The Panama Adventure

There are a couple lemon trees nearby that have enormous lemons in December and into January. I hadn’t checked our favorite tree because it’s too early. What? Tomorrow is December?! How did that happen already?

So Joel, more on top of things than I, rode past the tree today and picked up these.

This is Joel’s photo. I stole it from his Facebook page. Thanks you Joel

There are so many kinds of “limons” here in Panama. The name covers everything from little key limes, bigger limes, a variety of green or green with gray patches citrus fruits that have yellow or orange sour flesh, to these huge lemons. There is everything here except the traditional lemons that we find in the US (which you can find imported at Pricesmart), but the various limons here are really good so there is nothing to complain about, for sure.

These big lemons are the closest in flavor to our US lemons. They are the same yellow color inside also but the skins are edible, not bitter like most lemons. They are so big though, bigger than any grapefruit.

I’ve written a couple other posts, one in 2014 when we discovered them, and another last year also. Check them if you want to see pictures of the tree. There is another tree in the neighborhood and both of them are attractive, round shaped, not really tall, but have vicious thorns. Thank goodness the fruit drops to the ground when ready so I only have to pick it up. Between the two trees I’ll have plenty of fruit for the neighbors, myself, and to freeze for later.

About the weather, I am happy to report we woke up to party cloudy skies and I was able to get in a good bike ride. But, it’s one of those days where a cloud will pass overhead and soak everything underneath, and then move on. I got wet once. Joel went out later and also got wet. I expect we will see more of these showers that have also passed over the house.

I was able to get out though so I’m not complaining. We are not in Boquete either, which is a good thing right now. Friends report that they have had thick fog rolling through for hours every day and it’s so wet that mold is growing on the walls and ceilings. Our clothes get musty smelling if we haven’t worn them in a while, but thank goodness our humidity control measures have prevented them from molding, and there isn’t any mold growing anywhere on the house.

It is the tropics in the rainy season. We have warm and humid. The mountains have cooler and humid. In three months though we will be begging for rain!

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.

The joke says November is the month when nothing gets done in Panama because there are too many holidays. Nov 3rd is Independence Day (from Colombia), the 4th is Flag Day, and the 5th Colon Day. Nov 10th is the Shout in Villa de los Santos and today, the 28th, is Independence Day (from Spain). Schools and many businesses are closed, and there are parades for most of these holidays.

December is right around the corner with Mother’s Day on the 8th, and then Christmas and New Years. We live in Party Central! Why not though? It’s a pleasure to live with people who love to celebrate a lot and enjoy life.

Also today, it is raining again. I remember that wonderful Saturday morning when we saw the sun, but now it is only a memory and we haven’t seen it since. Yesterday morning we had some periods of only clouds, not rain but today it has been pretty much steady rain since I was awake enough to notice. I expect there are parades today, but it won’t be as much fun for either the participants or the spectators. Though, activities seem to go on here rain or shine and no one gets upset about getting wet. I, however, plan to stay home in my dry house.

Because of all these rainy days I have been spending a lot more time in my “office” which is really the outside terrace. If I look right, I can see the front gate and what is going on in the street. If I look left I see the back yard, the birds and any other interesting critters who visit. The guanabana tree behind the white pillar seems to be a favorite spot for birds to hang out.

My office, and I use it day and night. There are a few mosquitoes with all this rain but not enough to drive me indoors (though the fly swatter stays on the table just in case)

Many of these photos were taken from right here at my table, and the farthest I went was out to those banana trees you can see on the left. There are some trees just outside our fence that the birds also like.

Gray-headed Chachalaca. They are a quiet bird making peeping sounds almost like baby chicks until they get excited about something. Then there is a big racket! They don’t look especially graceful, and spend more time hopping around on branches than they do flying.

A wet spider web

An owl butterfly.

This millipede was sitting on my computer the other day

Black-chested Jay. It is easy to hear their call so you know when they are nearby. There seem to be here more than usual lately.

One of my favorites, a Blue-crowned Motmot. It has been a very frequent visitor, and occasionally there are two of them.

Another motmot. Check out the cool tail feathers with the little extra bit at the end.

Squirrel Cuckoo. I was very lucky to get this photo. They don’t visit much, they are very quiet, and tend to hide in the tree where you can barely see them. The tree is losing its old leaves and starting to make new ones, so that helped.

