we all jumped in the frigid water-BRRRR! What a feast! We brought pork chops, the women roasted weenies & we stuffed ourselves royally! Amazingly we passed the entire day together until 4 that afternoon! Even more astonishing is the fact that we never heard a harsh word spoken among the family & even the baby never cried once! Such a happy festive group! The kids learn English in school & though they’re shy about talking they love to help us learn Spanish! One of the boys really loved learning the English word for ‘chuleta’-pork chop. He ran up to us throughout the day shouting “PORK CHOP”! Too funny! We look forward to more festivities with such a delightful family & to improving our language skills!

Tags: Bad Juju, Barstool, Beachside Villa, Dirt Roads, Eco Tourist, El Toro, Fortuner, Heydays, Hotspot, Juventino, Landing Strip, Male Bonding, Noriega, Portable Bars, Rio Hato, Rutted Dirt, Sawmill, Swirls, Wares, Wooden Creations, Woodsman

Up up & away! My menopausal meltdown in the fierce heat of Playa Blanca inspired us to head for the hills! We decided to visit Boquete, a community of expats in the mountains about a 5 hour drive from us.

The town itself is not much to speak of but the landscape is spectacular! Set at an altitude of 3,878 feet on the slope of Volcan Baru towering 11,450 feet above sea level.

Boquete enjoys eternal spring & is home to coffee plantations, jungles & the elusive resplendent quetzal bird. The ‘bajareque’ is a “unique weather phenomenon that occurs when a fine misting rain is pushed from the Atlantic & into the highlands. The mist is so soft it ‘caresses the face’ as locals say.” (Excerpted from Frommer’s Panama).

When we arrived the mist felt more like a smack in the face, blown as it was on a wild wind. Wonderfully cold, I felt immediately chilled! I delighted in each goose bump popping out while Hans yelled “TOO COLD! WHAT THE HELL IS THIS? WHERE’S THE SPRINGTIME?” He put on his windbreaker while I soaked up the cool.

We stayed at Finca Lerida, a B&B coffee plantation high above the town.

They had their own trails through the jungle & also offered guided hikes. Why would we need a guide with marked trails? We set off on a two hour trek through the jungle on a trail that ran along a ledge sticking out from a mountainside. Amazing views of the foliage above & below us & a clear blue sky (along with the breeze!) made for great hiking. BUT no bird sightings.

So we broke down & hired a guide. Jason arrived the next morning armed with his bird book & promptly informed us (in excellent English) that he was rather new at this! Uh-oh! He proved to be more modest than truthful as we ended up sighting 2 of the elusive quetzals & A SLOTH!

Why hire a guide? Well it’s NOT about the looking in quetzal bird watching, it’s about the listening! Jason listened for the birds & then imitated their call to lure them to us! The female came to check him out as a mate (not cute enough, I told him after she flew off) & we watched her flit through the trees for quite awhile. The male came to challenge Jason & we had a spectacular view of him flying through a patch of sun that irradiated his iridescent plumage so he positively glowed, his long tail flowing out behind him-what a sight! Truly resplendent!

Where we had stood staring stupidly into the foliage, Jason spotted birds at a glance & pointed them out to us-WOW! If you’re reading this & planning a trip to Boquete, call him locally at 6718-62-79-he’s well worth it!

The sloth sighting was my all time fabulous favorite! Jason pointed out a big blob in the tree above us & said it was a sloth. I wanted it to move so I could get a good look but Jason told us it only moves 2 hours out of 24 & then a mere 20 yards before stopping to rest again! SOOOOO SLLOOWWW is the sloth that it actually grows algae on its fur!

As he told us these facts IT MOVED! Ever so slowly it uncurled from its balled up position, unfurled a paw & began to CLIMB DOWN THE TREE! I had to stifle myself so I wouldn’t freak the poor thing out. On the verge of imploding, I punched Jason in the arm to vent my excitement! He took it in stride, smiling at me & said “It’s very exciting yes?” YES! The little critter climbed down to where we got a great look at him & calmly munched some leaves, then curled up in a fork in the tree for another snooze. Awesome!

We took a tour of the coffee plantation & I recommend you call ahead to schedule this with the manager himself. Coffee is his passion & his tour in intense, you will never feel the same about coffee again! We spent 2&1/2 hours learning about the coffee production process, from the field to the tasting room.

