David and Penonomé Photos

The  photos for David (the city) and Penonomé are now uploaded here. Just click a name to be redirected.

David

Penonomé

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Life is a Beach and Then You Fry

Ron wanted to take a day trip to Playa Barqueta. It was supposedly close to David, so why not. Let me list the reasons. I grew up blocks from the Atlantic Ocean. Even when I was a kid, I preferred the pool club to getting sand in every bodily crevice, having a coating of fish water with a side of salt, and playing hide and fry with the sun.

This is where the conundrum comes to play. When I absolutely refuse one of Ron’s schemes, I wonder forever if it were something, I would have loved and missed the experience. Then the alternative is giving in, having a horrid time and needing to write about it endlessly to get it out of my system.

Trying to go with the flow, first I asked Ron why he wanted to go to the beach. When he responded that he wanted to relax, I nearly keeled over. Relax from what? We have been so relaxed most of this trip, I have given him CPR twice so far just to reassure myself there is life after arriving in Panama.
According to Luis at the hostel, there is one bus that leaves at 11 am and one bus that returns at 5:30 pm. The bus ride is one hour, giving us from noon to five and half hours later to do nothing. I am not good at doing nothing, but of course, I can bring my book to read. Luis told us there are cabanas that are rentable for $5 for the day. With this in mind, we thought there would be some hope to this.

In order to get to the bus station, we needed to take a taxi. Then we found that the bus doesn’t come until 1 pm if it was on time. Let me explain that ‘bus’ is a misnomer. They are actually oversized vans that can hold maybe 30 people. There were six people standing in the middle aisle for the first thirty-five minutes. The ride did take the hour promised, but it let us out at an area that looked like the outer make-out area before entering a drive-in movie. On either side are restaurants that look similar to what I remember on boardwalk circa 1960 New Jersey. Getting off the bus, I confirmed with the driver what time he would return. It would not be until 6:30 pm, not 5:30. I thought I misunderstood the Spanish, so repeated it. When he confirmed it, I repeated it again. I just didn’t want it to be so.

Walking onto the beach, we discover the ‘cabanas’. These were not what I would call cabanas under any stretch on the imagination. They were what you would expect near extinct tribes that have not yet been discovered yet, living in. Thatched A-frames sans a front or back. There were no chairs, but there was a wooden bench. That is all that existed in these cabanas. That is all there is on this beach.
Because the sand is from volcanic lava, it is dark in color. I wouldn’t call it black, but rather muddy brown with grey overtones. It is a glorious beach, causing you to excise those thighs getting to the water. Finally, a beach that doesn’t have erosion issues. But wait! The temperature is 90 degrees; the sand is hot enough to make glass without further heating. We have no blanket, towels, or umbrella. It is so hot out, there was no one to siphon $5 off of us for the use of the unfurnished palm tree lean-to poor excuse for a place to rest from the sun. 

After taking turns watching our meager belongings in the shade, for fear they would melt in the heat, the other explored the beach. We sat under one of the restaurants’ cover, but eventually we needed to order food to justify why we wanted to be there for five plus hours. Ron had a fish that arrived with a full grimace, teeth still showing the displeasure at his foolishness over getting caught. I had some pork that once went through a witness protection program, but finally got met its end. There is still no confirmation that this was indeed pork, but we will just let it go so I don’t feel sick.

After asking Ron what time it was so many times, he finally gave me his watch to wear. My watch absolutely refuses to stay in touch with Fort Collins, CO where it is supposed to automatically sync 6 times in a 24 hour day. I tried doing it manually after reading the manual, but still nothing. Strangely, I bought it in Spain; it should like these Spanish speaking syncing sites.

By 4 pm, I was ready to drown a lifeguard, but there were none to be found. By 5 pm, the restaurant next door opened up. Their patio has a clear view of the parking lot where the bus would arrive, so I made Ron move. I asked 35 people what time the bus would return, which was interesting since there were less than 20 people in the area. Some of them did I a second round to see if they would give me an answer I liked better the second time around.

