Toddlers and Serenity? You wouldn’t think they would go together, but we took the toddler for an outing at Spring Lake in Santa Rosa. It is a beautiful setting where it is possible to take many photos of serene scenes.
Pictures of the toddler will be in another post 😀
Many expats are concerned about being away from family and grandchildren. In a way, I am almost lucky that I didn’t live close to my children before moving to Panama, so this wasn’t a big adjustment. Since we use more video chats now rather than regular phone calls, sometimes I felt like I actually see more of my kids than before.
But, I certainly look forward anxiously to visits and time in person with my family. It is even more important now that I also have a grandson. Children grow and change so fast that he is almost like a new person every time I see him!
Of course no blog post from California would be complete without some pictures of my grandson!
There are more things to photograph and talk about, but at the moment I am keeping busy doing things with the family. Stay tuned. I will get back to posting more soon!
Yesterday we decided to take a drive into the Washington mountains east of Seattle, an area I hadn’t seen before. It was fun going out together and this part of the country is really beautiful. We were lucky that the day was a bit cloudy and foggy but we had almost no rain, and the roads were clear at the higher elevations.
Long awaited visits always seem too short when they finally happen, but today it is time to travel on to California. I am already looking forward to a return visit to Washington this summer!
We have returned to the U.S. to visit my daughters. The first part of this trip is the travel to Panama City. There are some options for accomplishing this.
COPA is just about to start flights from Tocumen (the international airport in Panama City) to David (the hub for travel to the mountains and beaches in Chriqui). This is good news because up until now, Air Panama has been the only option. They fly out of Allbrook, the local airport on the other side of Panama City so time, a $30-35 taxi ride, and possibly a night in a hotel are necessary.
If you travel to Panama City by ground, you can drive or take the bus. Right now we wouldn’t consider driving because the road is either under construction or in poor condition between David and Santiago (the half way point), and when you get to the city you have to figure out something to do with your car (there are fees for parking at the airport). The buses are large, comfortable (except for cold air conditioning most of the time), and affordable at $15.25 per person.
The trip in the bus is long, so I appreciate that they stop for a break in Santiago, and show movies (even if they aren’t always ones I would choose).
We finally made it to Panama City! We got a bite to eat at the bus terminal and then caught a taxi to our hotel near the airport in preparation for our flight out the next morning. Our first flight was to Atlanta. We booked with Delta but the second leg from Atlanta to Seattle was an Air Alaska flight. It was a new, comfortable plane with free movies which made the long flight go much faster.
It is really good to be back here with my family! We have Internet and video chats to keep in touch but sometimes you just have to be there, and be together in person.
This week didn’t go as planned. I am at my daughter’s home in Seattle. The cat was sitting on the floor where the ceiling track light was casting a sharp shadow, making a perfect photo for this challenge. Of course, as soon as I grabbed the camera the cat had left to join the others in the anxious wait for breakfast.
Well OK then, if I can’t photograph the cats the way I want, I will play with the shadows of the chair legs.
Breakfast is finally served, and calm and contentment returns among the household cats. Pumpkin takes up her favorite spot on a barstool, which I thought made for some interesting ideas with the reflections in the countertop.
And then, suddenly, in a flash, the cat jumps to the other barstool and there is a brief but unmistakable cat shadow!
Enough of chasing the elusive cat shadows. Let’s get on with the day.
This doesn’t exactly meet the photo challenge but it was fun just the same.
In mid to late December the rainy season ends and summer starts. This is the dry and sometimes windy season. The last three days have been very windy indeed! It seems the winds have been stronger and have lasted longer than what I remember from other summers. I can only imagine what it is like higher up in the mountains where it tends to be much windier than down here closer to sea level.
So, it is windy and there are leaves and debris everywhere, and biking home is especially challenging against the head wind. But, there have also been some more unusual occurrences in the last couple days.
I have written about the oropendolas in the past HERE. This post has some photos of the birds making nests in this very same spot. Fortunately these didn’t fall down until many months later (and unfortunately landed in the street and were destroyed by the cars). Here also is a video of one of them doing his interesting and unique display.