It’s much like making wine & since Hans grew up on a farm growing wine grapes (among other things) he proved a good student for our coffee maestro.

Finca Lerida strives for sustainable ecologically conscious coffee production & works hard to develop environmentally sound practices. For example, coffee requires a LOT of water to process BUT the government is quite strict about effluent entering the rivers (put this in the back of your mind for future reference OK?). So Finca Lerida has developed a process whereby the water remains in an enclosed system. The technology is quite advanced & the entire process is a continual science experiment.

Finca Lerida specializes in gourmet coffees. We did a ‘cupping’ with the manager who tastes brews daily to ensure quality control. With each taste test he knows exactly what happened in the process to produce a less than perfect brew-amazing!

Our drive to Bocas del Toro took us over the Continental Divide & we lucked out with the weather! Clear blue skies offered panoramic views of the mountains all the way to the coast-WOW! Big rains had washed out the road in many places which made for challenging driving. But Hans & the Fortuner handled it fine. The Caribbean side of Panama is quite poor & we saw lots of wooden huts with thatched roofs & people living in appalling conditions.

Bocas is an archipelago with many islands scattered around the ocean so we boarded a skiff ferry to take us to the biggest island, where we began our explorations. As we motored out of the marina my Caribbean dreams were dashed. Ramshackle shacks lined the shore with dilapidated docks leading out to tiny buildings perched precariously at the end of each dock. I asked Hans what those were & he just looked at me- “Outhouses”. HUH? You mean “plop plop fizz fizz oh what a relief it is” directly into the ocean? Hans nodded. NASTY! Rewind your tapes to the coffee plantation’s strict gov’t guidelines for disposing of effluents into the rivers! No such protections exist for the ocean, just a big toilet it seems.

Luckily we spent our 2 days in Bocas far out on the water, away from shore-LOL! On one boat tour I asked our guide (a local Panamanian) about the ocean dumping. He yelled out “NASTY” & I just cracked up! He went on to say how Panamanians are not at all ecologically aware of how sensitive the ocean is & trash as well as sewage finds its way into the sea. He felt this hurt his business as tourists go to Costa Rica for eco-tours because Panama needs to clean up its act. Interesting to hear a local say what I thought about when we visited Costa Rica. I do believe that sustainable tourism may help save the planet, along with giving locals work.

Now we’re back at Playa Blanca for awhile. I’m back to being ‘swampthing’, sweaty & soaked whenever we’re outside, which is LOTS! The good news though is that they’ve completed the ‘Laguna’ here-the 2nd largest swimming pool in the world! It’s 17 acres of salt water (600,000 gallons!) we can swim, kayak, even sail on-FUN! And COOL too-LOL!

Tags: Bird Book, Bird Sightings, Bocas, Boquete, Clear Blue Sky, Coffee Plantation, Coffee Plantations, Feet Above Sea Level, Finca Lerida, Jungles, Marked Trails, Mountainside, Playa Blanca, Quetzal Bird, Quetzals, Resplendent Quetzal, Sloth, Springtime, Weather Phenomenon, Wild Wind, Windbreaker

Franklin details cars here in the parking lot at Playa Blanca. One day we drove in & saw him working on a car so I ran over to ask him to do our Fortuner. He opened the car door & removed the glove compartment! Next he reached in & yanked out a filter totally black & nasty-YUCK! If this weren’t disgusting enough he proceeds to sniff it, then crunch up his face, hold it away from him & state the obvious “stinky” (malodor) in Spanish!

Duly impressed by his ability to ferret out the nasties in our car we asked him when he could work on it.

“Manana” he told us.

At 10am he arrived. I watched him ‘work’ from our window….hose in hand he’d scrub some, and then chat on his cell phone for awhile. He removed the floor mats, and then a buddy came by for a ‘visit’-more chatting! This was my kinda guy! No sense killing yourself working in this hot tropical sun!

By 1:00 I thought we ought to go down & give a gentle prod so he’d finish by nightfall. Franklin looked happy to see us & proudly gave us a tour of what he’d cleaned so far-gleaming in the sun, the car looked wonderful. I asked if he was finished & he looked shocked. Pointing to the engine & various other cubby holes he indicated he was far from done.

