A Perfect Description of Rain in Panama

When we found out we were moving to Panama - (well, it happened so quickly that it seemed like someone had just told us we needed to move) - anyway…..a woman in our little town in Mexico, who was an acquaintance, had heard the news, so gave us a call and left a message one busy Saturday afternoon.  When I called her back, she told me she had a book about the Panama Canal that she would like to give us if we would just come and get it.  Since we had quite the interest in the Canal and it's history, we decided to go and get it.

 "The Path Between The Seas"  was like new -- and my husband got into it right away.  He would frequently stop his reading to tell me a tidbit of this or that.  Or he would raise his heads and say, "Did you know _________?"  It was fascinating - and he read it every chance he got - all the way through Central America to Panama, finishing it just before we arrived here in our final destination.

This week, my mom has been visiting, and so she has been reading the book as well.  Funny thing about the moisture in Panama.  Now the pages are swollen and it looks as if it has ben read 100 times!  She has been reading it with as much enjoyment as Bob had.  Mom got to this part in the book about the rain and shared it with me.  It's perfect!  Almost daily we hear the rain making it's way across the valley, dancing on tree leaves and tin roofs until it gets to us and begins pounding on ours.  Read this - it is an incredible description…..

“But no statistic conveyed a true picture of Panama rain.  It had to be seen, to be felt, smelled; it had to be heard to be appreciated.  The effect was much as though the heavens had opened and the air had turned instantly liquid.

 “The skies, when it was not raining, were nearly always filled with tremendous, towering clouds – magnificent clouds, and especially so in the light of early morning.  Then there would be an unmistakable rush of wind in the trees, a noticeable drop in temperature, a quick darkening overhead followed by a sound that someone likened to the ‘trampling of myriad feet’ through leaves.  In villages and towns everyone would instinctively dash for cover.  From the hills at Culebra the jungle could be seen to vanish before onrushing silver cataracts of rain, and howler monkeys would commence their eerie ruckus.

 “If one were to wait out the storm beneath a corrugated iron roof, the sound was like that of a locomotive.  Often these storms became violent thunderstorms, with lightning ‘so stunning,’ wrote one American, ‘it just makes a person feel as though he were drunk.’ And then, while the trees still tossed and roared, the rain would be over – in an instant.  The sun would be out again, fierce as ever.  Everything would glisten with rainwater and the air would be filled with the fecund, greenhouse smell of jungle and mud.”

            “The Path Between the Seas” by David McCullough, pgs. 132-133.

And every day, as it comes our way, we still look forward to it.  There's really something beautiful about it...

A Day Trip to Cascada Tavida

Before we ever came to Panama, we'd been hearing about some waterfalls near El Valle that are amazing - but had not gotten a chance to go see them….so…since my mom and sis are visiting, my nephew decided to take us to them. Before we ever left the house, we were warned by the kids that the road is treacherous and we might not really like it.  Oh, joy.  We were already committed, so we piled 8 of us into the car and headed off.

Now driving with my nephew is always quite the adventure anyway - he loves all things extreme - and loves to make driving somewhere fit in with that.  Yep - hold on to your hats, folks!

The familiar road heading up out of the valley on the far end of town wasn't so bad….steep, narrow roads at breakneck speeds (he said he was driving slow for us…he probably was!)  We got to the top of the hill and took a hard right - pretty much as steep of an incline down as you'd want to be on.  Soon all  semblance of a paved or smooth road was behind us, as we rocked and rolled up and down steep draws…we were definitely 4-wheeling - though he never had to put the vehicle into 4 wheel drive.  How could that be? Sure was feeling sorry for the kids in the back bouncing around!

The vistas were incredible, some drawing your eyes out of the valley and all the way to the ocean - others of steep mountain roads, green lush valleys, incredible tropical trees and plants. We drove through several rivers, working our way over boulders and probably going deeper into the water than we should have - but made it through each one.

Somewhere about halfway into this journey through nowhere, we happened on a house, giving us a clear idea of how far out in the jungle we were.  Clearly no electricity…the very basics...

 

Then came upon another - this one had a room built of wood boards, another built of concrete block and another built like the previous picture.  And THEN...

