OUR RETIRED ADVENTURE
qUEREMOS VIVIR AL SOL
KSha
Costa Rica is amazing! Beauty abounds.
Panama is "home" for now. Loving life!
South America is next! Columbia here we come.
Costa Rica is amazing! Beauty abounds.
Panama is "home" for now. Loving life!
South America is next! Columbia here we come.
As a fill in for our lost time in Boquete; although zero tears were shed, Playa Tortuga has been fabulous! We have enjoyed lounging by the pool after morning exploring walks along the water and tasting the neighboring restaurants and of course Skully's BINGO nights and live music on Sundays. We were sad, but excited to head into Bocas Town for the remainder of our time in Panama. The Gran Bahia Hotel is the oldest building on the island and the once home to the Chiquita banana family business, where the original bank vault still resides that was used for the company payroll. Wonderful and friendly staff greeted us as we moved in. The view from the second floor balcony was pretty cool. We walked around that first afternoon and found a great table on the water for dinner at La Buga. On the way home we were checking out other places that we might want to hit in the coming days, when we noticed the bar across the street from our hotel didn't open until 10 PM, and closed at 3 AM. Well before closing time we knew we had a problem... I hadn't noticed that on the night stand on either side of our bed were a package of ear plugs...Sha had preemptively put hers on before going to sleep. I had a little more difficulty trying to put them in in the dark during the middle of the night. Yes we could hear the music across the street. We could feel it as well...even our windows felt the bass beats as the music blared. Needless to say we didn't sleep until after 3 AM. Dark room, music finally silenced, time for some needed shuteye. That lasted until about 4 AM when the roosters next door started crowing. Not just a crow here and maybe another crow there...this blasted rooster crowed every 5 to 10 seconds (Sha counted the seconds between them) for over an hour! The sound was so piercing through our walls, that it seemed as if the damn thing was in our room. OMG! Finally it stopped! NOW time for some sleep?? Sure thing until the semi trucks started pulling up along the side street where our room was located to wait for the ferry; with its dock right up the street from the hotel. Here's a taste of the truck activity in front of our hotel after we were able to peel ourselves out of bed. Seeing as how we had just got here, we decided to give it another night before we made any judgements...maybe we could try a better insertion method for the earplugs. We shrugged off our sleepless night and enjoyed walking around exploring Bocas Town. After some cribbage on our balcony, we enjoyed another wonderful dinner on the water and came home to try to sleep better than we did the night before. Well that was a dumb idea! I didn't hear the music AS much as the previous night because I was so tired I didn't move and displace my earplugs for a good chunk of the night...Sha didn't fare nearly as well. My luck ran out when the rooster started up again; and the trucks were impossible to miss. There was NO WAY we were going to survive 3 weeks here. We had to call Wendy and our travel team to move us...and their quick action had the manager of the hotel come and see us after breakfast to move us across the hall to a room on the "quiet side" of the hotel. Alright, let's move our stuff across the hall (we were getting pretty good at packing up our worldly goods into two suitcases fairly quickly). Some more wonderful, but tired exploring of Bocas Town was had by all--guess I mean just us two. You may recall our rental car; a.k.a. the clown car that we drove around Panama for two months and you may have wondered how the little guy fared after BB drove it down roads that were only meant for 4X4's...well, now you know the rest of the story. We hit the balcony for some cribbage during the afternoon...BB has been on a roll, and then went back into town for some street tacos that were fantastic! There we met some young travelers while we ate; one from the Netherlands, who had been traveling South America prior to Panama, one from Germany with only a few days left before she had to return home, and one from the U.S. who was on her 55th country working abroad remotely. Oh to be young again...PASS, ha! Daily barge cruising by. The FERRY! Before and during an afternoon rain shower looking across the water to Isla Carenero; about 800 kilometers away from Bocas Town. Back at the good ole Gran Bahia, I wasn't sure if the quiet side wasn't more noisy than our other room. Every conversation and every step down the hall was audible and seemed amplified in the new room. The child in the room next to us seemed like she was talking at the bottom of our bed...3rd night with poor and interrupted sleep...3 strikes.
