The Panama Adventure

I happened across a wonderful B&B that also offers tours. A couple of my blog followers were in town, we were exploring the area, and they remembered this place where they had stayed before so we stopped by for a visit. I might be interested in some of the tours they described so I kept their contact information.

Moty Hen is the owner, and Israeli guy who manages the place with his Panamanian wife. When we visited the first time I met her sister who was helping out because Moty and his wife were in Panama City.

Their website is HERE.  The place is in southern David in an attractive residential neighborhood. The house itself is very comfortable, but I think the most interesting thing is the birds and monkeys. I took some photos which will tell you more than any words.

The first thing you see is this pretty garden area.

There is a nice sitting area in front of the house

This is the entrance to the house. Note the fridge with water and cool drinks

The large living room has a pool table

Last but certainly not least, Moty with one of his parrots

Moty told me that he used to have even more birds but has been downsizing his collection because when they all got going, it was too noisy for the guests. Almost all of the birds and monkeys are native to Panama and I got the feeling almost all are also rescues.

This one is only friendly after he gets to know you. I was happy to see he has a leash so he can climb around his area, but not come to you unless you choose to get close enough

Moty said this monkey was given to him and is quite elderly. I noticed she was missing quite a few teeth.

I don’t know the story behind this cute little guy.

Toucans! There were lots of beautiful birds and parrots, but I think the toucans are especially beautiful

This monkey was thrilled at any attention, though I kept my distance just in case. He is paralyzed on the left side but still does a good job of climbing around on everything within reach.

If any of you are considering this as a place to stay, photos of the rooms are next. There is a large room for $75 if I remember correctly, and another large room with its own sitting area for $85. Then there are two smaller rooms for $50, one with a double bed and the other with twin beds and they share a bathroom The rooms come with breakfast which my friends said was excellent. If you want, you can arrange for them to cook you other meals as well.

This large room is on the left side of the house.

This room with the sitting area is also on the left side of the house.

This is one of the smaller rooms on the right side of the house. The picture isn’t the greatest because of the sun pouring in the window but you get the general idea.

This is the room with twin beds that is next to the double bed room. Moty and his wife have their own room on this side of the house as well.

Some tour ideas

Moty can also arrange tours with pretty much anything you would like. He says he has contacts all over the country so if you want a tour of Panama City, San Blas or other things on that side of the country, he can help you out. I am interesting in the manufacturing and craftsmen tours in this area to see cigars being made, and those cakes of brown sugar, and some of the other things from Chiriqui. Maybe I can collect some of my friends and we’ll make a fun day of it.

Moty made it very clear that he wants his guests to feel relaxed and comfortable, and to feel like this is also their home. I was made to feel the same way and I am welcome there any time.  How nice is that! There are good hotels in town but they can’t have the personal touch and hospitality of this home.

Sometimes I go through spells when I have nothing to say. It’s just normal daily life here, nothing unusual happening. I ride my bike, putter in the yard, spend time with friends, do the usual errands and chores, paint a bit, nothing really worth talking about. I’ve had a cold and the cough has hung on forever, which though I didn’t feel sick must have been sapping my energy. I thought I had lost all the conditioning from my bike trip but yesterday, finally, I went riding and felt strong. I powered all the way home feeling like my old self, and it was wonderful!

And, of course, as things go, since I organized these photos and mentally wrote this blog post I have some new things to talk about, all, so they will be coming soon.

This elegant tiny bug landed on my table one night

Sometimes we get visited by very green baby iguanas

I rode around the neighborhood the other day, which I hadn’t done in quite a while. This is my favorite tree. Notice the two story house behind it which looks small in comparison. Someone told me the tree is over 200 years old.

This is a huge mango tree in a vacant lot in the neighborhood. It isn’t fruiting at the moment but when it does, it gives really big, red, delicious mangoes.