...right along side the road, we saw a satellite dish with wire connected to this little hut with a phone in it.  If you look closely, you can see it says Internet Gratis - WiFi  (Free Internet - and clearly, WiFi - but they say it wee-fee).  There were no houses around that could be seen - and the Internet connection didn't work (we tried), but maybe the phone was good.  And who would use it?  I guess that random person walking through the jungle??

This was a fence made by sticking limbs in the ground, and they grow into trees - these are seen all over Panama.  In fact, if you just want to plant something, get a piece off of another plant, and plant it.  

There ya go.

We continued down this poor excuse for a road for what seemed like forever - or at least an hour…., finally turned on to a paved road, and in a short time, were at the waterfalls.  Surprisingly, it was well groomed….with a palapa, bathroom, parking area, flower beds. hammocks….lovely.  

We could immediately see the waterfall as we looked over the edge of the railings of the palapa - and what a waterfall it was!

We began the walk down the well maintained pathway all the way down, as the kids ran ahead of us, anxious to hop in the water.  It was lush, lush green all the way down, and not a difficult walk.  Some stairs cut out of the mountainside, some just pathway, but all of it with sturdy railings made of local bamboo.  

We arrived at a spot close to the waterfall, but up about midway, where they had chairs waiting for us, and where we had an excellent view of the falls and the pool of water below.  Any closer, we would have been soaked.

The falls are approximately 105 feet high in the air and come over the top of the mountain with a mighty force, spraying far into the pool below.  When they were in the pool below the falls, the had to lean in to stay upright.  My great niece came up the stairway - dripping wet - and had yet to go into the pool of water.  Here are 3 great pics I found on another website.

 From the top of the falls

 This must have been a slow water day

Beautiful pool of water below.

The falls roared, nephews and nieces climbed and jumped off of the cliffs, looking like miniature people compared to the height of the falls, a Go-Pro camera was lost….and found….and we enjoyed it immensely.  

We left there and headed back on a paved road (imagine that!) stopping at a Fonda along the way for a late lunch.  For about $1.25, you could get an ample serving of rice and beans and a big bowl of Sancocho, the native Panamanian chicken soup (full of big chunks of vegetables).  In a Fonda, they make a pot of "whatever" in the morning, usually along with rice and beans and sell each serving for a minimal price until it's all gone - then they close up.  We might have cleaned them out for the day.

The road back was pleasantly smoother, with majestic views all the way, and took us by the crosses atop the mountains on the other end of El Valle de Anton, before coming back into the valley.  I would love to see the roads we took on a map, because I lost all sense of any direction, however couldn't even find the roads on Google Maps.  Imagine that. 

All in all - a great day. A fun trip.

Road Trip!

When a person comes to Panama, they are given a visa for 180 days.  Good.  Six months to spend here.  Well, unless you want to drive - then your license is only good for 90 days.  And your car?  30 days.  Genius.

We have been able to renew our car papers every 30 days in Panama City - UNTIL we got to the third month, and they told us we'd have to go to the border.  Since our licenses (American, but still, only 90 days) were expiring, we decided we'd better be taking a road trip.  My niece (Connie) and her son Mason's license were expiring as well, so we all hopped in the car, bringing Joey for entertainment, and headed to the Costa Rican border.  (If you know Joey, you're probably shaking your head right now, because basically, he doesn't talk much…..guess again!) We knew we didn't want to deal with this paperwork at the Paso Canoas exit, where we'd entered (total chaos!), so decided to try the crossing at Rio Sereno.  This crossing is so small that even people in Panama Immigration don't know about it.

We took off early Wednesday morning, as the crossing is about 6 hours away.  We stayed on the Pan American Highway crossing several large and fast running rivers, just past David, where we took a right and headed into the mountains at Concepcion .  The road wound around and around, back and forth, but through increasingly beautiful country.  As we climbed in elevation, we began to see fields and fields of coffee plants.  Row upon row, dark green against the lighter green of the mountains.  Coffee brands were painted in huge letters across the sides of large barns….Chiriqui Flor, Duran, Jansen and a host of other names.  All of it was a bit difficult to see as the clouds set themselves down on the mountains and rain poured as if keeping a secret.