The guaba, also knows as the Inga or ice cream fruit, is an interesting tree. It is a nitrogen fixing tree and there are about 300 species of them, found mainly in the Amazon rain forest. Some have pods as much as a meter long! Â Here is another article with some good pictures of the fruit that is familiar to us here.
I have something new in the yard. I like to garden, and if you can have something pretty that also produces food, so much the better. Here in Panama many foods are new to me, as are the plants that produce them.
Little by little as time allows I have been cleaning up and arranging the yard. My friends have helped me with advice, suggestions, seeds, and plant starts. Now we have bananas, pineapples, coconuts, plantains, guandu (pigeon peas), baby coffee plants, as well as a number of fruit trees that were here when I arrived.
My latest addition is yuca (or cassava). I saw someone planting it in the neighborhood and asked what he was doing. All you need is a stick or cutting, put it in the ground with part below and part above ground, and wait for leaves to appear. There is yuca growing wild in the woods, so off I went with my cutters to bring some home and give it a try. Â In about six months it should be ready for me to dig the tubers, with any luck about 15 pounds of them per plant.
I also learn new things through blogging. I read the Wikipedia link for yuca and learned a lot! Apparently this plant has poisons, so it must be cooked or properly processed to remove the toxins. I’m glad I didn’t take a bite of the raw root just to try it. The leaves can also be eaten but they also must be cooked to get rid of the toxins.
This root is a major food source for over half a billion people in Africa, Asia, the Pacific Islands, and other tropical areas such as Panama. Of all the root vegetables available here, it is one of my favorites. I will be very happy if I can grow yuca in my yard and enjoy the harvest. At the rate I’m going my yard is going to look more like a farm every year. But, here in Panama, this is very normal. It seems like almost everyone is growing food of one sort or another in their yards.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Warmth
We are going into summer here so warmth is not a problem. We have left the rainy season of warm and balmy days and afternoon rains, and have come into the dry season of warmer, dry, and breezier days and slightly cooler nights.
A couple days ago I biked to Boquerón which took me about 1 1/2 hr. It was a clear day, the sun was intense, and I was definitely more than warm when I arrived. I had a very enjoyable break with my friend and fellow blogger Richard, and I drank an entire pitcher of ice water while we chatted.
This adorable three year old also wanted to chat while her mom worked making food and serving the customers. She played with everything on my bike, asked us a hundred questions, drug chairs over to inspect the higher parts of the bike, and did her best to keep the conversation going non stop even when Richard and I took an aside for our own conversation. The Panamanians generally have wonderful warm smiles, but the children are especially beautiful in this regard.
It was a warm day, we were greeted warmly and cared for with kindness at the fonda, and the little girl was like a bit of sunshine. I think that covers “warm” quite well!
Weekly Photo Challenge: Yellow  With this week’s challenge, show us what yellow means to you.
Yellow?? This is a country of green. There isn’t much yellow that comes to mind, but after days of thought here are a few photos.
Celebrations in Panama are always fun and interesting, and New Year’s Eve is no exception. There are the expected midnight parties and lots of fireworks, of course, and something else I find especially interesting – the muñecos.
A muñeco is an effegy, often of a political figure, but it can be of absolutely anything the person wants. It can represent good things and wishes for the coming year, but it often represents frustrations and bad things from the past year which are set on fire at midnight and go up in smoke. I can think of a few bad years in my past that I would have loved to watch go up in smoke!
I think the interior provinces of Panama participate in this practice more, but I did see quite a few muñecos in our area, including one in our neighborhood that was great fun.
There is an interesting article HERE about the muñencos in Panama. I’m sure a Google search will bring up more if you are interesting in learning more.
Once again, it was a great neighborhood party. We were greeted, kissed on the cheek, and wishes Feliz Año Nuevo by so many people, and I had a great conversation with a new family down the street that I didn’t know before. If you want to have a good time here you only need to walk out your front door. That’s one of the many things I love about the Panamanian people.
