Change of Season

Most of the time, I just don't sleep well....this has gone on for years and years. Sometimes, I just get up in the middle of the night and do something....read, watch TV, work on a project. But last night, I just went out to the living room and sat in the dark. (Hoping the lack of light would help me go to sleep sooner.) As I looked out our windows, the lights from below lit up the trees - trunks highlighted against the dark black behind them. The limbs twisted and interwove amongst themselves, reaching into the sky (they have huge trees here) and the light of the moon shone through the branches. I was pleasantly surprised to see a sky full of stars.

You see, the forest is dense... so dense that it blocks the view of the stars. But then, in addition, El Valle is so frequently covered by clouds that a person can't even look us up on Google Earth and find anything more than a blurry mess. So why was I seeing this abundance of stars?

The leaves are gone! On some of the trees, anyway.

It occurred to me that the seasons really do change here....even though the temps are pretty much the same all year long....perfect! I know, boring, right? NOT.  I think I've mentioned before that this time of year is called summer in Panama...even though we are still north of the equator.  The kids are out of school from December until the end of February, it doesn't rain nearly as much, the wind is a part of everyday life....so...summer.

Aha! The wind!  The wind is blowing the clouds away at times so that we can see the sky! And God's great leaf blower is clearing some of the trees so we can see through them!

So...this morning, I began to take notice of the things that have changed in the past couple of months.

For one, India Dormida (Sleeping Indian) is drying up.

I understand that soon they will burn the dry grass off of her, so that she'll green up nicely again. I hadn't realized how brown she was getting!

Also, the bougainvillea are blooming.

On the roadsides, on the fences...everywhere we drive. Brilliant sprays of color bursting forth where once had been only green that blended into the forest....and look at that corn!  It's been growing since around Thanksgiving and looks like it's getting close to picking.

This, by the way, is the view from our patio.  Corn, bougainvillea, bright turquoise house (happy!) and the Sleeping Indian up above. We love our place!

A lot of the flowers are perking up.

The vines are making their way across the fences, covering more area than they have in the months
prior.  New flowers are being planted and taking off like they've been in the ground for months.

Instead of being pretty much covered by clouds all the time (we are in a cloud forest, after all), the wispy clouds gracefully dance by overhead, almost always allowing a peak of blue sky...like putting on a show.

The children are out in force...walking in groups or on bicycles meant for one being ridden by two or more....filling the streets with laughter.

Yes, the seasons are changing ....

And I do believe I will have to call this .....

Summer.

OK, so what do we call the rest of the year???

Expectations, Disappointments and Surprises

Bob and I both love flowers. LOVE. We've always had lots of them in our yards, and whenever we get the opportunity, we love to see them.  When in Germany visiting my folks, we made a trip to Keukenhof in Holland to see the giant tulip gardens there. When we went on a cruise to Alaska, we planned a side trip to Victoria, BC to see the Butchart Gardens. When in Southern California, we made a special trip to see the Huntington Library Gardens. You get the picture. We love botanical gardens, we will go out of our way to see displays of flowers and plants.  So, this Christmas, when we received one of those plastic covered guides to the flowers of Panama with a beautiful picture of a huge flower garden on the front cover, AND were told these gardens were a once a year event in Boquete (Feria de las Flores y Del Cafe), we knew we wanted to go.  We love the tropical flowers and couldn't wait to see them in abundance in one place.

We, for now, still have to take our car out of Panama every 90 days to renew the paperwork on it.  We've found the trip to the small border crossing at Rio Sereno to be a delightful one, driving winding mountain roads surrounded by coffee plantations.  We pass through the little town of Volcan Baru on the west side of the volcano.  Boquete is on the east side of it....the Feria is only once a year...and the dates for it were a couple of weeks before we had to go "out", so we scheduled a little mini getaway to see the flowers. We were so excited.