Then he pointed to himself, looked me straight in the eye & announced “I am a man.” I resorted to my usual tactic when confused by the ‘lingo thingo” & made a friendly face, smiled encouragingly at him, nodded my head & said “Si, si.” Hans asked what Franklin had said & I told him “He said he’s a man.” Hans looked confused & said “Was there some doubt?” I jabbed him in the gut-“DO NOT make me laugh!”

Franklin carefully watched this exchange, hoping for some response. Not getting any he decided to approach us with a different strategy. Using the old standby when in a communication glitch, he shouted out the same words, only this time LOUD & CLEAR! Pointing vigorously at himself he shouted “I AM A MAN.”

I stepped back, not sure where he was headed with this. I decided it was best to placate him so I shouted back at him enthusiastically in Spanish “SI MUY HOMBRE, MUCHO HOMBRE!” Giving him a vigorous thumbs up sign, I felt I had done my best to assure him of his virility.

Now it was Franklin’s turn to look confused & a tad terrified. He stepped back & stared at me. Then he opened his mouth WIDE! He pointed into that toothless cavern & yelled at me “TENGO HAMBRE.”

Suddenly the confusion cleared & it dawned on my menopausal mind what this poor guy was saying….”I am hungry.” In Spanish hombre (man) sounds a lot like hambre (hungry), especially if you have geezer ears & menopausal mind fog-LOL! I burst out laughing, to the consternation of both Hans & Franklin. I explained to Hans the confusion & he asked “Is lunch included in his job?” Guess so!

Off we went to scrounge up a bite to eat for Franklin…now if you’ve known me long at all you know I’m a food freak & follow Rose’s Rule of Food: You must be able to feed at least 10 people at a moment’s notice. This comes from living in a LARGE overextended Italian family where hordes of cousins might descend upon you at any time, demanding to be fed. If you failed in this family duty, the aunties talked bad about you. Heaven forbid!

It took us 3-4 months to ‘eat down’ all the food I had stored in our pantry, freezer & frig before we left Florida. BUT those days are gone forever! Our condo is too small to indulge in stockpiling for the Apocalypse. Plus the months of purging 30 years of accumulated STUFF transformed us into minimalists. Thus we found ourselves scrounging around the kitchen for food for Franklin!

I held up a jar of peanut butter & yelled out “How about a PBJ sandwich?” Hans held aloft his prize “With a banana?” Together we shouted “The Elvis special!” & cracked up. I wasn’t sure how this foreign treat would go over with a Panamanian but Hans had faith that Franklin would share his love for the Elvis special.

I decided to let Hans handle the lunch offering to practice his Spanish. I watched from the 9^th floor window as Hans approached Franklin & held out his treat. Even from my eyrie I could clearly see Franklin recoil with a look of horror on his face! Hans smiled, rubbed his stomach & proffered the plate again. This time Franklin held up his hand & shook his head! I imagined Hans encouragingly saying “MMMM-bueno!” Finally hunger overcame distaste & Franklin took a tiny nibble…his face lit up! A new convert to the Elvis special-too funny!

Tags: Fortuner, Old Standby, Playa Blanca

Border Crossing
Or
Gringos in Hell

I actually considered calling this “Gringos Go to Hell” as that was the distinct feeling we got from the Panamanian border officials. We’ve driven vehicles across a variety of borders worldwide & NEVER endured a 7 hour transit time! Neither have we ever encountered paperwork so complex that we needed to hire a border “helper” to get us through the process. Unheard of!

In my usual O/C approach I did exhaustive research on documents required to cross the border into Costa Rica with a Panamanian registered vehicle. I felt totally prepared for a smooth crossing, though Hans & I did have a ‘moment’ when I told him I wanted him to make 6-8 copies of the paperwork & he refused & only made 4, which he thought was already absurd. More on this later-LOL!

We drove up to the border at 9 AM & went to the vehicle control window-all procedures are handled through a window so that you may enjoy the heat while the border officials keep cool. The woman scanned my paperwork, and then shoved it back at me while blasting me with machine gun Spanish. She gave a dismissive wave of her hand & walked off, not even bothering to try to explain. At this point a border “helper” came to our aid & explained that I didn’t have the paper to prove we had paid the taxes on the car. I told him that we’d just bought the car last month so all taxes were paid up. He brightened up & went inside to let Frau Hitler know this. I watched through the window hopefully but she waved him off with the same dismissive gesture. He returned with the bad news that Frau Hitler insisted on this document & we had to drive back into David, a city about an hour’s drive back into Panama-GRRRRR!