The oropendula towards the lower left was doing his bowing, flapping, and calling routine which caught my ear. There happened to be a flycatcher in the tree at the same time.

I mentioned the chachalaca and the racket they make, and caught a bit of that on video.

I also mentioned the oropendula, and I have an old video of one doing his thing on that very same tree.

Life in Panama on another rainy day, hanging out and watching birds. It could be worse 🙂

We have a beautiful river behind our neighborhood and I have taken tons of photos. But, we have been having crazy amounts of rain and I was curious to see how it was in these conditions. So Thursday, after another day of very heavy rains, we set off to take a look.

The river was muddy and the water was flowing fast. We have seen debris in the trees that makes me believe the river has been even higher, but it was still higher on this day than I had ever seen it.

My favorite companion

We noticed the ground was washing away under some of the steps, and now this step has fallen away entirely

The path was almost too muddy and slippery, so I walked on the plants beside the path

The river is beautiful under any conditions

There were waterfalls on this rock wall where I had never seen them before

Looking down river

The water was really moving

If you use the search feature and type in river I’m sure you will find posts and photos of the river under other conditions. These are from January 2015, early in the dry season. They are taken from the same place so you can see the difference. In the third one you can see the rock wall that had the waterfalls on our last visit.

It may be dry season but there is still a lot of green!

It was such a beautiful and serene day.

Of course, the best part is the beautiful scenery. That is my cyclist friend Bala enjoying the river.

These are from last August. It was rainy season then but you can see the river in it’s more normal state when there haven’t been recent heavy rains.

I took the time to snap a few more photos before we left

I love the river

I love living where we live. Being so close to this beautiful river just puts it over the top. Thank goodness though, as you can see by all the stairs, we are well above the river and out of danger of flooding. But, how nice that we can visit anytime we want.

This usually isn’t an event. We get plenty of sun. But, after ten days of rain and no sun, what a welcome sight!

Look at that! BLUE sky!

There were cloudy spells and even a couple showers, but what an improvement over the weather we have been getting

I went out on my bike this morning. What a pleasure to be out, finally, after being housebound for day after day of rain. It seemed like everyone was enjoying the morning. The gardeners were all busy working in yards and almost every house had laundry hanging out to dry, including ours, taking advantage of the welcome sun.

There were still some clouds and a couple showers that made people scranble for their laundry, but for the most part it was sunny and warm until 3PM in our part of town. I sure need to get busy on the bike though! I hadn’t ridden in more than a month, not since before my US trip and I have lost a lot of conditioning. I want my strong legs back again.

There are new babies in the neighborhood

This one looks very new

iguana on the roof

There are some cows that live just outside our neighborhood, and today I saw that they have a couple new babies. We also had an iguana on the roof yesterday. I had to go across the street to see it and use my zoom, but I caught him. We have a tin roof so you know when something is up there.

It sure was busy around town, especially in the shopping areas! Christmas season has come. There are trees for sale outside of El Rey, Christmas decorations everywhere, and Christmas carols playing overhead. It was hard to find a parking spot and there were a lot of people in the stores. I’m sure part of it was catching up from the rainy days, but things tend to get more and more nuts as we get closer to Christmas.

Christmas trees. The sign says $49. We are quite far from where Christmas trees grow, and there isn’t anything else here that looks quite the same.

There were lots of cars looking for parking and trying to navigate their way through the shopping area.

Just because we are happy to enjoy the sun doesn’t mean that we should forget hurricane Otto. Costa Rica got the equivalent of a month of rain in a few hours. Nine people are reported dead, many towns are covered with mud and water, bridges are washed out, and it’s going to be a big job to put things right again. Reports say damage was minimal in Nicaragua and no one lost their life. My friends on Ometepe Island say there was a lot of rain, minimal wind, and things are fine there.

There was also a 7.0 earthquake off the coast of El Salvador and Nicaragua just as Otto was approaching land. There was a tsunami warning but thankfully that never happened and it was canceled quickly. There is no reported damage to people or property.

Whew! Enough. Lets hope the rest of the year is peaceful and we can complain about the heat of the morning sun, the afternoon rains, and the stores crowded with Christmas shoppers.