During our stay at Playa Tortuga we got to know the general manager (or maybe the new owner-we weren't sure). This proved to be a fortunate point as we ended up organizing a refund at the Gran Bahia and then negotiating a good deal to return to the Tortuga for the remainder of our time in Panama. So after 3 nights in Bocas Town, we return to the outskirts (4 KM) to Playa Tortuga. Oh, I almost forgot that I promised an update on our next adventure after we return to EP for the last part of February. If you recall the beach house in Coronado Bay that Sha and I really liked...well that will be our "home" for the next 6 months starting in early March if we can get the rental contract worked out in the next couple of days. Well, gotta go and take care of my best girl because she has come down with a nasty sore throat. Hoping a little pampering and some relaxing by the pool will be what she needs. BTW, that cribbage roll I was on disappeared completely when we were leaving Bocas Town; I've lost 11 games in a row! Saw the weather back home for everyone...damn; stay warm! Pura Vida!
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Well I gotta say this island living is hard to beat. It is so awesome to look out our balcony every morning to see the palm trees and the waves and water everywhere you look. As I mentioned last time, we were thinking about taking the hotel kayaks out on the high seas for a spin. Well we did! We had to follow our new friends Maxine and Ian, no not the son of the world renown B & N AirBnB couple in EP; just some cool grain farmers from Canada. NGG attempted to take some oceanic shots while on our voyage; however, the film must have gotten overexposed and the shots didn't turn out. Maxine was nice enough to document the ocean adventurers' return to shore. We went back into Bocas Town for dinner a few nights ago to Coco Fastronomy, a place right on the water. Recall our hotel is about 4 kilometers outside of the "downtown" area. Arriving in the cab we were amazed with the activity and amount of people walking the streets along the water. If we thought the streets were busy with activity, we were quite amazed at was was going on on the water once we were seated at our table. We walked around after dinner and found our last stop in Panama hotel a few blocks from where we ate dinner. It is just outside the "frenetic zone", but close enough for us to walk to a great many restaurants or the many docks for us to use to explore the nearby islands. Miercoles, (Wednesday) was Bingo night at Skully's. Maxine and Ian joined us for the evening. A double card costs you a buck, and all players get a shot of Abuelo rum...nasty stuff that you could use to clean your car engine with. George, a local regular won the first two games and the crowd turned anti-George very quickly...even Skully was intimating that he cheats and that's why he wins so often. Taking the third shot in preparation for game 3, the 4 of us vowed to take down George. O-64 was the straw that took George down and the BB daubed it as we all cried BINGO! Ten bucks and free bucket of beer were the reward for taking down George. Had to play one more as I got to pick the pattern for the next game. Pretty sure I did the shot again...although I cannot either confirm nor deny that. We walked out to go next door to Ciao's for pizza (although I might have wobbled). Shared pizzas with M & I and enjoyed another great chocolate and coffee bar afterwards. Looking for a cab out on the road we had several pass us up as they had fares already. As we got worried about finding a ride, an SUV passed us, stopped and then backed up to give us ride! Not a cab, but friendly locals that helped the gringos get home. Very cool! Happy hour and cribbage the following day at our hotel on the water bar, lead to a wonderful dinner of salmon and BBQ ribs. During lunch on Friday (1/20) we caught a double rainbow over the neighboring island and then watched the rain advance to our location for a refreshing 20 minute rain. We had to say goodbye to Maxine and Ian on Friday as they were off to Panama City and then a bus ride to Nueva Gorgona; which is just outside of Coronado where we were at a while back. They were staying at the complex where we ate lunch that I spoke of in an earlier blog post.
