Happy Reyes Magos Day!!

Christmas Day may be long gone, but Christmas music can still go on, at least until today.  This evening all the Christmas CDs were put away, and the Christmas decorations taken down and packed up.  For what, I'm not sure, but we put them in a box along with some other things we wouldn't mind having again when we come back to Panama in March.

So, we're packing up to go to Costa Rica!  We leave tomorrow early, fly to San Jose and from there we'll rent a car and drive to Liberia.  We'll spend one night there, and the next day, Saturday, we'll probably go to Santa Rosa National Park to see Fernando and Eva.  Then on Sunday, we'll leave for Samara where we'll spend the month of January, and if we like the place enough, we may stay there in February, too.

For March, we have decided to take another house here in the valley, so we'll be coming back to Boquete in 2 months, but just not to the same house.  This other house is two houses down from where we are now.  And that's why we have packed up a box with some things that we bought while we were here and would be useful to us in the next house.  Terri, who's in charge of rentals here, was kind enough to let us store the box in a room in her house.

This afternoon, it almost seemed like a disaster had happened.  Guillermo was getting ready to go outside to take care of the bird feeding tray, and somehow or another sat down on his glasses when he went to put his shoes on.  Both lenses came out!!!!!   I tried not to think about the ramifications of that while I was washing dishes.  I mean, here we were headed to the airport the next day, traveling to another country and then were going to be driving a rental car?!?!?   I could hear him there in the living room, trying to fix those glasses with a needle or pin or something.  When I finished washing the dishes, I went over to see how I could help and it almost seemed like an impossible task, to get that cord or whatever it is to fit around the bottom of the lenses.  Somehow or another, we were able to get one back in place and that seemed like a miracle.  The other lens popped on much easier and it was SUCH a relief to know we were done and that Guillermo had his glasses back.  But wait, no, it's not that simple.  Of COURSE not!!  Guillermo puts his glasses back on and he says he just plain can't see so we thought the lenses were dirty from us handling them.  We clean them, and still it's not going to work.  Really?!?!?  You think that the lenses need to be switched?!?!?  It almost seemed hopeless at that point, because what are the chances of, now on purpose, popping the lenses out and popping them back on without SOMETHING breaking.  We felt real lucky that first time to have done it without breaking anything.

But no, the first time made us pros and we were able to pop both lenses out, switch them around and pop them back in even quicker the second time.  I think we can get jobs at Eye Mart now!!!!

Here's hoping our next place in Samara will have internet as good as where we've been for the last 2 months!

January 5th, 2011

We are car-less again.  Took the car in this morning and walked back to the house.  It was windy and there was a slight mist falling, so the walk wasn't hot at all.

When we got to the house, we noticed the power was off.  We had no idea how long it had been off, and it didn't come back on for at least an hour and a half!

January 4th, 2011

Today was as bright and sunny a day as we've had here in quite a while!  And it's our last full day with the rental car, so we decided to make good use of it.

We decided to drive to David (45 minutes away) so that we could go to the hospital's lab there to get Guillermo's blood checked.  Which he needs to do periodically due to the medication he is taking.  We left the house after lunch, and had a leisurely drive to David - stopping at several places along the way just to look around.  We got to the hospital around 2 and by 2:30 they had drawn his blood and told us the results would be available in 2 hours.

Guillermo was a little hungry so we thought we'd try to eat at that hotel that we had no luck in finding when we picked up Fernando and Eva a few days earlier.  We're learning here in Panama not to depend on street names. Even when we were getting directions to the airport when we picked Fernando and Eva up, the guy at the rental car place couldn't give us street names.  He just knew what buildings were associated with the streets.  So it was "turn left at the yellow building, when you see the police station turn right, etc."  Following the map to this hotel was almost worthless, going by street names.  Fortunately, on the map, there were building names and Guillermo knew where we were just by seeing those buildings and could head me in the right direction from that.  After much driving up and down streets and even passing one block behind it at one point, we found the hotel!  We had a good lunch there (Guillermo had a seafood soup and I had breaded Corvina strips) and since we still had about 45 minutes left to wait, we decided to drive to the supermarket to see if we could find a box to pack some of our stuff up in.

