After settling in at the new hotel on the 10th we asked about a place to eat and were told of two fairly good places nearby. As one of them was primarily middle eastern food and that has never been one of my favorites (I’m not fond of grape leaves and everything seems to come wrapped in those) we decided to try a little Bistro in the opposite direction on the main street. We walked the two blocks to the main street and turned north the two blocks to the bistro only to find that it was closed. Apparently Panama celebrates their independence for the entire month of November and this was one of the days of observance. We ended up just having a snack in a Panadaria but that was sufficient for us. We also stopped at an open supermarket and picked up some drinks to put in the refrigerator in our room and a couple of other snacks just to have on hand. As I was unfamiliar with the different beers available in Panama I purchased three different ones, but only one of each, just to see which one was the best. I’ve got to say, none of them compare to the Pilsen, nor even to the Imperial in Costa Rica.
When returning to the hotel we noticed that less than 100 meters from our roundhouse was a little outdoor restaurant that served everything a la leña, which is wood cooked. We decided that if we were hungry around 8:00 we’d return for dinner. Unfortunately, we never got to try the food there as both of us were tired and went to bed early, still not really needing anything to eat. I am sorry that we didn’t go there directly from the hotel as I really would have liked to try their food. Perhaps on the next trip to Boquete, if there is one!
Although the new roundhouse had an excellent wi-fi signal, I still couldn’t connect to the internet so used a portion of the remaining afternoon figuring that out. I noticed that the booster for the signal for the outlying roundhouses was in our room so did what I do in the US when my wi-fi at home gives me problems acquiring an IP address, I turned it off and back on a couple of minutes later. I hope that I didn’t disrupt any other guests but that fixed my problem for the duration of our stay.
The next day, the 11th, we had a full day of activity. After having breakfast at Isla Verde in their outside breakfast facility, a local real estate agent picked us up and took us to their office, which only turned out to be two blocks away. We reviewed several homes on a large screen TV that connected directly to their website. This was so much more technical than what we’ve experienced in Costa Rica that it was a bit amazing. We selected about six different properties to view in varying price ranges an set off with Jason to see them.
Here, I have to make a note about Jason. Jason is a North American and married to a Panamanian woman. They are both in their early forties and recently married. They were off and on with the cell phone about every ten minutes the whole time we were with him. This would have been endearing had it not affected his ability to find the properties we were looking for. I think there were only one or two of the properties that he actually knew exactly where to find.
I’m going to make this short and state that although most of the properties we saw were nice, the prices in Boquete are outrageous. Perhaps this is due to the recent surge in immigration to that area but according to everything that I’ve read, that surge tapered off two years ago. They seem to be building new homes as if the surge is expected to continue and pricing them accordingly! Should you be interested in seeing the properties that we saw they are on my FaceBook page in the album “After the Farm”.
As Jason’s wife was bugging him to take her to a late lunch, and we had seen all that we really wished to, we headed back into the downtown area of Boquete and Jason dropped us off at a Mexican restaurant that I wished to visit. I’ve said it before but I must state again that in Costa Rica the best Mexican food I’ve found was at Taco Bell. I know there must be good Mexican food available somewhere but I’ve yet to find it!
Doris and I had a very nice lunch (I must insert here that I tried yet another variety of beer and also found it wanting) and afterward did some shopping, walking a good portion of the main street through Boquete. Us shopping means that she shops and I follow along behind carrying the purchases. I don’t really mind doing that until my old legs start to bother me, which only takes about half an hour. We didn’t spend much more time than that and Doris found some nice gifts that I’ll not describe as those who will be getting those items might be reading this entry. I did actually purchase something for myself, which is a real rarity as if it isn’t at Wal-Mart, Best Buy or Fryes or the Apple Store I generally have no interest! (I know, Wal-Mart for clothes, the Apple Store for computer equipment and supplies. Such are our priorities in this technical age!) Anyway, I got myself a t-shirt as a souvenir of our visit to Panama. I’s also seen a Guayabera shirt that I really liked but it wasn’t available in my size.