Some friends go, and you meet new ones. We met Jeff Witt, a fellow retiree from Texas on Thursday at breakfast and he invited us to go to dinner with him on Friday night. We went to Skully's for our first time to enjoy something to eat--I checked, those shots at bingo didn't count as being in a food group. We all enjoyed sharing a pizza and some nachos as we watched the pool tournament. It was nice to meet Jeff, and he is leaving on a flight a few hours from now as I write this (Saturday). We don't have access to any TV channels to keep up on American sports, so we are back to Skully's to watch the early playoff game tonight (still have that free bucket of beer to cash in). We already decided we wouldn't survive staying for the late game...probably have a tough time walking AND catching a cab that late at night. Even though the weather in Chi town hasn't been too bad for January; I'm still glad as hell to be in Panama. If I can convince Sha to abandon her love for Pedasi, I think I could put this island living in the hunt for a long term stay...? We plan to make a decision soon on where we want to go after our short return in mid February to the States for somewhere in early March. Gotta factor my buddy Ed's Bday in there as well. Stay tuned for more info... Pura Vida! In the scramble to keep current with the action here in Panama I almost forgot the BB...no not the Blog Boy, but the Birthday Boy! Sesenta y dos! Holy crap...and no I'm not translating that for you-figure it out on your own. Birthday was our first full day after checking and we went for a great exploratory walk to start the day. Probably should've turned around here...but we had to see what was around the bend after the paved road stopped. Super glad we kept going! Made it to Paki Point where the surfer dudes and dudettes were carving up the waves. Glad to see the hotel (green roof) and bar on the water on the return. When we got back to the room the maid was still there and also a man with a ladder...odd, but we waited a bit then went back down by the water until we thought they'd be done. Here's what we found when we opened the door... Happy birthday in live flowers, and champagne and birthday flan as well! Super cool! Realized why that guy had the ladder. Also got to spend a wonderful day by the pool with this pink-toed beauty. We then took a $4 cab ride into Bocas town to have dinner at a small Caribbean style grill called Octo to finish a fantastic birthday. [Thanks for all of well-wishes for this ole man from family and friends--I appreciated hearing from all of you!] We found a couple of cool places in this area outside of "downtown" Bocas, and went to happy hour at Skully's Flying Pirate place the day after BD. Skully does a little bit of everything from having 5 rooms on the water, housing 3 different independent food shops in his place, a mini store to renting ATV's and bicycles. He's a character and his bar always has something going on. After getting to know Skully, and a couple of buckets of beer, we headed out and down the street a little ways to Ciao Pizza...rumored to have some of the best pizza on the island. It didn't disappoint! We also met some Marine biologists who joined us at our table. Well we are certainly enjoying Caribbean Panama so far. Always about 80 degrees F, been mostly sunny, but some clouds lately that have NOT ruined any day. Thinking about taking the hotel kayaks out for a spin in the ocean...check in later!
Pura Vida! I had to pry Sha out of Casa De Campo so we could leave Pedasi and take the 5 hour drive to David to turn in our rental...aka the clown car. Turned out to be a nice drive for the distance and we arrived in time to get lunch before we became carless. Here's a few sights along the way... It was hot in David, but fortunately we didn't have to wait very long outside the rental car place before our transport arrived to take us to Boquete. Joseph was our driver and spoke English, so Sha and I were asking him questions as we drove the 45 minutes up the mountain. He told us a lot about Boquete and we talked about the Flower festival that was starting and how the town was going to be packed with people throughout the 10 day festival. We arrived at Ladera Hotel mid afternoon and went to our 3rd floor room...and we were very unhappy! We were to have an apartment with a kitchen (we had brought food with us to stock the fridge), but were now sitting in a regular hotel room. Long story short; we were able to work with Wendy (our travel agent) and the local organizers of our trip to stay in Boquete for the night and then transfer to Bocas del Toro earlier than originally planned. This turned out to be a perfect solution for us beach bums. It's much cooler in the mountains! After a stressful afternoon we then were able to go out and see the festival and some of the town. Our walk through the narrow streets was full of people and ironically cars as well trying to get to who knew where. The festival grounds were beautiful... By the time we went to dinner, I was freezing! Can you imagine, I had on a jacket and it was zipped up all the way to my chin! We got up early to enjoy a nice breakfast and reorganized our bags to head for the lobby and our 9 AM transport down the mountain to the Caribbean side of Panama and the port