At 4:30, we picked up the test results but since it's just a lab and no doctor on site, there was no one who could interpret those results for us.  So, we just drove back to Boquete, and Guillermo said he'd try to figure it out by looking at his last lab report.

Spurs game on TV that evening, and also started packing up a little bit - getting ready to leave on Friday.

January 3rd, 2011

January 3rd, 2011

Well, today was so-so for us.  We got up early, had a nice breakfast with Fernando and Eva, and then we packed up the car and drove to the airport in David.   Yep, Fernando and Eve left today.
Here they are packing up a suitcase full of our stuff that they are going to take with them so that we won't have such an over-abundance of luggage when we leave on the 7th.

We stood with them as they checked in and were told that they could only bring one carry-on each.  After much discussion and rearranging of items, they were able to keep their carry-ons, but we haven't heard from them since they left, so we don't know if they eventually had to check one of their carry-ons when they actually got on the plane.

When the two of them went on to their gate, Guillermo and I left with sad hearts.  BUT, we are going to see them this coming weekend, so that helped with our feelings!!!  We left the airport and drove to 3 different grocery stores in David looking for power bars for Fernando and Eva, but didn't find any anywhere!  Maybe we'll find some when we get to San Jose, Costa Rica!

Back at our house, it was quiet and sad - so we just had a quick lunch and then took a short nap.  The weather was warm and sunny when we got home, but a few hours later, it looks like the sky has clouded over again.  And actually, as I'm writing this, it has started misting again outside.

January 2nd, 2011

January 2nd, 2011

Waking up this morning at the Finca Lerida, the weather was nice, dry and in the distance you could see the sun coming up and lots of clouds.  I'd say probably about 45 minutes later, it was raining.  And it never quit the rest of the day.  Guillermo and I thought we'd take a walk down to the banana plant where we had seen several birds yesterday, but by the time we got to the banana plant, which was only a few feet away, we were absolutely ready to get back.  The wind was cold, the rain was blowing sideways, and it was just no fun.

So, we walked back to the porch of our room which thankfully faced away from the wind and sat out on the chairs and watched the weather, really really hoping that Fernando and Eva hadn't decided to take a hike that morning.  We didn't think they were out on the trails because they had said they would knock on our door to see if we also wanted to go and we never heard that knock.  BUT, you never know, maybe they didn't want to bother us or something and decided to take a quick hike around.  We sat there on those chairs for almost an hour - wondering, wondering....  And everytime the rain got heavier, or the wind got especially gusty, we felt more concerned.  Not hearing any talking in their room didn't help either.  Finally, just before the agreed time to meet for breakfast, Guillermo knocks on their door and for several seconds there, our hearts sank, because there was no answer.  BUT, then the door opened and the weight of the world was taken off our shoulders.  They were safe, warm and dry inside their room, and thinking we were nuts, but no they had decided to sleep in.  Which was such a good thing, since neither of them had been feeling all that well - which is WHY we were so concerned.

We walked down to the restaurant for breakfast and then just basically hung around in our rooms till check-out time.  We were kind of hoping the rain would quit, but it never did.  At one point, Guillermo and I decided to walk out anyway on a trail through the nearest coffee field, but we didn't go too far before turning around.

Driving back down to Boquete was cold and rainy, and conditions weren't any better in Boquete.  We stopped in town to get a few things taken care of:  Fernando got a haircut, Guillermo went to the grocery store to pick up a few things, and Eva and I waited around a while for the store to open where her Christmas blouse came from so that we could exchange that blouse for one that fit better.  There really wasn't anything there she wanted in exchange for her blouse, so we came back to the house and took it easy for a while before Eva and I decided to go back out to a different store to see if there were any blouses or dresses there she'd be interested in.  The store closed like 15 minutes after we got there, but we were able to stay and finish our shopping and she DID find a dress that she liked there!