Otto has left the area and is making it’s way west out in the Pacific. It landed yesterday afternoon in Nicaragua just north of the Costa Rica border, and made it’s way west through Nicaragua and northwest Costa Rica. Thankfully there are no reports of deaths, but of course there was wind and lots of rain so there will be a good amount of cleaning up to do.

There is an article HERE that has more information about the storm. It is unusual because it is so late in the season and because it is so far south, the farthest south in recorded history. It is also unusual that it didn’t weaken enough to lose its named tropical storm status as it crossed land, so it kept its same name in the Pacific.

This is the current weather/rain picture. It looks much calmer than it did yesterday, though heavy rains are still likely in Costa Rica and Nicaragua. Here in David it is cool, still, and cloudy. We saw a patch of blue sky when we got up but it didn’t last long. Ooops, I spoke too soon. It has just started to rain again. *sigh* I’m fine with rain but nine days straight is a bit much. I wonder if it will put a damper on the Black Friday insanity shopping? Probably not.

I have been concentrating on the storm because that is what has been affecting us in Panama, but yesterday there was also a 7.0 earthquake off the coast of El Salvador. (article HERE)  There were tsunami warnings for a while for Nicaragua and El Salvador but thankfully that didn’t happen, and there are no reports of significant damage either. We didn’t feel the earthquake here.

I hope you all had a good Thanksgiving, and that Central America has more peaceful times going forward.

It’s that time again. Black Friday is tomorrow. It’s time to go shopping and get all those presents for everyone on your list. It’s the same in Panama. Christmas is a big deal and there is lots of shopping, and they have even started Black Friday here. Rather than going nuts with the shopping, I hope we can all be very thoughtful about where we spend our money and use it to do the most possible good.

I ran across this today, a possible good gift idea. These beautiful earrings are hand made by Syrian refugees and can be yours for $15, or less if you buy a quantity. You would be helping these refugees earn money and rebuild their lives for themselves and their families. Here is the website. This is a screen shot from their website to entice you.

And here is a video telling a bit about the business.

I have other ideas also. Make a donation rather than buying something.

HEIFER INTERNATIONAL  These people are working to end hunger and poverty around the world. You can buy a goat, a pig, chicken, beehive, or a share of a cow or water buffalo to help lift up a family who can use it for breeding, for income, for work, and/or for food. It looks like they are also getting much more involved in the US because there is a lot of need and poverty at home as well as abroad.

MICRO LOANS  You have an idea to make sandwiches, to raise chickens, or cut hair. It could be anything but you are poor and you don’t have the money for the supplies you need to get started, so you are stuck. This is where a micro loan can make a huge difference. I especially love micro loans that support women because when you help lift up a woman, you help her whole family and her community. There are a number of organizations so rather than post links, use google to research and choose one that feels right to you.

Speaking of women, I remember Half the Sky, a book about women beaten down and abused, but also rising up and building lives. It’s a very powerful book and it has started a movement to help women and girls. Their website is HERE, and they also have shopping ideas that will support women.

Myself? I don’t do Christmas. I stopped sending cards 40 years ago and didn’t lose any friends because of it. I don’t remember when I stopped with the gifts, but that also has been many years and I haven’t lost any friends because of that either. In my opinion holidays are for people. Get together with people you care about, or call on the phone, or send an email, however you can connect. I certainly don’t need any more “stuff”, and I’m not going shopping just because someone else’s religion marked a date on a calendar. Bah humbug.

It’s still raining here so I’m not able to do some of my usual activities. This gives me more time for writing and blogging. I’ll get away from my desk and stop bothering you all so much soon 😀

Happy Thanksgiving! It’s a wet one here and a dangerous one for our neighbors. Here are a couple images from the Weather Underground.

Otto is now a category 2 hurricane with winds of 110 MPH, and the track looks a bit north of where it was yesterday making landfall in Nicaragua just above the Costa Rica border. As I mentioned yesterday, this is an area of nature preserves so hopefully there are less people there so less danger to life and property.

Yikes! I lived in Florida too long and studied too many of these maps. I know what this means.