town of Almirante. A beautiful morning moon greeted us before we left Boquete. Our new transport arrived right on time and Kevin was our driver...no, not me, nor the cool Kolb, just another cool Kev. Not long into our 3 1/2 hour trip, Kevin asked if we got car sick. We both replied no and then he explained we would be going up and down and rounding corners that he would be turning the other way before we finished going through the first corner...ok, glad he had a nice SUV for our trip. The trip was beautiful down and through the mountains; no one puked either! Here's a taste of the beautiful scenery we passed through. As we got closer to the Caribbean Sea we started seeing the homes of the indigenous Indians who populate the mountain side and the Bocas district. The Almirante dock town was small but crowded; and as we approached "our" dock, the congestion grew as a large number of small buses were dropping off many other tourist/travelers for transport to the Islands. We waited for about 20 minutes for our boat to come into the dock; during which time we chatted with 3 gals from France, the Netherlands and Sweden all traveling alone. We laughed as we traded "student" stories with the teacher from the Netherlands...kids are the same all over the world! When the boat came and we realized all of us in this area were going to be on this boat, we weren't sure how we all would fit with everyone's luggage. They managed to get all the bags onboard and we "squished" in with 5 people across each row of bench seats, totaling 30 of us onboard. The twin 300 HP engines on the back had me feeling confident we would be ok. Our boat ride was around 30 minutes to the big island, Isla Colon and was not too rough (sea was fairly calm between the multiple smaller islands along our path). We docked smoothly and then the hectic disembarkment and recollecting of your bags concluded and we went to locate our transport to Playa Tortuga Hotel and Beach Resort. Bocas del Toro Centro (center of town) has a crowded and hectic paced feel to it as we drove through the narrow streets passing small resorts, hotels and hostels, and restaurants. As our driver drove on we passed out of the center and things were more spread out; seeing houses and small rental places along the drive along the water. We were very happy as we arrived in our rescheduled new home for the next 10 days. Going to enjoy a beer and relax listening to the waves. Talk to you soon!
Pura Vida! Sha keeps telling me how much she loves Pedasi! Alas, we must leave tomorrow for our 5 hour drive to David to drop off our car and then head to the mountains and the town of Boquete. We've enjoyed this little town and wanted to share some of the flair of this place... We hit the restaurant next door (about 25 meters) from our place for the Tuesday night live music and dinner. The "gringo" owner and his pals took the stage for some old time R & R and jammed up a storm. Woke up this morning and took our clothes to the local laundry mat, and saw this as we were leaving the hotel. Our last night in town we hit the El Gato Gastronomico restaurant for the superbly reviewed tiny restaurant (4 tables). Absolutely fantastic meal (although we needed two bottles of wine to get through the meal). Chef came out and checked our reaction after each course...cool! ![]() We got to try the local fruit on the property before we left Casa De Campo today...picked right off the palm tree and handed to me! One other international difference that is worth noting...the tortilla is not what you may think it is in Panama... huevos revueltos con queso y tortilla (scrambled eggs with cheese and tortilla--only half a tortilla shown) We certainly enjoyed our time here in Pedasi...Sha is talking about living here...jury is still out for BB. But I will agree this is a cool place in Panama! We head for the mountains tomorrow...we'll check in in the thinner air.
Pura Vida! Our last couple of days in Chitre were uneventful, but enjoyable. We reestablished our morning walk routine for most of our time here in Chitre; hitting about 3 miles for a 50 minute trip. The right knee is hanging in there; although tired and sore after walks. A couple of hours recovery at the pool fixes it right up. Moving day was January 6th; with about an hour and fifteen minute drive we packed up the clown car and headed to Beverly--I mean Pedasi. Along the way we just couldn't pass up turning off the highway to see the town of Pocri. We followed the guy on the horse through town, then turned around and enjoyed our 6 minute detour through Pocri. The road was smooth and straight and before we knew it we were slowing down to enter Pedasi. The Nacional Highway 2 runs right through the center of this small town and after about two kilometers you are through town and can be off again. Sha and I were gawking around at the sights as we slowly were driving through town and drove right past our hotel Casa de Campo. Had to drive all the way to the end of town and turned around to get to our hotel about a minute and a half later. This boutique hotel has 7 rooms, a pool, a bar and restaurant. (10 pics) Pedasi, in Sha's words is "adorable." Colorful buildings, and a ton of restaurants from street vendors, to little 5 table places right next to someone's house. The narrow