Back we drove! It took us quite awhile of circling the city to find the customs office hidden atop a hill there. Now perhaps you’re wondering as we did why we had to drive to a customs office in the city when we were at the customs office at the border????? This remains a mystery, along with why every other person we met in David spoke perfect English BUT no one at customs either spoke or understood a word. Mighty suspicious if you ask me!

The city customs guy told us we had to go to the bank to buy special stamps to put on this special paper for the very special Frau Hitler. Off we went to the bank. While we stood in line, we got a parking ticket. That did it for Hans! He grabbed the ticket from the windshield & stalked off to find the parking police-not a good day for us official-wise for sure-LOL! When he found the woman he went ballistic in Spanglish, wildly gesticulating & telling her that the bank cop had told him to park there. Luckily she wasn’t a Frau Hitler & seemed amused by his antics so she tore up the ticket.

From the bank we headed back to the hilltop customs office & after more waiting FINALLY got the special paper. By now it’s noon, we’ve wasted 3 hours on Frau Hitler’s power trip & we are TWO GROUCHY GRINGOS!! Another hour of driving & we’re back where we started.

This time Frau Hitler stamps the paper & we’re off to the next stop-the police, who must also print out a special paper to prove we have no fines against the car-good thing that parking cop tore up the ticket!

We stand waiting with our border “helper” while the 2 officials studiously ignore us. They avoid any eye contact, staring at their computers, laughing raucously & talking together while either playing a game or watching porn, who knew? Who cared? I just wanted my damn paper stamped BUT I learned long ago in a very hard lesson not to mess with people who have power over me. So I play Ally McBeal games in my head. If you watched the TV show you know the games I mean….the ones where she opens her mouth & fire shoots out to scorch the offender, or she punches him in the face & his head flies off & rolls away. Thus entertaining myself, I wait with Hans & the border “helper”. By now I’ve come to believe all this hassling is to provide employment for these border “helpers”. I press my lips tightly to stifle myself-a rare feat seldom witnessed.

After torturing us for at least 30 minutes they deign to acknowledge our presence & print the paperwork out, sign & stamp it. It’s all I can do to manage a polite ‘gracias’.

The border “helper” informs us that he needs yet another copy of some paper-by now we’ve used up all 4 of the copies Hans made. I resist the urge to engage in a marital moment at the border, since I can’t risk getting hauled off to jail-LOL! We trot across the dusty street to the photocopy place & make a few more copies, then share a laugh at the insanity of it all.

FINALLY after 2 long hours we make it through to the Costa Rican side-WHOOHOO! What an amazing difference! Border officials here have friendly faces! They speak Spanish slowly & simply so that we actually understand them & they make the effort to understand us too!
We’re through the border process in less than an hour! BY now it’s 4:00 & we’re drenched in sweat & covered with street dust & grime. I feel like a fish that’s been dragged through batter & rolled in flour EXCEPT that instead of being tossed into the fryer I get into the car & blast the A/C-AHHHHHH!

We take off for Golfito, a town about an hour away where I’ve booked us a room at The Hotel Las Gaviotas. By the time we arrive we’ve dried to a crusty finish, glazed & dazed. As soon as we check in we dash to the bar & order 2 Imperials-the local brew. Indeed we feel like royalty, having survived the fires of the border crossing from hell to enjoy the cool pool at Las Gaviotas.

GOLFITO

Golfito (little gulf) is a tiny town tucked away in a bay off the Golfo Dulce (Sweet Gulf), one of only 3 tropical fjords in the world. It’s a sport fishing haven with placid water over 600 feet deep! Across the gulf from Golfito is the Osa Peninsula, the most remote & rugged area of Costa Rica. We were immediately struck by the differences between Panama & Costa Rica. Costa Rica has more lush landscape & more poor people than Panama. The jungle starts right up the hill behind Golfito’s 2 main streets.