This is a mariñon corizon tree. It has beautiful purple delicate flowers that carpet the ground below in purple petals, and then it makes a somewhat bland fruit that when cooked, is very much like apples.

This odd looking moth landed on my table one night

It’s rainy season, and I took a couple photos one evening as it started to get dark during a rainstorm.

More evening rain.

I was organizing the shelves by my table yesterday, and noticed this little cocoon hanging from the pipe that handles the water from the AC

This beautiful butterfly landed on my bicycle the other day. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one like this before. What beautiful and intricate patterns!

What else? One of the banana trees is flowering so we’ll have more of those great red bananas in a couple months. The war on the ants in the house has been pretty much successful though we are still vigilant. They were sending armies from the yard into the house which we have stopped, but I think they continue to live in the attic because just as we think they are conquered, we spot some a few days later using a trail that leads upwards. We still have some of the tiny little ants that scurry around like crazy in the kitchen though, so we are working on them. Yesterday Joel discovered they had set up housekeeping in a package of saran wrap! There are so many types of ants here and it’s really interesting to see how they all work so hard for the good of their colony. They can’t live in the house though. That’s our space.

Oh, and the lizard eggs, can’t forget them! We were cleaning one day probably 1 1/2 months ago and found some gecko eggs. They are little round, white eggs about the size of a large pea. I put them in a dish on my table and a couple mornings ago, I noticed something brown sticking out of one. I picked up the dish and a tiny gecko burst out of the egg, jumped down to the table with some egg shell still on it’s head, and dashed under that little blue box from the moth photo above! Too bad I didn’t have a camera within easy reach because when I came back with one, the gecko had left and I couldn’t find it again. The next day another egg was open and empty. I have two more eggs though, so maybe I’ll get to see it happen again.

The weather has been great for the most part, an occasional hot day but usually pleasant and breezy with cooling rains late in the day.  The rain keeps everything lush and green, and I like this better than the dry season.

That’s about it for the moment. Even the ordinary days always bring something interesting.

Every year there is a plant sale at the amazing Heliconia Gardens in Volcan. I had never been to it, but yesterday a bunch of friends wanted to go and invited me to go along. I am so glad I did! It’s gorgeous with water lilies, gingers, and many other plants, and the heliconias were absolutely amazing. Even if you don’t want to buy plants it is well worth going just to see the place.

There were quite a few people at the sale. Parking was along the road and then you walk in, or if the truck came along you could hop in for a ride. Even the road in is very beautiful.

When you arrive, one of the first things you see is this amazing water lily pond. I had two large ponds in Florida and love water lilies, so I was very excited to see these.

The other side of the pond with many visitors milling around. Maybe I should put in a pond here? The lilies were also for sale so I would have a source of some beauties.

There were three other plant vendors there, and also people selling food and snacks.

Check out this amazing beauty! It was huge too.

The heliconia sale area. There was a flower on each stick, and the corresponding plants were behind the sticks so it was easy to identify the various types for sale.

This is actually an ornamental banana. Isn’t it spectacular!

I had my eye on that big hanging flower that was red, gray, and almost black. It grows 20 feet tall though and I don’t have the space for it.

Look at those water lilies from the amazon river!

Another water lily pond, and wonderful views of the mountains behind

more plants

more beautiful views

that pink hanging heliconia on the pole, if I had seen one of those for sale I probably couldn’t have resisted taking it home. It’s my very favorite, but also a very tall one

You could walk on paths through the woods, but the woods were mainly more heliconias and other flowers and plants

more flowers

This photo does not do these plants justice. On the left is the one I liked in front of the sale area, and that’s a ginger on the right. They are both huge!

If you look closely at the lighter colored ginger in the center, you can see a couple delicate flowers coming out of a couple of the spaces. They almost look like little butterflies or insects of some sort.

I like the colors of these leaves

What a unique and interesting flower.

My friend’s plants were brought down to the street by wheelbarrow.