We returned to the hotel with our purchases and then attempted to get them into the few pieces of luggage that we had brought with us. We eventually figured that out with only one extra shopping bag to carry with us.
As we’d had a late lunch, having finished around three in the afternoon, we weren’t interested in having dinner so had another early night to bed in the loft! That was good because we had a full day ahead of us the following day with bus trips from Boquete to David and then David to Changuinola followed by a taxi ride to the border. Doris wasn’t happy with getting up early but had agreed that we should leave by 8:00 in the morning to facilitate getting to the border before it closed at 6:00 p.m.
We didn’t have breakfast the morning we left Boquete so Doris only had to get up at 7:00 to be ready by 8:00. Only being in Panama a couple of days hadn’t given our bodies time to adjust to the one hour time difference, which meant it was actually 6:00 when she arose. For me this wasn’t a problem and even when I go to the US for my one week monthly visit I don’t bother to change my watch. All my computers are on Costa Rica time so they synchronize properly and even in the winter with a two-hour time difference, I’m usually ready for bed at my normal 8:30 Costa Rica time and up between 3:30 and 4:30 in the morning (according to the time on my watch!).
When we checked out of the hotel the owner asked us if we wanted a taxi to the bus stop and as it was about six blocks away, and I would be carrying or hauling most of the luggage, we agreed. Once in the taxi Doris asked how much to just take us to the border and thereupon ensued a period of negotiation. Although it was more than our taxi trip from the border to Boquete, I agreed and am very happy to have done so. We stopped several times on the way so that I could take some pictures and even stopped about half way to eat a very early lunch.
I must mention the condition of the road from David to Almirante. Last November about a five kilometer section of the pass over the Continental Divide had been the victim of a landslide and they are still making repairs to this section. One reason this has taken so long is the need to fill the off sides of the road to provide support for the repaired road and this takes a tremendous amount of material and is very time consuming. At some points they must fill hundreds of feet of lost earth. I’ve posted several pictures of this area on my FaceBook page and a three minute video on YouTube at fincadelpacuareCR should you care to see it.
We arrived at the border before noon and were through both immigration facilities and across the bridge by 12:20. We’d used the taxi’s cell phone to call our friend, Horst, at Cabinas Rio Cocles and he arrived about fifteen minutes after our crossing with our rental car and a very happy Gypsy. We were soon back in our cabin in Puerto Viejo to rest up for the drive back to Chitaria the following morning.
As I’d only taken Doris notebook on the trip to Panama I was happy to be back in possession of my own laptop. The notebook was selected due to its weight and size but I had to make a few adjustments and add some folders to it to facilitate my work, which was coming in at an increased speed due to the deadline next week the next publication. Most of the afternoon was used transferring and updating files and in reconfiguration of Doris notebook to eliminate items that would probably only serve to confuse her. As she is just now, and rather slowly, attempting to learn the computer I’m trying to keep her notebook as simple as possible.
In our absence Gypsy didn’t create a problem for Horst and Marglet but was apparently a bit confused. Their room at the facility is upstairs in the main house and the first night Marglet carried Gypsy up the stairs, not remembering that Gypsy lived most of her life in our second story home on the farm. The next morning Gypsy wasn’t sure of the stairs (they are a bit steeper than ours were) so she just peed at the top of the stairs. No one seemed to be upset about that when we returned and Gypsy rapidly became deft in going up and down the stairs. Horst had rented the air-conditioned cabin that we usually stay in which also caused Gypsy a bit of confusion because we were no longer there. The funniest part of her stay was when Horst left our car doors open and Gypsy jumped in and didn’t wish to leave. She did this again when I was packing the car getting ready to leave to return to Chitaria and often does this when any luggage is put in the car. She just doesn’t wish to be left behind, perhaps because she has been left at the farm often enough over the years. She no longer has the familiarity of that place and the other animals so must be afraid of losing her only remaining family.
