Since my “office” is on the patio I am often visited by various insects and spiders. I keep my camera and macro lens within grabbing distance in case I am inspired to point it at something. These are a few of the tiny spiders who have visited me recently.
Sometimes you can’t see how beautiful they are until you see the enlarged photo.
I wasn’t sure what this was at first, just some little thing waiving its legs around. This is the power cord to my computer, to give you a sense of scale.
Now he is on the table in front of my computer, still waving the front legs.
cute little thing, eh?
Now he is in front of my mouse pad, still waving a leg.
I didn’t know how cool this one was either until I downloaded and enlarged the photos.
He almost looks like he has four eyes!
Pretty little spider.
This is the last of the bug and spider photos, for now. With all the insect life around here I am sure there will be more.
I have various photos that don’t fit under any particular subject, just things I’ve come across as I go about my days.
There are a lot of black vultures and turkey vultures (with a red head) around here.
This one had found something interesting to eat.
We have a compost pile and sometimes we have iguanas, butterflies, and birds. One day Joel spotted five iguanas!
These beautiful motmots visit us quite often.
One day the horses were relaxing under the trees and looking picturesque.
Our bird bath also gets a lot of visitors. The one on the right just finished flapping around in the water and is all wet, and the other is ready to go in.
These beautiful doves also come to drink, but they don’t seem to enjoy baths.
Who is this Daddy Ray anyway?? He looks a bit scary.
We rescued this plant from someone’s yard trash and it has been growing well. It recently surprised us with a flower. It only lasted a day.
Last week I biked uphill and came to the pretty river.
The cows were getting a drink in the river.
One evening we were out when there was this great sunset.
More of the beautiful sunset.
Our neighbors have a mariñon tree (cashew nut) and the fruit is popular. This black squirrel was enjoying a bit in the crook of the tree,
It is really nice here now. The rainy season has returned. It isn’t raining most days but we have had a couple good downpours and more sprinkles. It’s generally cooler with no more strong winds, and the humidity is back. For me this works, and it is surprising how much greener everything is already.
We have been having fun with a couple great cyclists who are staying with us, and we have mostly just been chilling this weekend. This coming week? Who knows? The plan tomorrow is a trip to the fishermen, some tennis play, and there will be more bike rides later. I let the leaves cover the yard while it was so hot and dry so now it’s time to clean up the yard as well.
On our way back from Rio Sereno we stopped by Cedo’s farm. One of the calves had a tummy upset and diarrhea, and Cedo had bought some medicine for him in Rio Sereno. She wanted to deliver the medicine and check on him.
The month old little guy with the tummy upset.
The two month old girl was hanging out with the newborn.
The newest addition as of yesterday, another little girl.
I enjoyed seeing the calves. They were in their building to keep them out of the hot afternoon sun, and they also spend nights in there with a light on. There are vampire bats here who will bite calves and make them sick, and the lights keep them away. I watched as the caretaker gave the sick calf his medicine, and listened as Cedo talked with him about teaching the calves to eat. Like any newborn they are fed mother’s milk (with a bottle though), and must learn to eat and drink without the bottle. They are separated from their mothers in a few days or the mothers don’t want to accept the milking machine and of course, being dairy cows, they need to be milked. Every time I visit I learn a little more about taking care of cows.
Someone else is going to have a calf one of these days
The cows were hanging around in the milking area with the radio on. Cedo told me that the radio is for the cows. They are calmer and give more milk if they have music in the afternoon before they are milked! I wonder if they would rather have Mozart than pop rock, or if they don’t care either way.
Since we were there, of course we had to visit the pigs.
The piglets are growing! (and apparently too busy to sit still for a clear photo)
Two of the gals were playing outside
This one looks like she got into the makeup. I’ll have to ask what this was about, maybe some skin or eye medicine?
This farm visit was Tuesday. On Wednesday Cedo went back to the farm to meet the veterinarian who was doing an inspection of all the animals. She sells Grade A milk to Nevada, one of the bigger dairies in the area and there are strict requirements, one of which is this yearly vet report on the health of the animals. She came back frustrated because she also needs to go back to the farm every day this week to document exactly what each cow is consuming, how much and what kind of food, and how much water. She also needs to take the water to be tested for bacteria or other contamination which will cost $50. She thinks this is a bit over the top for a small, cleanly run farm. But, I guess you can’t fault the dairy for having strict standards for the milk they sell under their label.
Farming is WORK. I have a whole lot more appreciation every time we buy milk from the store because I know more about all the effort that goes in to producing it.
Some beautiful flowers blooming near the milking building.
Rio Sereno is a town on the Costa Rica border. Drive up to Volcan and keep going as the road turns west, and it will take you through hills and mountains and some gorgeous scenery to the town. We (Cedo, Lauren, Joel, and I) had no particular reason to go except to see the area and have a day out.
The town itself is small, and there are a lot of little markets lining the main street.
There were people relaxing in the town park, and that looks like a school across the street.
We stopped for a very good lunch – beef, pork, or chicken with rice, beans, a chayote salsa, and salad. $4/apiece.
Were were actually in Costa Rica when we ate lunch. The other side of the street was Panama. There was a duty free store just down the street with some excellent prices on liquor, but we were told it isn’t to be taken back into Panama. There was a border agent from each country in the street so we decided saving a few dollars wasn’t worth any possible trouble. The immigration office was just above where we ate lunch but we didn’t go there since we weren’t planning to cross the border.
Cedo has a lot of siblings, and it happens that one of her brothers lives in Rio Sereno so we stopped by for a visit.
He has a really nice house and lovely yard.
