I woke up this morning and the sun was shining!! Normally this wouldn’t be remarkable but after two weeks of almost continuous rain, it was a very welcome sight. So, after breakfast I set out for a bike ride.

They are building a new bus terminal and mall nearby so I went to see how things look over there. It looks like they are finished moving dirt around and are starting to prepare the sites for the buildings. I went first to Via Boquete where the guard told me they are working on both the terminal and the mall at the same time. The mall will be close to Via Boquete and the terminal will be farther down and to the west, closer to Ave Joseph Halphen.

The wet and muddy site

Is that a concrete something, the first beginnings of a building?

Look Camden, a mighty machine! There used to be a lot of them on this site, and now there are hardly any which makes me think they are done with the major dirt work.

Those street lights are over Via Boquete. At first I thought the structures were doorways into the hillside, but they are just little shelters for the workers.

From here, I decided to go by the art school to find out when the professor may be coming in. There is a huge palm in the neighborhood which I believe is a bismark, or bismarkia. It looks like a silver palm but it isn’t silver. I noticed a couple months ago that it was making odd spikey things at the top.

This huge tree is near the art school. It is the biggest of its kind that I have ever seen. The last time I was over there I noticed this strange part growing out of the top. I’ve seen other trees make flowers within the fronds, but I’ve never seen anything like the top of this tree. I will have to keep an eye on it to see what happens next.

Between traveling and being housebound in the rain, I hadn’t seen the tree for a couple months. Now look at it!

Then, in late November it had flowers

Late November flowers

That is SO cool, but I wonder what comes next. Is this the end for this tree? They usually grow by making new leaves above, but now above is only a mass of flowers. Yes, that is BLUE SKY behind the tree!

Since I was having a good time, I decided to ride down Via Boquete towards the Pan-American highway to show you some new developments in the neighborhood. The first was an office building that was finished shortly after we came here (almost four years ago). It has been vacant all this time. I heard the local government was interested in renting it rather than have offices scattered all over town, but it was just too expensive. A few months ago there was a for sale sign on it and I heard it had gone back to the bank. Now, they are making it into apartments. I went by to investigate in early October but they had nothing to show me, only a computer simulation. They will email me when they have something to show (I’m still waiting). From what I could see the most basic apartment will be very small, and the living room window will be one of those big full length windows you see on the front. $69K?? You could get a pretty decent house with land for that. It will be interesting to see if they sell anything.

The other photo is the next block down. The Honda dealership moved in maybe a month ago, and the wine and deli shop has opened very recently. I should stop by and check it out one of these days.

The odd “apartment building”

A couple brand new stores

By now, I could see the clouds getting darker and the rain in the hills was coming towards me, so it was time to head home.

It was a good thing I was almost home

What a great morning! It felt so good to be out. I visited my dog friend and the guys at the trucking business, ran into another friend, visited a couple others, stopped by the art school, and checked the neighborhood for new developments. It’s been raining very steadily since I got home. I don’t mind nearly as much when it’s been nice enough to go out in the morning.