We planned our trip, got hotel reservations and waited with anticipation for the flower show. The date arrived to leave, our pets had someone to take care of them, and we were on our way.  Even though Panama is a small country, it still was quite a drive.  We made the 5-6 hour trip to David for the first night so we wouldn't arrive in the mountains at night.  Did a little sightseeing in David....as in walking around town, but it is NOT a tourist destination at all, so we enjoyed a few shops, and pretty much stayed in for the rest of the night.  Not much to see in David.

Early the next morning (5 a.m.!!), Bob woke me up and wanted to get going. UGH. We got ready, got our breakfast and off we went. Ends up, the road to Boquete is like a super highway...4 lanes, divided, wide shoulders, straight up the mountain! In no time at all, we were in Boquete. We knew our room wouldn't be ready yet, and were anxious to get to the flower show. We used the trusty little maps I'd printed off before leaving home and found our way to the fairgrounds.  Someone was pulling out near the entrance, so snagged that spot and parked.  Lucky us, eh?

We went to the booth that sells the tickets and got ours. Because we're retired, we got the cheap prices. Score again! We walked through the gate, looking forward to the tropical flowers and just the feel of an event like this. It wasn't nearly as big as we were expecting, but that was OK....the fair backed up to the river and we were expecting a wonderfully leisurely stroll through all those tropical flowers.  There were a few beds right by the front gate done as the Panamanian Flag, and yes, the flowers beautiful....but they were all just normal everyday bedding plants.

Oh well....we walked around the entire thing in a short amount of time,  and were looking forward to the Coffee part of the fair as well, anticipating various brands of locally grown coffee, good deals on beans, and of course, some yummy coffee.....only to find that NOTHING was open. Hmmmm. We asked the people at the gates when they would be open, and were told that it would be late that afternoon. So why were the gates open and were they selling tickets?  Who knows?

It was still too early to go to the hotel, so we went back into Boquete and walked around a bit.  We always like to go to grocery stores in different areas, so we did that and then found our way to a coffee shop with umbrella covered tables sitting in the sunshine, got ourselves a cup and relaxed a bit taking in the vistas around us.  We did a little more sightseeing...basically walking up and down the main street, then decided we wanted to try for the hotel.

We drove back across the bridge out of town and turned to the north, past the fairgrounds and up a beautiful winding road.  Residences lined each side, and then as they spread further apart, we took in the beauty of the mountains around us.

We found the hotel with a little bit of trouble, but the beautiful drive made up for it.  Had to call to get directions because we'd missed it, so the manager came out to meet us to make sure we didn't drive by again. Walking into the gates, we found an area of gardens including a waterfall, a few small 2 story buildings here and there and a general feeling of peacefulness .  The grounds were beautiful, lush and inviting.  The Hotel Palo Alto snugs up to the river, has only 11 rooms and the manager gave us a room upstairs " because the view is nicer.  That it was. There were 2 rooms upstairs, with an enclosed patio in front of them.  Robert told us a continental breakfast would be included...just let them know when, and we could have it served in the gardens, on our patio or down under the Palapa by the river.  The rooms were great, the pillows to die for, almost like a guest room in someone's home.  We were so delightfully surprised!

 

We enjoyed the tranquility for awhile, did a litte reading, took a nap, and then decided to head back to the flower and Coffee Show.  It really was open this time, and we had to pay again to get in (so much for the discount!). We walked around the entire thing again, enjoyed breathing in the fresh mountain air, looked at all the booths with stuff for sale, looked for coffee (only 2 booths actually selling coffee....no beans for sale), decided that maybe they didn't do tropical flowers for their flower shows because they were in such abundance in the jungle and were done in about 30-45 minutes.

Was it pretty? Yes.

Was it enjoyable? Yes.

Will we go back? Probably not.

Been there...done that. Not really what we were expecting…

We headed back into town and took a back road towards the hotel, but stopped at a quaint little Italian restaurant that the guy at the hotel told us about.  On the river. Official Italian. Brick oven pizza. YUM.