The sale was very well organized. There were papers listing all the plants. You told one of the workers what you wanted, they marked the paper, put all your plants in a group while you took your paper to the girls who collected the money. When you returned with your receipt, your plants were put in a wheelbarrow or on a truck for delivery down to the street parking area.

The photos above do not do the place or the plants justice. I don’t think any photo could, but I was especially frustrated with mine. My camera has lost it’s display, I didn’t want to take my big expensive good camera, so I decided to use my iPhone camera. It had a hard time with the exposure on many of the photos, the colors were off in other photos, or the focus, and a lot of the photos were thrown away as unusable. Tomorrow I go down to Panafoto to see if they can advise me on getting my Canon repaired or if not, replaced. I apologize for the quality of the photos, and hopefully I can correct the situation in the very near future.

After the Heliconia Garden, we all decided to go to the great Mexican restaurant in Volcan. Everyone must have had the same idea because all the cars parked in front had plants. Word is the dollar store in Volcan is one of the best, so after lunch we stopped in there. I found a couple small things I needed, and then considered buying some incense. I have smelled incense in other homes but never looked at it closely until this day. Incense here has a purpose beyond just smelling good! Who knew?

From the left, incense to attract more clients, then to attract more money, more riches, more energy, power, and total relaxation.

Again from the left, incense for love, enjoy and revive with coffee, cannabis for deep thoughts, vanilla for happiness, strawberries to remove negativity, for peace, money and health.

I bought these – vanilla cinnamon to give the body energy, and cannabis for exploring my deepest thoughts 😀

An update before I send this out -I went to town today to look at cameras. It is possible there is a shop downtown that can repair my ailing camera but it might be more expensive than just buying a new one, so I bought a small, not very expensive Canon Power Shot. When the battery is charged I’ll give it a try. I’ve had good luck with that brand except for the failed display, and I’m not even sure I can blame the camera entirely for that because I did get it wet with salt water in the not too distant past. You don’t realize how much you use something until it’s not available, so I’m happy to have a little basic camera just for daily use.

A friend gave me a couple pups, or hijos (sons in Spanish) of plantains, or plátanos. One got taken out when the guaba tree fell down last year, but the roots put up two pups that are thriving so all is not lost. The other was fine though, and it is now producing fruit. If you look at the post from January 2015, you can see it in one of the photos or go directly here. It’s the little banana looking plant in the foreground a bit to the right. Judging by this post, it has apparently taken over a year and a half from pup to fruit.

The guaba tree that fell, by the way, regrew from the stump and we were very happy to see that it lived. Then, the brush fires came through last summer and killed it 😦

One day I noticed something fat emerging from the top of the plantain plant, something that looked different than a new leaf. It was indeed a flower and from there, things moved along very quickly. The next day I saw this

June 9th

Bananas and plantains have the most exotic and unusual looking flowers! I documented the progress of a flowering and fruiting banana plant here. The plantain isn’t very tall, only a couple feet over my head unlike our huge bananas, and the flower progressed slightly differently. There were far fewer fruits but they were bigger, and the flowers at the ends were large.

June 10th, flower just starting to open

June 11th

June 12th

June 13th

June 14th

June 15th

June 18th. Now changes were happening less rapidly, so I’ll skip a few days

June 27th Not much has changed but the plantains are getting fatter

June 29th. I was advised to cut off the flower which makes the fruits get fatter.

I was told it’s about two months from flower to plantains that are ready to eat. Plantains are a staple food here so I’m sure I can ask anyone to look at them and tell me when it’s time.

Plantains are used green as a starchy vegetable. They are sliced or grated and added to soups and other dishes. Patacones are very popular and are eaten frequently. The green fruit is cut into one inch chunks and cooked either in water or in a bit of oil (different people advise different methods). Then, you take your special kitchen rock and smash the pieces flat, and fry them again in a bit of oil. The result is something that looks like a little pancake but tastes something like a french fry. (an aside, I have been told that green bananas can also be used like green plantains. I have tried this with a few things and it is true, but I found them hard to peel.)

