Right now, it seems that the worst thing going on in Boquete is the torn-up roads. They’re replacing water and sewer lines, which is a good thing. The bad part is that this has apparently been going on for at least a couple of years (if not longer), and they are working on lots of different areas at once, with little of it being completely finished. Detours change by the day, and it’s just a big, disorganized mess.

However, hopefully the improvements will pick up the pace somewhat, now that the President of Panama paid a visit to Boquete yesterday to address the situation.  I guess people complained loudly enough that he made an appearance. He stated that the roads would be finished in three months, in time to prepare for the upcoming tourist season. I must say that townspeople are not holding their breath until it happens.

Coincidentally (or not), elections are coming up next year. 🙂 There are no second terms for presidents here, so the current president can’t run for re-election – but I suppose it would be a plus for his political party if they promised to continue whatever positive works the current president started.

There has been a lot of work going on lately, though – some of it in the next block from my apartment. They paved the side street (one block long), and poured a couple of blocks of new concrete sidewalks. Nice!

Downtown Boquete is REALLY torn up right now. I should mention that the water mains and sewer lines run down the middle of the streets. A couple of days ago, probably in anticipation of the President’s visit, they dug a huge, deep ditch in the middle of the main street, right in the heart of downtown Boquete.

The big ditch in the middle of Main Street

Businesses have been badly hurt by the disruption, and some have even gone out of business because customers can’t get to their locations easily.Today, a couple of blocks north of the “big ditch”, some actual paving happened. It will be nice when all of the main street looks like this:

New paved street just north of downtown

On a totally different topic – there is a little gecko living behind one of the pictures on the wall in the kitchen. I see him emerging occasionally and skittering across the wall, then back behind the picture. The photo’s kind of fuzzy, because I zoomed in and took it from across the room, so as not to scare him.

My little roommate

I’ve been hearing a loud chirping sound, usually after I go to bed, and I just realized tonight that it’s the gecko that’s making that sound. I figured it was some kind of bird until now, but it’s definitely coming from inside the house in the gecko-s direction. It sounds kind of like a hen clucking, but sharper and fairly loud – definitely a big sound from such a little fellow! Hey, as long as he stays in his area and doesn’t crawl into bed with me, I’m OK with it. After all, this is Panama!

I had hoped to make it without a car for awhile, but after walking into town a few times, I quickly realized that my bad feet and ankles, along with my sometimes shaky balance because of them, didn’t mix very well with sidewalks that have been described by others as “occasional” and traffic whizzing by.

I’ve had a couple of reputable “car guys” in Boquete looking for a suitable car for me. I definitely need a higher-clearance SUV, rather than a sedan, because of the many potholes and minor flooding from rain runoff around here. But the cheapest ones they found were about $9200. I could do that, but it would seriously drain my financial reserves. One of them actually found a 2015 Kia Soul with only 5,000 more miles on it than mine that got wrecked, but they wanted $12,000 for it. My Soul had a hard time making it up a long, fairly steep grade in Branson, so I knew this one definitely wouldn’t cut it, going up the twisty, steep roads here, even if I wanted to pay that much for it.

I found an older Honda CR-V listed in a group on Facebook, being sold by a missionary couple from Missouri who was going back to the US after 10 years abroad. They live in Volcán, about two hours away, but the husband was going to the dentist in David this morning, so they came on up to Boquete to let me see it. It’s a 2003 model with about 135,000 miles on it, but it’s been well maintained and is very clean. They were asking $4700 for it, but we agreed on $4500. I figure that if anything goes wrong, I can make a LOT of repairs for the $4700 price difference from the other newer choices.

I think it will be perfect for me – it’s not a huge mini-van (thankfully!), but it has lots of room inside. The visibility through the back window is pretty good. It has fairly new tires, a battery that’s a couple of years old, cold A/C, and they just changed the oil on it.

They’ll come and pick me up on Monday and we’ll go to David to register it in my name and get it insured. Since this car is more than seven years old, I’ve heard that full coverage isn’t available. The sellers of this car told me that liability coverage is about $150 to $200 – per YEAR! That’s great news, since I was paying $80 a month for my Soul. Granted, that was for full coverage, but still….

Here are some pics, taken from their Facebook ad:

Driver’s aide

Passenger side

Front seats – has a new radio with CD player and USB port

Back seats – all the seats are in great shape, clean and no damage

Ample cargo area – with included umbrella and tools underneath the floor mat

Just a nice little rain shower to cool things off this afternoon, viewed from my balcony. The thunder is still grumbling, but it’s only a light rain at the moment. This heavier shower only lasted about 10 minutes. Right now it’s about 68°. Nice! I really like the rain, and love how the air smells.

I picked up my packages earlier this afternoon – everything arrived in fine shape!

The other day, I met the neighbor who’s staying in the apartment next to mine. He’s from Colorado, and exploring his newly-divorced life with some ladies he met here. Yesterday, he was supposed to help me pick up the packages I had shipped, but I found a note he slipped under my door, saying he was off on new adventures and didn’t know what time he’d be back. Whatever…..

On a more positive note, I ran into another of my neighbors from down the hall. He (Jeff), a friend of his (Brent), and Brent’s wife (Mitzi) invited me in to have a beer. I ended up having a great conversation with Brent, while the other two attempted to set up Jeff’s new computer (while having had a few too many beers).

Brent and Mitzi actually lived in the apartment I’m in for eight months. It turns out Brent is a software engineer and has a business based in Texas, with operations in Brazil. So we had some (sort of) similar technology-based commonalities. He was very nice, and I think I made a new friend. His wife is a certified translator and interpreter, and they were celebrating the completion of a big project of hers.

After midnight, a big storm came through, with high winds and torrential rainfall. I’m glad it happened at night, after I was in for the evening! After all, it is the rainy season, so rain was expected – but that storm was indeed impressive!