We reached our destination - the border.  Two little official buildings on each side. On the Panama side, they told us we needed to check with Costa Rica to see what to do with the car. We walked over to Costa Rica and were told we couldn't cross with it there. We needed an Aduana, Costa Rican Insurance, etc…etc.. Oh, joy!  The guy was Costa Rica was kind enough to drive over to Panama (100 yards) and came back with good news. Panama would work with us on this. Walked back to the Panama side - they checked the car "out" of Panama (though it never left), and told us we could park it in their fenced yard. We got our passports stamped - crossed in to CR with our luggage in tow, had our passports stamped there, then waited for a bus to take us to the nearest hotel in Costa Rica..

We loaded our bags into what I'm certain was an old school bus repainted, with seats that had little padding and shocks that had seen their better days.  What looked like a pretty decent gravel road quickly turned into a mess of mud, rocks, steep hills, holes and curves and as we bounced along rocking and rolling, on our way to who knew where, we couldn't help but laugh.  The only thing missing were the chickens!   We felt as if we were in an Indiana Jones movie!   

We finally arrived at a little town called San Vito - and fortunately Connie had been there before, so took us right to the Hotel they'd stayed at the last time. 

 Center of town - cool pots!

We got our rooms and head out to eat.  They had also been to this darling little Italian restaurant before, so that's where we went.  As soon as we'd crossed the border, Connie had gotten some Colones - the Costa Rican money.  However, she really had no idea how much she had.  The bills were 5000 and

10, 000.  One person told us the exchange rate was 1000 - 1, another 500 to 1, another 1500 to 1.  We were clueless.  Our trusty little smart phones no longer had data, so we kept guessing.

Pizza was 4000 colones.  We thought that was $4.00.  When all was done (delicious meal, by the way), we laid out 50,000 colones and thought we'd gotten a great meal for a fair price.  Whoops!  Ends up it was close 500 to 1, so  a pizza dinner for 5 cost us close to 100 bucks!  Fortunately, breakfast was free.

After dinner, we went into a small grocery store to check it out.  VERY nice little store!  Made me want to stay there!

We reversed the trip the next morning, except the sun was shining, so we got to take in the sights around us.  This time, we took 2 busses - the first one stopping at the town at the end of the paved road - Sabalito.  These towns were darling, rivers running through them, reminding us of quaint mountain towns in the Sierra Nevadas.  We changed busses and took off on the gravel roads once again, looking forward to the comfort of the car left on the other side of the border.  We arrived, checked the car back "in", got our passports stamped in both countries, loaded up and headed for home.  Can I just say, the Chiricanos (Panama) and the Costa Ricans we encountered we so very friendly, helpful and pleasant to be around ?!?!?!  What a treat!

Since we were in the heart of coffee country, I really wanted to stop at one of the fincas (farms) and check one of them out.  The fields of coffee went as far as we could see on either side of the road - workers carrying plastic laundry type tubs hanging on their shoulders with a strap fashioned of fabric were headed to the fields to pick the coffee. I'm pretty sure I saw Juan Valdez, standing in a field with a deep red shirt and a campesino hat picking beans.  As we neared Volcan Baru, an area noted for coffee (where Starbucks even buys some of it's beans - and dilutes them down with less costly beans), we found the sign for Jansen Coffee Farm.  A 3 km drive took us to a booth on the road, where the guy told us to turn right until we got to the farm.  So we did…right on to a runway!?!  Really. We found our way to the farm, past the drying area, up the hill and to their coffee shop.

 A quaint little shop on top of the hill

 Had to call them to open up, but then got some wonderful coffee and snacks - all of it delicious, while we overlooked a tranquil valley.

Steep stairs climbing up to the coffee shop through a tunnel of trees.

We didn't have time to take one of their many tours, but bought a little coffee to take home and vowed to take longer next time we come back.

Needless to say, our trip home from Rio Sereno took longer than the trip up, as we stopped briefly here and there, but we thoroughly enjoyed it…. with teasers of all we will want to see whenever we get to go back there.  We had a great time together as family, and look forward to returning to the coffee region someday….

….just for fun.