I also like ripe plantains. When they get yellow they get sweet. They are often sliced on the diagonal and sauteed in a bit of butter. I’ve heard people say you can also add cinnamon and/or sugar, but I haven’t tried that yet since I think they are plenty good just as they are.

As far as I know the plantains are like bananas. When a plant fruits that’s it for that plant, but it will grow a pup to replace itself. There is already one growing beside my fruiting plant that’s about three feet high and getting bigger every day. Hopefully at some point there will be more pups so I can expand my plantain operation here.

Speaking of the big bananas referenced earlier, one of them fruited before I left on my US trip in March. We didn’t cut it down until earlier this month. The bananas had been looking quite fat for a while so we figured it was time. They were the best bananas ever, firm, sweet, and delicious so maybe it was good to leave them on the plant for a long time. The ones we didn’t eat fresh or give away were sliced and frozen for smoothies or a sweet, ice cream sort of snack.

Since I was running around the front yard with my camera, I also took a few photos of the heliconias I like so much. Unfortunately these photos are probably the last that will be taken with my handy little Canon since it has taken point and shoot to a new level. The display developed some black lines, and then more black lines, and now so many black lines it is impossible to see anything at all. The photos come out fine but all I can do is point in the right direction, shoot, and hope for the best. I have an iPhone now and can use that camera for daily use, but I miss the Cannon and will have to ask around to see if anything can be done with it.

.

I should be writing about the Panama Canal. They have been working for years on the expansion project, building new locks, deepening and widening the route, and getting ready for the huge Panamax ships. Sunday June 26th was the opening with foreign dignitaries, celebrations all over the country, and much excitement. A Chinese ship won the lottery to be the first ship though and made the trip without incident.

It was a huge project with delays, cost overruns, concerns about the concrete, size of the locks, etc. But, it is done now and I hope everything operates successfully for many years to come. If any of you want to know more about the project or the festivities last weekend, a google search will bring up a lot of information. It’s quite a big deal and will affect shipping and commerce world wide. Panama has every right to be proud!

I, on the other hand, have been enjoying my little world in our little corner of Panama. I spend a lot of my time at my table on the terrace, and at night the light attracts a variety of bugs. Occasionally there is a large moth or other interesting critter. The June bugs have been frequent lately. I also see a lot of tiny bugs that I can hardly make out until I see what my camera and macro lens have captured.

This little one looks kind of like an elegant lady

This one looked like a shiny dot on the table.

Is this little bug looking at me

this one was a big larger and could be seen fairly well with the naked eye

today this little yellow fly landed right in front of me like it wanted to be photographed

Usually the flies are very active and don’t sit still at all, but this little one was very cooperative

It seems like everyone is getting sick lately. Almost everyone I know has had a cold, or two, or more. Joel and I are almost never sick but both of us are recovering from our second bout of colds in as many months. The H1N1 virus is making the news here. People are hospitalized and some have died, and the health minister is urging everyone to get vaccinated. I know the flu is a problem every year but I don’t remember hearing about it nearly as much as we have this year. Then, there is the Zika virus. I haven’t heard of cases in our area but I know the health mister has had people going door to door to educate people on mosquito control and inspect yards for standing water. I don’t keep up with the news so I’m not a reliable source for anything, but even I have been hearing about all this.

Other than that, my neighbors are adding on a bathroom and bedroom since the daughter and grandson are now living in the house, along with mom and the son in a 2 bedroom. There is a lot of banging and sawing going on but they seems to be making fast progress. Band practice is currently going on in our living room as wel. My neighbor who doesn’t like noise probably isn’t too happy, though she swears she enjoys the music.