streets don't always allow for parking so we have found that walking is sometimes easier. Speaking of walking, we have continued our routine and have enjoyed exploring the town (sometimes hitting the edges of town before having to turn around). I may have mentioned in the past that Sha and I consider ourselves "beach people"; so you know we have checked out the nearby ones and here's a taste of the first couple we found. (3 beaches, 17 pics.) We've enjoyed our complimentary breakfasts here at Casa de Campo, and have enjoyed trying the different restaurants around town as well. An early favorite is Bohemia, an Italian restaurant and pizzeria. We've had the Summer of Love salad both times we've been there, and two different pizzas. Panamanian pizza is darn good! (Don't get excited Chi-town...it doesn't outrank "our" pizza--but this'll do pig.) Lunarosa was another enjoyable dinner. The entire front of the restaurant was empty when we entered; we almost weren't sure if it was open. We walked toward the back of the restaurant as Sha was calling "Hola" when we heard the music and opened the "back" door to find a cool outdoor seating area and bar. Wonderful flavors in our Tapas choices. Today was a cloudy day...can't remember the last time we experienced that; so we used the late morning to travel about 40 minutes south of us to Playa Venao, a beach community. Playa Venao has a bunch of resorts/hotels that line the beach so it's a different sort of area. Not real easy to just drive up to the beach (as we're sort of used to). It has a "hippy dippy" vibe to it with surf shops, chic little coffee shops and restaurants of the same ilk. We picked a few things out of comfort zone for lunch today at La Quincha. Since we weren't super satisfied with our beach visit, we decided to do our explorer thing and find every road on the way home that headed toward the ocean and take it. Much to my delight and Sha's bewilderment (with moments of sheer terror thrown in for good measure), the clown car survived the return trip home. Some of the following roads we should NOT have been on with this car--had to turn around twice due to the vehicle couldn't handle continuing forward. None of these roads were level or flat. Each of the roads pictured were rock-strewn, rutty and had an steep incline and then decline every 100 meters. Average speed when on these roads was about 3-4 kph (seriously). One of Sha's favorite pictures in the one of the living fence posts...trees, or parts of trees are used as fence posts all over Panama. As the seasons pass, the trees start growing...kind of cool. I hope the 13 pic slideshow gives you some idea of the crazy ride home we had...wouldn't have missed it for the world!! We've got a few more days in Pedasi before we pack up and return to being carless for the last month of our trip. Plenty more to do and see.
I'm going to sign off now and join Sha in our pool for a night swim to cool off before hitting the hay. Talk to you soon. Pura Vida!! Dude, did you forget about the blog? It sure seems like you did... Sorry to all our active readers, I've dropped the ball for a bit; but I hope to bring you back up to speed on our progress through Panama. Our last day in Playa Blanco we enjoyed a fabulous sunrise come up over the ocean... Our last pool day at PB also had some new visitors that we hadn't seen before... Sha did some laundry during the afternoon and we enjoyed a last home-cooked dinner and a movie before we packed to make the move to Chitre the following day. Moving day was December 23, also "let your hair down" sister-in-law Debra's birthday. We took Internacional Route 1 and 2 for the near two-hour trip from Playa Blanco to Chitre. We arrived in Chitre at Hotel Los Guayacanes in early afternoon, unloaded the car and settled in to our second floor room overlooking the small pond in the center of the complex of four buildings. After moving into our room we wanted to head out and survey the local area. Those plans were put on hold due to what we found after coming out our room... As disappointing as the flat tire was to see in our parking lot; it was a welcome sight versus having happened on the road somewhere on our way here. The hotel manager happened to be passing by our building and saw our predicament and offered to help. He ended up communicating with our rental car after we experienced difficulties and even had one of the grounds keepers come and help change the spare tire. Well...the plan was set and as I got the spare out (helping without getting in the way) I realized it was flat also! With the flat tire removed, we needed to attach the spare. As our hotel helper was completing attaching the lug nuts of the spare, the last one seemed stuck halfway on...couldn't loosen or tighten it. Trying to complete the tire change, the final attempt snapped off the lug nut! We were thankful for our manager for communicating all of this in Spanish to our rental contact; and we also set up a time to meet the following morning to fix our problem. We drove a short way down the street outside the hotel to a gas station to fill up the spare (on 3 lug nuts!) so we could be sure to get the car to the repairs the next day. We found an outdoor BBQ place on the way home and had dinner there before going home (with spare holding