We sat at a table on a covered patio, looking out at the gurgling river, across from a small but powerful waterfall and right near the bridge. It was idyllic.  They said the waterfall was all natural, and that the coffee plantations used the water to wash the beans and then it flowed back to the river. We walked around the grounds while they were making our food and took some pictures.  What a lovely place.  It wasn't  the best Italian food we've had, but the surroundings more than made up for it. We had a leisurely late lunch, then headed back to the hotel. It was so lovely there and we wanted to enjoy it.

As promised, they served us breakfast the next morning. It was a bit cool outside to dine in the garden, so decided to eat on our patio. They'd said it would be continental, but we thought they went above and beyond with the beautiful fruit, delicious pancakes and orange juice. And if you want to impress me...add fresh flowers on the plate. This couple had just bought the hotel a few months earlier and have been remodeling it, so don't really have everything ready...but it was so peaceful and they went out of their way to make our stay wonderful.

Now it was time to get to the business side of the trip…

We took off, looking for a little road that would take us across the face of Volcan Baru, following the directions given us so we wouldn't have to return to David and go up another route.

First one didn't work.

Second one took us several miles before ending at a gravel road. So we turned around and backtracked.

Third one....was a charm.

Again...scenic roadways...one area had miles of fences built up with stone...loose laid. Beautiful! Another area had spectacular flowers. Another, a steep road that swept down into a canyon before crossing a bridge and heading back up the other side.  Little tiny shacks for stores....brightly colored houses...wide open spaces, then steep, steep mountains covered with coffee plants.

And in an hour trip that stretched to two, we were at the border. Because of our last trip, we knew just what to do...had all the correct papers ready, and were ready to get on the bus into Costa Rica within about 10-15 minutes!!!

You see these local Ngobe women everywhere with their colorful dresses.

On the left is Panama...on the right is Costa Rica. No fences. We went back and forth several times each time we were there
.
People travel freely back and forth...duty free! after all!
These are the duty free stores. :)

The border crossing. Panama on the right. Costa Rican Immigration around the corner to the left.
Last time, we took the bus to a town called San Vito, but found there is a town about halfway there, and since the bus ride is killer (basically a "chicken bus" with no shocks and hard rock seats.), we decided to stop there in Sabalito. We got a recommendation on a little hotel there from a guy at the border who has a tiny little restaurant where the bus stops, and he speaks perfect English.

The hotel was tucked behind a fast food outdoor restaurant, and while it wasn't much to look at on the outside, this little patio area between the rooms was nice.  We spent some time out here playing cards, took a (short) walk through town, got some dinner and visited the grocery store.  We'd actually stopped by there earlier for some snacks. Bob got grapes and I got strawberries ....the strawberries were so good and so cheap (if you can find them in our area, they are crazy expensive!), we had to go back and get some to take home with us!  We took some time to walk around the store, and there were some really different things on the shelves.

See the Pledge?


Wax and other cleaning supplies. BTW the exchange rate is about 500 to 1…so $1100 is $2.20.


Fabuloso is floor cleaner and see the Brasso?  Everything in plastic bags!



I found this to be the most interesting, took awhile to figure out that this is laundry detergent...in bricks, or some were round like a pop can down to the size of a pill bottle. Multiple colors, multiple sizes. Not sure how it's used, but I wanted to buy some just to have it...I didn't.

Instead, we bought an ice cream cone and walked over to the park and sat and watched the people go by.

We slept pretty well, didn't get to shower because there was no warm water, but caught the 6:30 bus nd before you knew it, we were back across the border, got our car back and began the 6-7 hour trip home.

This trip was full of expectations, disappointments and surprises.

The main reason we took the trip to Boquete ended up being a big letdown, but the hotel, the mountains, the drive...all were pleasant surprises.

Seems like when we have our expectations, we tend to get bummed because things don't turn out like we thought they would…..

But look for the surprises.

They're almost always there....