As I was driving down the highway toward Boquete the other day, I was struck by this view of our neighboring volcano, Volcán Barú. This volcano is the highest point in Panama at 11,400 feet above sea level, and from the top on a clear day, you can see both oceans (the Pacific to the south and Atlantic/Caribbean Sea to the north).
The volcano appears to float above the dense cloud at the bottom. Never seen this effect before, and had to capture it! Why is there a lighthouse in the mountains? Good question!
Most of the time, there are some wisps of clouds that seem to get caught on Barú’s slopes, like this:
I found this photo online, which looks to be taken at roughly the same angle, although further away.
On other days, the sky is crystal clear with not a cloud in the sky, and sometimes during the rainy season, the clouds and rain completely obscure Barú, and you’d never know it was there at all. Many times when I look at its varying moods, I find myself singing this song in my head – “There is a Mountain” by Donovan. Click the link to listen. 🙂
PS: In other news, Tim and I are no longer a couple. I have moved into a new house, and am settling in nicely. Just a little FYI, since I’ve mentioned him in several previous posts. And as Forrest Gump said, “That’s all I have to say about that!”
A few weeks ago, we attended a three-day beach party hosted by the owners of a popular local gringo-centric restaurant and bar, Mike’s Global Grill. Mike and his wife Heidi held this event for the first time last year, and decided to make it an annual event. Tim went to it last year and had a lot of fun then, so he wanted to do it again this year. Sure – I’m always down for a good time!
The purpose of this event was two-fold – a fun getaway for some of his regular customers, and (most importantly) a thank-you for his employees. We pretty much took over the entire place! Mike hired a bus to bring his employees down on the second day of the party to enjoy the resort and have a blow-out buffet dinner. Mike’s a great chef, and he made sure a good time was had by all!
The party was at the Show Pony Beach Resort at Las Lajas beach, which is a little less than two hours from Boquete, on the Pacific side of Panama. Even though Boquete is in the mountains at 3,000+ feet above sea level, it’s only a couple of hours away from either the Pacific Ocean (to the south) or the Caribbean Sea (to the north).
Las Lajas beach is gorgeous!The pool at the Show Pony, where we spent a good portion of our days – and I got the sunburn to prove it!
The Show Pony is really nice – the guest rooms are actually one-bedroom apartments with large rooms and a full kitchen. Something I didn’t expect to see were the toucans that live on the property. You can go into their cage and feed them fruit, and they will come and sit on your arm or shoulder. Beautiful birds!
The two toucans.The toucan on Tim’s arm.
I got a massage on our last day there at another resort (Las Lajas Beach Resort) just down the road from the Show Pony. This massage came highly recommended by a friend in Boquete, and I was definitely not disappointed! It’s called a “lomilomi” style massage, which originated in Hawaii. Very relaxing and restorative – just what I needed. And to add to the ambiance, it was performed under an open-air, thatched roof palapa near the beach, so I could hear the waves crashing in the background. Perfect!
At Las Lajas Beach Resort after my massage. I had been here on the relocation tour in February 2018, and was anxious to visit again and enjoy a piña colada on the beach!
On the last night of the party, we had a bonfire on the beach and roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. There are a couple of swings right on the beach, and I appropriated one of them for a good long while that evening, swinging as I enjoyed the ocean breeze and the waves.
On the swing at the beach, sunburned and windblown, with my new friend Kathy.Some of the attendees at the beach bonfire. Mike, our host, is on the right.
I love Boquete, but a change of scenery was much needed. Other than my outing to Boca Chica awhile back, this was the first time I had been to the beach for an extended stay since I arrived in Panama last August. I could watch and listen to the waves for hours – so peaceful, and so near!
Although we live in a house about 10 miles from downtown Boquete, Tim has also kept his studio apartment in town, which comes in handy if we stay in Boquete late and don’t feel like driving home, or if there’s an event that we want to go to that may have limited parking (his apartment is within walking distance to most everything downtown).
Tim’s landlord there is a woman (Johanna, a.k.a. Joby) who teaches English to Panamanian students attending the Autonomous University of Chiriqui, which uses the classrooms of Boquete’s public high school for evening classes. She invited us as guests when her students presented their final projects for the semester. There are 10 students in her class, and these students are on an educational track to become English teachers themselves.
Group photo: The teacher, Joby, is in the back row on the left, and there are a couple of older gringos in the mix. All the students did a great job with their presentations!
Their projects were geared to teaching grade-school age children, using a combination of words and pictures to engage them and keep their attention while teaching them English vocabulary, grammar, and composition.
Display encouraging children to write stories, using prompts for subjects to write about.Left: Matching pictures to the correct words. Right: Different letters, opening up to show words that start with those letters, with corresponding pictures.