air!). Our breakfast is included during our two-week stay in Chitre and we enjoyed our first one on Christmas Eve and then took a walk around the hotel property before we took the car in for its needed repair. Had a video call with mom and dad to wish dad a happy birthday and hear about the family plan for the day's celebration. Our tire repair was surprisingly pain-free, and despite being Christmas Eve, we had our car back in working order by early afternoon. We then took to the streets to see what there was to see. The small streets were busy as people were out and about and we were able to buy a bag of Christmas tangerines off a street vendor for a $1 as we drove down the street heading to the big white church. We had dinner that night at our hotel. December 26 we wanted to checkout a couple of nearby beaches after having enjoyed the pool after breakfast. We reconnected with the WWW to guide us there. We drove through a multitude of small neighborhoods on our way to the coast. We then hit a dirt road that had that "should we keep going" feeling. This time we should've turned around (and we had to as the pictures show). We are not even sure what we ran into...certainly wasn't a beach, and even though WWW said to continue on to the beach; we told her to pound dirt and we turned around. Redirection finally had us in the right place. To say that the first "beach" and then the second were disappointing would be an understatement. Low tide exposed a stretch of 200 meters of muddy/marshy muck that didn't hold any appeal for either of us to get out of the car. Well that was a waste of gas! On the return, we stopped in a small town called Parita that at least salvaged the exploration trip. The headless guy is called a "muñecos" and is filled with firecrackers, lit and beaten at midnight New Year's that help drive away the evil from the previous year. We had dinner that night at Estambul, a Turkish restaurant where we had a sampler platter of the local dishes. We both enjoyed the new tastes and spices in the dishes. We stayed local for the next three days, enjoying the monotony of 87 and sunny with morning walks around our neighborhood, relaxing by the pool and finding a few restaurants around town. Worried about the condition of the beaches in this area, we reluctantly tried again and headed out to Playa El Uverito which is outside of Las Tablas; about 40 minutes south of us. Faith in the Panamanian coastline was restored as we drove along this coast. We found a cool seaside restaurant called Rincon Del Faro (Corner of the Lighthouse) for lunch. New Year's Eve we felt the need to explore again and headed for Playa el Rompio early in the afternoon. Feeling good about what we found, we continued driving along the shore and came across a gem by the ocean where we worked through our beginning Spanish to order a couple of beers and some lunch. Upon returning to our hotel, we received a phone call on the room phone...weird I know. We had met a couple (Lucy and Daniel) a few days earlier and had breakfast with them a couple of times who left for their home in Panama City but returned for New Year's; and wanted to have dinner with us (I was right Bowsie!). We joined them a few hours later here at the hotel for a wonderful dinner. For the previous few days, the hotel has been prepping the pool area for a New Year's Eve party (sounded like something we would enjoy until we found out the party started at 11 PM). So, after dinner we headed to our room with our set of 12 grapes and some wine to enjoy the College Bowl games and the countdown to midnight. There was no need to check a watch when it was 11 PM as the music was heard far and wide as the party started. The continuous fireworks signaled the stroke of midnight and was happening across the visible area. The party finally shutdown at 5 AM; and I think we both managed to sleep for periods of times before the DJ screaming woke us back up. Surprisingly, we didn't miss the next morning's breakfast which shuts down at 10 AM. We headed into town to resupply for the football games and were encountering masses of people buying beer and ice for their coolers. We then saw hundreds of people carrying their coolers to the town square near the big white church (where we bought the Christmas tangerines)! Every corner had people with coolers. We were driving around to find out what was going on when we ran into a float. We continued to drive around the area and finally ran into blocked off streets around the church and then headed home to try and figure out what was happening on New Year's Day. The Internet revealed it was the Fiesta in the Plaza Square and is basically a party in preparation of Carnivale, 40 days prior to Easter. Party-goers pack into the Plaza Square, water tanker trucks line the exterior of the area and everyone--including the floats and bands get sprayed with water as they party. We found earlier exhibits of what happens... Unfortunately we will not be in Panama for Carnivale; which means we will need to come next year for the festivities!
Sha and I wish you all the best in 2023 and hope you have all that you and your family need. Pura Vida! |
Kevin & Sharon SeibelBeginning our next big adventure! Archives
December 2023
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