La Prensa, one of our Panamanian news sources, is saying that weather is now returning to normal in Panama. There are still four people missing though and lots of storm damage to clean up. Things are hardly normal for our neighbors however, and many people have been evacuated from the coastal areas. Many people also refused to leave, wanting to stay and protect their property. I remember this was sometimes a problem in Florida also, and very discouraged because if you got in trouble nobody could make it out to help you.

I love the windy tv site! As you can see, we are still getting rain here (the other purple spot). It rained like crazy yesterday afternoon and evening. It continued off an on through the night and is still lightly raining now. A friend pointed out that if you go to this site, choose “wind” and then “surface” in the very lower right, it brings up a menu where you can see the winds at different elevations. Check out the first one, 150, and you can see the hurricane spitting out all the wind above itself.  How interesting!

So, that is the latest on the storm from soggy Panama. Our rain is moving west so we’ll be out of it soon, and there shouldn’t be any more unusual weather to report from here. I’ll keep an eye on our neighbors though, and hope for the best for them.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.

It’s cool, cloudy, and very still here this morning in western Panama. Otto is moving WNW at 5 MPH and after reaching hurricane strength yesterday, is now back to a tropical storm (which is really only a difference of a few MPH in wind strength).

You can see that there is now more distance between the storm and Panama though of course we are still affected. Rain is predicted off and on today though with the storm now farther west, I think Costa Rica is where the main soaking is going to be. It looks like the storm will hit just over the border in Nicaragua. I think that is an area with more nature preserves and less people, and I really hope the storm weakens as it goes west towards the populated areas on the west side. But, if it must pass across I suppose this is about as good a path as we could hope for.

La Prensa continues to report on the storm. The main headline says there are 10 people missing, and most of them were out on boats. There are a number of articles on storm damage in various locations around the country.

Of course people have been discussing the storm on blogs and social media, and some interesting links have been shared. Here is an article in English with photos. This is a very cool site that shows you the winds and where it is raining.  Yep, it looks like Costa Rica is getting good and wet, and it’s coming down hard just east of us as well.

We are still at risk for heavy rains, but it won’t be much longer until the storm is too far away and our normal weather will return. Meanwhile it is really quiet in the neighborhood. I don’t hear the usual activity of people coming and going, but I do hear the children because the schools remain closed. I’ll post another update tomorrow but after that, the main news will be how it went for our neighbors in Costa Rica and Nicaragua.

And, here comes the rain again. Hasta mañana….

It is Tuesday morning and this is what it looks like in my yard! Yes, that is SUN, and BLUE sky. It is still mostly cloudy though and I would have missed that glimpse of sun if I hadn’t been sitting outside.

The storm continues to be a cause for major concern. According to Weather Underground, it is right above Panama City, Colon, and the canal. It is barely moving but gaining strength, and is expected to become a category 1 hurricane very soon. It is still expected to make landfall near the Costa Rica / Nicaragua border sometime Thursday night.

I was watching the local news at my neighbor’s house yesterday evening, and they were showing a lot of flooding and damage. People have been evacuated from the areas of Alaje (a short ways west of us) and Barú (closer to Costa Rica) and the towns are closed off because of flooding and storm damage to roads and bridges. Two teenagers decided to bathe in a river and got swept away and drowned. One has been found and they are looking for the body of the other one.

Trafico Panama, a website that monitors traffic flow posted a number of photos of flooded streets in Panama City on their Facebook page. La Prensa, one of our news sources is posting stories of flooding, land slides, and country wide problems, though as one would expect the Caribbean side of the country has been hit the worst. (Nice to see Trump also made the front page because he canceled a meeting with the New York Times. Yes the whole world watches the US). They also report that Costa Rica is evacuating people from their Caribbean coast. I hope Nicaragua is taking similar precautions.

The Red Cross is asking for donations of water, milk, and diapers.

Thank you all for your concern about us here. We are just fine. We are high enough above the river that there is no way it could flood up here. We have a good sturdy house and we don’t have to go anywhere if we don’t want to. But, I continue to be very concerned for our neighbors. There are many people here, in Costa Rica, and especially in Nicaragua who are poor and don’t have sturdy houses, and could suffer greatly in this storm. I’m glad to hear that evacuations are under way and efforts are being made to keep everyone alive and safe.

Since there has been so much interest in my last post I’ll write an update daily until the storm is gone.