The town reminds us of an African shantytown, with shacks built of wood, somewhat dilapidated, metal roofs rusting through. In Panama even the poorest village we’ve seen has houses built of cement blocks, painted in bright colors with shiny metal roofs. The strangest contrast though is the fact that Panamanians are incredible litterbugs compared to the Costa Ricans! Trash heaps decorate people’s yards & beaches are strewn with garbage here, while Costa Rican yards are swept neat & tidy & beaches had little to no litter! This is odd considering that Panamanians are extremely clean; cheap hotels & public restrooms pose no problems. Not sure what the deal is with that? Maybe Costa Rica’s long history of ecotourism has made people more sensitive to the environment? We also saw people picking up cans & bottles to recycle & 2 backyard recycle ‘centers’ in Golfito. This is absent here, sad to say. So maybe tourism can have a positive effect on a country!

We spent Sat. poking around beautiful downtown Golfito & even did a bit of souvenir shopping. Next day we decided to take a boat ride across the gulf to the peninsula & visit Puerto Jimenez. Several ‘captains’ offered to take us across for $40 one way but we like to travel with the locals so we took the ‘ferry’-LOL! This is a low rider boat, you have to crouch low to get to your seat as the roof is only a bit over 4 feet high! It seats maybe 20 people squashed into 2 rows of double plastic bucket seats-not for people with claustrophobia or who need much personal space! Hans & I were crammed next to each other & still no room for the people to walk up & down seeking seats without bumping into your legs. We were told to arrive 30 minutes prior to departure so we enjoyed sitting in a pool of sweat while waiting for the boat to leave. Luckily a breeze eased my torture & once the boat took off it was great! We couldn’t see much, set down low in the water as we were, but then there wasn’t much to see-water water everywhere & not a drop to drink! A smooth ride & 45 minutes later Puerto Jimenez. Such a deal for $10 round trip!

Fodor’s guide calls Puerto Jimenez a ‘one iguana town with a certain frontier charm’. Unbelievably it’s the largest town on the Osa Peninsula & the last before you fall off the grid-no electricity or phones south of town! The roads aren’t paved so you eat & breathe dust while a light coating helps to absorb the sweat in the humidity of the mid-day sun. Hans was driven mad by the dust so I reminded him of the ‘red dust’ in Africa, where we were so covered with dust by the end of the day driving with windows down (no A/C!) that the nightly tidy up bowl was a mud pit-LOL! Things that are adventures in youth become annoyances with age! We had a decent meal & some brewskies at a local eatery then gratefully headed back to the boat.

Our hotel, Las Gaviotas, was the best part of this trip. It’s in an idyllic setting overlooking the tranquil gulf, with a perfect sunset view from the restaurant. They have a great chef who cooks outstanding traditional fish & meat dishes so we stuffed ourselves nightly. Dangerously delicious!

The return border crossing was a total non-event! We were through both sides in less than 1 hour amazingly! Mission accomplished & visa renewed. Here we are back in our home sweet condo where Hans spent much of the day figuring out our mail system with Earth Class Mail, our virtual mail delivery! Different country, same stuff-LOL!

Tags: Border Crossing, Costa Rica Trip, Panama

For those of you who don’t know us, a bit of background:

Some 30 years ago Hans picked me up hitchhiking in Cameroon, West Africa, for the ride of my life! For the next few years we lived like gypsies out of whatever vehicle we found ourselves in at the time: Hans’ VW through West Africa; a Dodge van through much of Mexico & the southern US; 2 Mercedes 5 ton dump trucks with a Peugeot mounted atop the one I drove serving as sleeping quarters carried us through the Sahara & the Sahel; a Ford pick-up with a camper cab criss crossed the US with us searching for a place to call home.

We landed in Arroyo Grande California where we moved up to live in a 10×50 mobile home for 3 years, while Hans operated a sawmill & I taught Montessori at a nearby school. With our noses pressed to the grindstone for the next 20+ years it’s a wonder we can even still breathe! From California, to Pennsylvania, onto Georgia we worked various jobs in search of the elusive American dream. Finally in Florida Hans’ entrepreneurial endeavors paid off & he found his niche with a retractable screen business. His hard work & my frugal habits have allowed us to semi-retire here in Panama, where we jokingly call ourselves ‘Gringos in Paradise.’