I have been woken up more than usual by birds chirping early in the morning. They sound like wrens but when I come outside I never see them. Today I realized it sounded like they were coming from inside the house. After some investigating I caught a wren coming in through a small hole under the roof on the back side of the house. Apparently they are nesting in the attic. Mom probably gets up every morning to feed the babies, who get all excited and wake me up. When they leave the nest we’ll plug up the hole and encourage them to raise the next brood elsewhere.

Life goes on in Panama!

An Ofertasimple deal came through today for Boquete Tree Trek, $78 a night with breakfast and either a coffee tour or a zip line. Click the link HERE.

We have been there and it’s a beautiful place. People say it’s an excellent zip line. That isn’t my thing so we did the coffee tour, and it was very interesting and we really enjoyed it. It’s way up there in the mountains though so it takes some driving on steep bumpy roads to get there, and it’s cold. It never got out of the 50’s when we were there. Bring warm clothes. I liked exploring the area though, and the sunsets and views of Volcan Baru were spectacular.

I happened across this article on renting in Panama – Tips for Renting in Panama. I can’t seem to reblog or repost it here so you’ll have to click on the link.

I think the article is accurate and well written. He seems to be talking mostly about furnished rentals though. I live in David where unfurnished rentals are more common, and unfurnished means with nothing – no stove, no fridge, or washing machine.

I have met a lot of people lately who are considering moving here, or are in the process of making the move so I thought this article would be a good one to share. It is highly recommended that you rent for at least 6-12 months! Then you can try out the country, the area, and your new life here before you make a commitment that may not be so easy to undo.

I recently came across an article in Brain Pickings about books. In the words of Herman Hesse “Among the many worlds that man did not receive as a gift from nature but created out of his own mind, the world of books is the greatest… Without the word, without the writing of books, there is no history, there is no concept of humanity. And if anyone wants to try to enclose in a small space, in a single house or a single room, the history of the human spirit and to make it his own, he can only do this in the form of a collection of books.”

Herman Hesse

I have always loved books. I was pretty isolated as a child so books were my world. I grew up, life got busy with work, children, and responsibilities so I didn’t have as much time to read. Then I discovered audio books and all that changed. I spent a lot of time in my car as a visiting nurse so this was a wonderful opportunity to listen to books. I could also listen while working around the house and yard. My audio book habit has continued here in Panama.

Technology is a wonderful thing. Between audio books and eBooks, a whole world of books is available and they don’t take up any space or weigh a thing. The internet allows you to access all these books from anywhere you have a connection, and save them to whatever device you prefer.

The article referenced above raised the question of the continuing success of books. Would they be pushed aside by radio and movies, and now in these times, the internet? He says no, no more than photography has hurt painting. “We need not fear a future elimination of the book. On the contrary, the more that certain needs for entertainment and education are satisfied through other inventions, the more the book will win back in dignity and authority. For even the most childish intoxication with progress will soon be forced to recognize that writing and books have a function that is eternal. It will become evident that formulation in words and the handing on of these formulations through writing are not only important aids but actually the only means by which humanity can have a history and a continuing consciousness of itself.”

For me though, the internet has definitely become another source of things to read, like the Brain Pickings that lands in my mailbox every weekend. I also have pocket, an app that lets you save articles to read off line. The pocket folks send me many emails with links to interesting articles, and there is also Stumble Upon who sends me more articles, and all those articles have links to still others. You could spend your entire life reading interesting stuff on line! But, I digress… this post is about books.

When you think about it, books are really an amazing gift. You can read the thoughts and ideas of people long dead, or the writings of the latest best selling author. There are books for entertainment, for learning, for understanding our world and the people in it. There are books on probably any subject you can imagine. All those people, all that wisdom and experience, all those books carefully written by countless people, they are all just waiting for you to read them.

For me, if I could no longer enjoy books, some of the color would go out of my world. My favorite thing these days is to put on an audio book and go weed the yard. I may look like I’m working hard, but I’m actually having a great time. A good book, the outdoors, the birds, the plants, the yard looking better, it just doesn’t get any better than that. Oh, and the bugs, can’t forget the bugs 😀

David is a working town. This is a mainly agricultural province, and the city of David is here to support the needs of the people living and working in the area. It is a great place to live with goods and services to meet all your needs. But, it is not a tourist attraction.