Their final projects were well thought out, and would be very interactive and engaging for young people. The quality of their work was impressive, as well as the oral explanations of their projects, which they presented in English. Joby told us beforehand that they were very nervous about speaking English in front of us, but they all did extremely well.
One student in particular was very impressive. She is an indigenous girl from the Ngäbe-Buglé people, which is the most populous of the native peoples in the Boquete area. Their tribal land (called a comarca – not to be confused with an “Indian reservation”, like in the US – these are their historical tribal lands). Many of them have limited educational opportunities, and are mostly manual laborers, both on the surrounding farms and around town as construction workers or household help.
Most of them are also very shy about interacting with gringos. This girl is exceptional – not only is she beautiful, but she is very well-spoken and outgoing. She will be a huge asset to her people – I can envision her going back and encouraging the native children to be more confident and setting them up for a better future.
Lovely indigenous student in her traditional dress, showing off some of the materials produced to teach English to young children. She’s going places!
We were very honored to be invited to this event. I can imagine that very few gringos are privileged to see this aspect of life in Boquete, as many expats insulate themselves from the Panamanians, whose home this truly is.
Since there are so many expats in Boquete (a good number of which are from the US), several places around town had 4th of July celebrations. We went to the one at the skating rink, where they served traditional cookout fare – hamburgers, hot dogs, potato salad, baked beans, coleslaw, etc. – and had fireworks afterward.
They had a good turnout for the cookout – the parking lot was full. We got there kind of late because we had eaten a late lunch and weren’t hungry, and were more interested in seeing the fireworks. So we socialized for a bit with some friends we met recently, and then went outside for the fireworks show.
It was really windy that evening, and they had a little trouble getting the fuses lit. I think they finally resorted to applying a lit cigarette to them. It also was more than a bit dangerous, from the looks of it. These were definitely NOT professionals!
The firestarters
Quite a few people stuck around for the fireworks, which were detonated in the vacant lot next to the skating rink.
Onlookers
The fireworks were pretty good – much better than any I’ve ever seen at an individual’s house (non-commercial display). They lasted about 15 minutes, including the difficulty in lighting the fuses. Very satisfying!
Well, I’m officially a senior citizen now – I turned 65 this week! Funny, I don’t feel that old (most of the time).
Last week, Tim gave me a great birthday present – a djembe drum. He has been attending the weekly drum circle in Boquete, and I’ve been wanting an African drum so I can join in, so it was a perfect gift! I immediately decorated it with one of the kente cloth strips I brought back from Ghana to personalize it. They’ll be jealous of my beautiful drum this week!
My lovely djembe drum. It has a beautiful, warm tone and is fun to play.
Tim suggested we do something different on my birthday. I’ve been wanting to visit Volcán, a smaller, mostly agriculture-based city about an hour from Boquete (on the other side of the volcano). There’s an exotic animal rescue place there called Raquel’s Ark, where you can see and play with sloths, monkeys, and coatimundis.
It takes a little over an hour to get there, and it’s a lovely drive up into the higher elevations. This region is where most of the fruits and vegetables are grown in Panama, and in some places the fields are very steep on the sides of the mountains. Obviously, all the work is done by hand, because machinery would be difficult, if not impossible, to work in that terrain. The fields are steep in the photo below, but some are even more steep than this.
In the center of the photo, you can see the cultivated fields on the side of the mountain.
At Raquel’s Ark, we had fun playing with the monkeys and coatis (Central American raccoons) and looking at the jaguar, who would love to eat us if he could. There was also a small native cat called a jaguarundi that I had never heard of before. This one was tame, but they are native (although rare) to this part of the world. Fascinating! Here is a link to a YouTube video, that shows them better than the photo I took.
Jaguarundi – he let me pet him, and he purred for me!
More photos from our visit are below. Unfortunately, the only sloth we saw was recovering from an illness, so we didn’t get to play with it.
Coatimundi and jaguarundi.About 200 pounds of jaguar. No, I did NOT pet him!Playing with the white-faced capuchin monkey. He loved cuddling in my arms, and didn’t want to leave.This is a howler monkey. Very friendly! The capuchin was very jealous, and kept trying to run him off so he could get more attention.The howler monkey grooming Tim’s hair.
After visiting the animals, we had lunch at The Wandering Sloth restaurant a short distance away. Tim had a “swine burger” (with both a hamburger patty and pulled pork) and I had a mushroom & swiss burger. Both were very good, and we look forward to going there again.
Delicious lunch!
For our visitors (hint, hint!), this would be a great day trip to enjoy some of the wildlife and scenery where we now call home. Come on down – you won’t regret it!