This blog is mainly for friends & family to follow our adventures but if you’ve stumbled upon it by chance-WELCOME! We hope you enjoy the stories! Mostly I hope this blog encourages you to have fun adventures of your own! In the words of Helen Keller:

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Security does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than exposure.” If a blind & deaf woman can be so bold why not go for it too?

So here we live in a condo in Playa Blanca, Panama. It’s a resort development on the Pacific coast about 1 ½ hours’ drive from Panama City-the boonies! Everyone says you can get by speaking English here….WRONG! Maybe that works in the city but out here it’s Spanish all the way. In a former life I spoke fluent Spanish but at 56 I’m challenged to remember words in English, never mind Spanish! I’m also hard of hearing (geezerism sucks) so our normal ‘conversations’ go like this: Someone speaks to us in rapid fire Spanish, Hans repeats to me what they said in his Swiss accented Spanish, after a few moments of mental translating I attempt a response in Spanish. This little circus delights the locals no end. I think they start talking to us just for the fun of it-LOL! Everyone is so friendly & helpful we don’t really mind providing entertainment. As my mom Rose always said: “Learn to laugh at yourself & you’ll always have a source of amusement in your life.” We’re easily & endlessly amused!

Last week Hans hit 59 so we celebrated by taking a road trip….”ON THE ROAD AGAIN”! We bought a used Toyota Fortuner-a PPV 4 WD, translation: A pick-up passenger vehicle 4 wheel drive. Basically it’s an SUV mounted on the chassis of a Hilux Pick-up truck-sturdy like a tank for driving off road, as we like to do when exploring the countryside.

We headed for the Azuero peninsula, southwest of us. If you look at a map of Panama the Azuero region sticks out into the Pacific & is a mecca for surfers-NOT that we did that! There’s only so much daring adventure I’m willing to engage in & risking my neck is not on the list.

As we bounced over teeth chattering bone clattering rutted roads, Hans beamed at me & yelled “Just like in Africa, Gail!” I smiled back “Not really! Now we have A/C!” Since my body has become an internal combustion engine, I can’t imagine how I traveled through the sweltering heat of Africa with no A/C or even fans, yet remained always cool as a cucumber & never broke a sweat! Ain’t youth grand? But the creature comforts of geezerism aren’t bad either-LOL! The tough traveler of my youth, she who slept out in a sleeping bag on the sands of the Sahara & hitched rides atop trucks exposed to the blazing sun is long gone! I’m a cream puff these days!

So instead of camping on the beach we stayed at a lovely B&B on the beach, with A/C!

Hans & I are of the ‘buzz ass’ school of travel…we don’t do well lounging around the pool. So we had no sooner checked in than we set off on a brisk beach walk. I had thought about staying 2 nights but as we hauled ass down the beach Hans said “What would we do tomorrow? Walk the beach again? I can do that home for free.” Too funny.

The next day we decided to drive home through the interior of the country, rather than return along the coast. What an awesome drive! A bit of a rough road but dazzling landscapes-hills reminding us of California with few trees & rolling grasses. Then up up & away into the mountains! The people there seem quite industrious with most of the land either cultivated with crops like corn & sugar cane or used to graze cattle. We saw ‘cowboys’ riding the range on horseback while chatting on their cell phones. Old fashioned milk containers dotted the roadside for pick up/drop off by big trucks with guys jumping on & off for delivery.

On the way home we stopped at a roadside stand to eat with the locals. Enormous piles of rice, beans, cooked to death meat & fried blobs of dough for just $3! We probably overpaid as gringos too but what the heck. Then we bought about 30 pounds of fruit for $5-amazing! The guys at the stand were laughing their butts off as we drove away-thinking how much we’d paid for their fruit, while we were thrilled with our deal! I hardly bother to bargain anymore-though I was the haggle queen in our travels. Now it seems almost mean to try to pay less for what’s already so cheap!

Next week we cross the border into Costa Rica for a visa renewal trip. I’ll let you know how that goes if you care to keep reading!

Happy trails!

Tags: Daring Adventure, Grindstone, Gringos In Paradise, Noses, Pacific Coast, Panama City, Playa Blanca Panama

This is the first entry from the administrator with a picture of  Gail who will be writing this blog mostly from now on.