Martine, a French lady and one of my blog followers, spent a little time in David and we made plans to get together. Aside from visiting the downtown park and driving around a bit, what were we going to do? I did need to visit a Panamanian friend though, and I thought this would give her a look at the life and home of a local lady.

My friend Elizabeth is a lot of fun. She has parrots, plants, flowers, chickens, bees, fruit trees, medicinal plants, and is a wealth of information about plants, local food, where to shop, and all the things you would expect of a life time resident of the area. She is descended from a Danish man and an indigenous Panamanian woman on one side of the family, and a Spanish couple on the other side.  This day her sister Emma was also there. This was our first time meeting but we quickly became friends too.

Martine and one of the parrots

Elizabeth and her parrot CoochiCoochi

Martine and the parrot

Martine and one of Emma’s little dogs

We had so much fun! Martine speaks English well and understands quite a bit of Spanish, so with a little translation help now and then we were all able to get along very well. Since we were having such a good time, we decided to all pile in the car and go up to my house. My neighbor across the street was out so she also got involved in the conversation. Since she is a bilingual English teacher, communication was even easier all around. My friends love plants, so the first thing they wanted to do was walk around my yard and see what I had growing. We thought about going down to the river but nobody was wearing good footwear, and they needed to go home after a while because Elizabeth’s son was coming over.

I think Emma was singing for us

and Martine was enjoying the songs

Martine wanted a photo of her three new friends

Then we decided we needed a photo of all of us

Most of these photos are Martine’s, so thank you Martine for sharing all your photos so I could use them on my blog! 🙂

We headed back downtown and dropped off my friends. By now it was getting to be lunch time, and we decided that maybe lunch at the beach would be a good idea. Another friend, Tito, is always up for a ride to the beach and lives on the route out of town, so we stopped by to see if he wanted to join us (which he did).

These huge bulls were lounging on a corner in Guaramal

Mighty Machines! These big beasts are used to harvest rice. Now, big machines always make me think of my grandson and his love for big machines

Someone got loose and went wandering in the road.

It was a nice drive through the countryside, and we talked and laughed talked so much that the drive went quickly. In this area there is a lot of sugar cane, rice, and cattle, and everything is green and beautiful in the rainy season.

The beach! I was a beautiful sunny day, the waves were pounding in the rising tide, and we had the beach all to ourselves

Tito joined us for a great lunch of friend fish and patacones

It was a Tuesday and we had the entire beach area all to ourselves. There is a little restaurant and they only had fried fish but it was really good! They take the whole fish (they said it was rabalo), make some cuts in the thick part so it will cook evenly, and as far as I could tell they just toss the whole fish in oil until it is cooked. It was great!

But like all good things, the time eventually came to head back and call it a day. We had so much fun that we plan to get together again on Sunday and go to Boquete to hear Joel’s band. Well unfortunately, not Martine since she has traveled on now, but we will think of her and send pictures.

Apparently, when you don’t know what to do, you hunt down some Panamanian friends and have a great time doing not much of anything. It was such a fun day! Martine and I got along wonderfully and she really enjoyed having a day with people after days and days of traveling alone. And, she also got a taste of life as a resident rather than a tourist. Since she is considering living here later on this was good. She has to keep working for a few more years but hopefully there will be other visits to Panama before then.

And, something totally unrelated… we have a metal roof on this house, and I heard what sounded like a heard of animals running around on the roof. I finally went outside to see what was going on, and spotted this iguana. It saw me and froze as flat as it could to the roof, but I was still able to catch it with my camera. You can just see him left of center, pointed out by the pink arrows.

Sunday is my birthday and I’m looking forward to another fun time with my friends, this time with music and dancing. Life is good in Panama!