We fixed spaghetti for dinner and had wine and salad with it and afterwards just relaxed.

Happy New Year!!!!!

There were a couple of days without internet.
January 1, 2011
This is the day we were all looking forward to!  We were going to Finca Lerida - which has a lodge on their extensive coffee grounds.  There is supposed to be really good birding at Finca Lerida, and last year, when we just stopped in to visit the place, we were impressed by all the birds we saw. We were so impressed with the grounds and the birding that we wished we were staying there to be able to spend more time!   So, we were looking forward to seeing what new birds we might see this year and being able to walk around on their trails!

In the morning, after trying our best to get the mirror back in place on the car, we were finally on our way.  We got to Finca Lerida in time for lunch, so that was the first thing we did, while waiting for our rooms to be ready.  It was a beautiful sunny day, and we looked forward to seeing what the trails looked like and what birds we would see.  Here is a picture of the lodge we stayed in.

After lunch, we started walking the trails.  To get to the forest trails, we first had to climb quite a bit up a narrow road.

And this is the view from behind where Fernando and Eva are standing in the picture above.

The forest trail was very nice, very pretty, and although we saw a few birds, it was the wrong time of the day to see much.

Then we found a great log on which to take a break.

Lots of Naranjilla plants growing on the grounds

We thought this flowering tree or bush was very pretty.

Walking along the coffee plants on our way back

The sun goes behind the mountains early, but we tried to get in just one more walk before the end of the day. There are usually nice hummingbirds along the driveway into the finca.

The hummingbirds really love these flowers! (and not one picture of a hummingbird!)

We had dinner at the lodge's restaurant that evening, and turned in early as we were all very tired!  But it was a good day!

December 31, 2010

Today was our driving day!

We didn't get up that early, nor did we take off particularly early, which was good.  But today we drove to Volcan.  We had good weather all day - it was actually very warm and sunny when we left Boquete.  There were lots of clouds all around on the road to Volcan.  Since by the time we left, it was getting close to lunch time, we drove straight through Volcan and on to Guadalupe, where we went to the Quetzales lodge to have lunch.  It always take a looong time to get served there, so we were able to relax there for a while.  Afterwards, we drove as far as were could to the Cerro Punta side of the Los Quetzales trail before the road got undriveable for our car.  We turned around at that point and then slowly made our way back to Volcan.  We stopped once to look at a possible place to stay in March and also to take pictures of this bridge.

It just looks so precarious.  The words on the right say:  Please do not jump on the bridge.

And two more views of this bridge

Then we drove on back to Boquete.  By this time, Fernando and Eva were really feeling the effects of too many early mornings, too many late nights and too many airports in the last 4 days and they just wanted to get back to the house and rest.  So, they rested the rest of the afternoon.  That evening we were going to walk into town to have New Year's Eve dinner at our favorite Peruvian restaurant, but fortunately it was kind of raining so we took the car.

After dinner, we just hung around in the living room, watched a movie (Lars and the Real Girl) and it was just too bad that it was New Year's Eve, because we could tell they were tired, but wanted to stay up for the New Year.  At about 10 minutes to midnight, the fireworks started here in the valley and the people across the street were also setting off some really spectacular fireworks.  Actually, the ones across the street were a little too close for comfort so when we saw the guy lighting his, we'd run for the cover of our carport.  And on one of Eva's dashes for cover, she brushed up against the car and the car's outside mirror broke off and just hung there in its spot!!!!  It had obviously been pieced together and so we decided not to mess with it that evening, watched a few more fireworks and then called it a night.  We would have liked for  Eva and Fernando to have been feeling better, but it was a very Happy New Year, just to have them with us!!!