After travels and crazy amounts of rain, our life in Panama is more or less returning to normal. I’m finally biking a bit again and my muscles are slowing getting some strength back. I like getting out too because I always see something interesting.

This, however, is pretty unique. This guy said he was tired of pushing the lawn mower so he invented this remote control mower. It looked like a regular mower below with a couple car batteries on top, and some other parts that included some bright lights which is what first caught my eye, and a controller is from a remote control plane. How cool is this!

I decided to revisit one of my favorite routes northwest of town through Aguacatal and beyond. The Walmart lot still has corn growing but the sign is gone. Only the frame remains.

There have been rumors that the Walmart sign was only a joke. Could this be true?!

Villa Patricia continue to grow. These houses weren’t there a couple months ago.

The first houses now have people living in them

What a nice road to ride

I love the scenery

This route involves crossing the highway a couple times, and traffic was crazy when I came back. The Pan-American highway is always busy near the Terronal shopping area, but yesterday it was backed up all the way to KFC. I also had to wait a long time to cross the old Via Boquete. Joel and I went out to do a couple errands later in the afternoon and it was even worse. There were long lines of people waiting to turn into the shopping area and probably no parking. It’s Christmas season!

the Pan-American Highway

the old Via Boquete

But, it was one of those perfect days, not too hot, light breeze, blue skies, and really beautiful clouds. We were just a little late though with errands in the afternoon. We saw the sky darkening in the distance, and we were maybe half way home when it started to rain, and then pour, and then do one of those epic downpours that immediately floods anything that can possibly flood. Almost as soon as it started though, it was over.

Beautiful skies

Probably after no more than 20 minutes of downpour, it stopped and patches of blue appeared in the sky. I was able to quickly dart out and finish my last errand.

Today we decided a Pricesmart run was in order. The store was fairly crowded for a Tuesday morning and again, any time you go out there will be something interesting.

It is very common to see people selling things on the street. People walk around with buckets of tamales and bags of other things, put a table in front of their house, and there are many of these more substantial operations. There is always something going on in front of Pricesmart because there is space and many shoppers coming and going.

But, live chickens?! I know the pictures is bad, but there is a cage on the ground with chickens, and a guy holding up bags of guandu (pigeon peas, pretty much a requirement for holiday dinners)

There is another supermarket under construction on the Pan-American highway and it looks huge

The highway also has more and more of these potholes. It looks like whole sections of asphalt have gone missing, exposing the concrete road below. People say the heavy rains are to blame for a lot of this.

Life in Panama, always something interesting.