We had a relatively pleasant afternoon return to the farm on Friday the 13th. We have a lot to get ready prior to our departure to the US but couldn’t get started just yet with that due to my appointment on Saturday morning for lab tests.
I don’t know if I mentioned it earlier but prior to our departure to Panama I’d taken the old Suzuki, which Vicky had purchased, into Turrialba for some repairs that needed to be made. The car was ready to be picked up so I walked down the hill to catch the 7:00 bus to town. That was yesterday morning and we were having a considerable rainstorm when I did so. I took pictures from the bus stop with the cell phone camera and here they are:
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Clicking on them should show a full sized image, at least the full size that was uploaded.
After a full hour’s trip on the bus I went first to the Lab to get that started and had the first blood drawn and all the other items completed at the same time. I had to drink a glucose mixture and then, without having any other drink or food, return in two hours to have blood drawn again. I hadn’t had anything to eat or drink, except a swallow of juice when taking my daily medications at 5:00 the evening prior, since prior to leaving Cabinas Rio Cocles just after noon of Friday. I was really hungry and not at all happy with another two hour wait.
While waiting I went to the repair facility and picked up Vicky’s car, went to the pharmacy and acquired two additional months worth of medicine for myself, went to the vets and picked up 200 pounds of food for the horses and also made a trip to the bank for enough cash (in colones) to finalize everything in Costa Rica prior to our departure. Finally it was time to return to get the other blood drawn and then back to Chitaria.
Since the gas gauge on the Suzuki doesn’t work I needed to put some fuel in the car to insure enough to make a round trip from and too Chitaria. I’d instructed Vicky to always fill it up, zeroing the odometer at the same time, which would guarantee that there would be enough gas in the car until the trip meter got to 150. At that time you should start thinking about filling it up again. This has always worked well for us as the gauge quit working within a month of purchasing the vehicle way back in ’98. Apparently, this instruction didn’t take as there was over 380 miles on the trip meter, which meant that I had absolutely no idea how many miles were on the car. Someone is going to run out of gas and that will certainly cause the engine to have sucked up the dirty gas at the bottom of the tank and probably foul the carburetor.
So, after putting in about $10 of gas I proceed to stop at Betico Mata and have lunch and a beer. I’m going to miss that place more than any other around here so picked up a bottle of his famous hot sauce (from his father’s secret recipe) to take with me to the States. I do know that he uses Habenero peppers (also referred to as Jabañero – check out) in it so it’s something to be wary of if you aren’t used to really spicy (meaning hot) sauces. I can’t wait to share this with some of my friends and will probably carry it to Phoenix with me for the Holidays. In retrospect, I should have also picked up a couple of bottles of his marinade.
That’s about it, other than to say that I slept through all but the last three minutes of the Costa Rica/Uruguay Fútbol game last night. Uruguay won the game with a score of 1-0 here in Costa Rica but there’s another game in Uruguay in a couple of days and if CR can win with a margin of victory greater than that one point they will earn a trip to the World Cup next summer. They way they’ve been playing doesn’t tend to make me believe that they can accomplish this so now I’ll be rooting for the US in the World Cup!
I’ve a lot to do today in finishing up with packing and getting several items here put securely away for the time we will be absent. The house will only be vacant for a bit over a month so that isn’t too bad but I don’t know who will be here while we’re gone and really don’t wish for our things to be bothered nor used. Several things that were out for use have already disappeared and I don’t wish for that to be repeated.
I probably won’t get around to another update until something worth mentioning happens in the US or on our return to the frozen north. The first week back will be spent sitting in front of four computer screens and doing my month’s work, which isn’t an item of interest to anyone other than me and the publisher of Dusty Times newspaper.
We do plan to go in search of a house there so that might be reported on!
Hasta Luego y Con Dios Acompaña