This man definitely likes to garden! He had so many things growing and I had a good time being shown all around the garden.
He also has a great view from the front yard.
Cedo with her brother on her right, and a brother-in-law on the left who was visiting that day.
The best thing about driving through this area is the scenery! The road is very windy with lots of ups and downs, but there are some really beautiful views. There are a lot of plantains and coffee grown there, often planted together. It is also cool and moist enough to grow a lot of vegetables, but most of what we saw was coffee, plantains, and cows.
Water buffalo!
We were also very surprised to see a couple cyclists making their way up the hills! They weren’t young folks either, but looked to be retirement age and quite loaded down. What a difficult ride that must be!
It’s a cool, cloudy day in David after a nice rainstorm, a good day to catch up on blog posts. I have a few other things waiting so stand by.
I love planes! It is amazing to me that this huge, heavy machine can float in the air. A few days ago I was biking by the airport just as one of the Air Panama flights took off for Panama City.
I think when you think of the word “afloat”, water usually comes to mind. As I was working on this post we got hit with a downpour, so I got some water photos too.
We are just coming out of the dry season, so we are very happy to be a bit afloat in rainwater.
There was so much rain coming off the roof that the side yard was almost afloat!
Ed wanted to make a new video since the old one was two years old and I’m making it available here. DO NOT CONTACT ME (JOEL), contact Ed (Eduardo Horna riochiriqui@gmail.com 507-6567-1127, 507-6757-0005 )forany and all rental/purchase questions.
Special thanks go to Kris for the camera work and uploading to Youtube!
Friday a bunch of us set off to find a new swimming spot that Holly (of Let The Adventure Begin) knew about. Emma (of a Woman, a Plan, a Canal… , but who has been way too busy to write for a while) was visiting and we all wanted to spend some time together. Joel (of Finding Myself in Panama) and Lauren (of Air Propel Latin America) and I met up at the intersection of Via Boquete and the road to Caldera. (whew, that’s a lot of bloggers all together!).
We proceeded to follow Holly’s car through Caldera and beyond on windy, hilly roads into places I’d never seen before.
It was Good Friday, and we passed this procession of people singing hymns.
The scenery became more and more beautiful
We took these photos on the way back so I could get out of the car when I saw especially amazing spots.
It’s very dry now and brush fires are common. Apparently there was one up in those hills.
I feel so fortunate to live in this beautiful country.
Just one more photo of beautiful mountains
We ended up at a spot with a little room to pull over and park, and then walked the rest of the way. It apparently is private property, and the guy at the gate said he would like $2/person when we leave. As close as I can figure this location is about 19 kilometers from the Via Boquete / Caldera road intersection, and we were going to Rio Chiriqui Nuevo. I did think to start my cycling ap shortly after we left the area so with any luck THIS will bring up a map that will get you close to the location. It’s a great spot so remembering how to find it is for my benefit as much as anyone else’s.
We walked through dry grass and big rocks
We passed between some really big rocks!
Little did we know what a beautiful spot awaited us!
And, little did we know the fun had just begun. As we got out of our cars we saw three other cars pulling in, and it wasn’t long before those people joined us at the swimming hole. As they started unpacking and getting settled, I turned around to look at the guy behind me and found I was looking into the face of Cesar Augusto Melendez, the rock climber! Not only is he a very accomplished climber, he’s quite handsome, a really nice guy and I enjoyed talking with him. I told him my daughter and son-in-law are climbers, and he said he hopes they can visit Panama sometime because he would love to take them climbing. He even gave me his card so I can get in touch with him.
Cesar was out with maybe 20 young people from Panama City. A lot of people from the city like to take advantage of the holiday and go to “the interior” to beaches, rivers, and other spots where they can swim, cool off, and enjoy themselves.
The young people gather and prepare for a day of fun.
Holly and Emma make their way into the cool water.
Cesar strung a line across the water and was the first to walk along it.
Then, others try their luck walking on the line. Scott, Holly’s husband, found a good spot on the rock to enjoy the sun and fun.
It’s a good place to do this because when you fall, you only fall into the water not far below.
Then, the next thing we knew Cesar appeared on the rocks high up above the water! The next activity was for people to climb up to an outcropping of rock, grab the vine, swing over and jump into the water below.
I had noticed the big vine earlier.
Cesar up on the rocks
Everyone laughs and cheers as people land in the water
Another guy makes the jump
Cesar helps a girl get ready to jump
She swings out on the vine for the jump
Unfortunately the girl in purple slipped and hit another outcropping below. Thankfully she only hit her foot, but it was bruised and she couldn’t walk on it. Later her friends helped her to the car and headed off to the hospital for some help.
Sometimes fun is not without risk, so we were very happy the injured girl hadn’t done anything worse. Hopefully it’s only a bad bruise, or at worst a cracked bone on the top of her foot.
It was quite chilly getting into the water, but once in it was very nice. It looks like Holly wants to be sure we notice her in the background 😀
Lauren enjoys a nice spot on a rock
There were a lot of GoPro’s and cameras to record the day’s activities.
Later, Cesar and some of the others decided to rappel down the waterfall!
First Cesar comes down the waterfall.
Then Cesar stands by while another guy comes down.
It is such a beautiful spot!
This is the group up top helping, watching, and waiting their turns to come down.
Another starts down
It was amazing to see Cesar climb around on the rocks like it was nothing, so sure footed, unafraid, and capable!
But, like all good things, the time came when we had to head back. What a great morning! Not only did we have a great time with friends, we saw a beautiful new spot, and really enjoyed being there with the young people and Cesar. Thank you Holly for yet another great outing!
The Panama Adventure 