At 6 pm, I was standing in the street ready to throw myself in front on any vehicle that looked like a bus. Three times Ron had to drag me off the gravel; I mistook three vans as the bus. I begged the people climbing out to take us back to David, but they were ready for beach fun, even with the sun setting. When the real bus finally turned up, the driver must have characterized me as a dog happy to see its owner. When I climbed on the bus, the passengers on-board already started to giggle.

We didn’t get back to the bus station until 7:40 pm. There are few bus stops, but the bus will stop whenever hailed by someone on the side of the road.

I set my pedometer to zero when we arrived in Panama City. When we left Panama City, we racked up 32.71 miles. Then resetting it for Boquete and David we added another 26.61 miles. So far the total is 59.32 miles

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Boutique Boquete and Earthy David

Our time in Boquete has ended, so today we took the bus to David, Panama. It is an hour and ten minutes away, but may was well be a different region entirely.
Boquete sits on the most western part of the Chiriquí Province, surrounded by mountains. Costa Rica is 60 km away. The altitude could be difficult for some; it is 1,200 meters (3937.01) above sea level. 

According to government statistics, there are over 3,000 foreigners permanently living in Boquete representing over 30 different countries, but the vast majority are from the US and Canada. Boquete’s weather forced me into wearing a sweater at times during the day and often in the evening. At times, it was not the temperature, but the wind that created the change of attitude about the altitude. I have checked this off our list of possible places for a future move.

David, Panama is the capital of the province of Chiriquí. It is the 3rd largest city in the country with a population of 144,858 as of the 2013 census. Average high temperatures run from 89 to 96 degrees Fahrenheit with lows ranging from 66 to 71 degrees. There is enough humidity to make the temperatures feel warmer, but not enough to drain your energy like Panama City.

Now this is definitely a cultural thing and probably really a North American thing, but if we lived here, I could not see having guests visit for more than a couple of days at a time. There is not much to do for entertainment. However, Americans like things pristine. I don’t mind seeing torn up sidewalks, holes in the cement, or bags of trash that have broken open and spilled along the sides of the buildings. I really get stimulated from the earthy feeling, but most likely, not many would feel the same way.

Between yesterday and today, we discovered that David has a vibrant downtown area with a tremendous number of shops, restaurants, and kiosks on the sidewalks, but none of these are name brand stores or any that are recognizable from outside the area, I would guess. 

Interesting distinctions!

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Flying Time Again

By 7:02 am, we were biting our nails wondering where our ride was for getting to the airport. Our flight was scheduled for 8:30 and it was supposedly a short ride, but still. Three minutes later, she showed up and dropping us off by 7:23 am. The airport is so small; you could fit about 40 of them in Albrook Mall. Air Panama is the only airline flying today to David, San Blas, and Costa Rica. We are going to David where we will immediately try to find the bus station to take us to Boquete (Bō-ket-eh). The last part sounds like an exasperated Italian – eh!

Apparently, there was no need to rush to the airport, the flight was delayed almost an hour. We kept seeing these little piper cub planes making us wonder how this enormous group of people would fit. Once they started boarding our flight, we realized that our plane was out of view from the waiting area, but we still had to walk to it. It was a Fokker 100 twin-turbofan, which looked sparkling new with a 2-3 seat configuration. We had 2 seats on the emergency row, but frankly I was depending on the 3 on the other side if there were an emergency, since directions would be in Spanish. I don’t do well with Spanish under pressure. Flight time is only 30 minutes, yet the exceptional staff of three provided a drink service after passing out Quaker Oats oatmeal cookies. I have never been so happy to see a Quaker before.

Arriving in David, we were trammeled by a series of taxi drivers. They wanted anywhere from $9 to $15 to take us to the bus station. Ron had already asked at two kiosks in the airport learning the maximum should be $6-7. We refused all offers until one driver offered to drive us to Boquete for $22. Now we figured the cost of a ride to the bus station and the cost of 2 bus tickets to Boquete weighing in on the time we would have to wait for a bus and finally schlepping the suitcases from the bus station to the hostel. His offer was reasonable and we accepted it. The drive was an hour and 30 minutes, not a bad deal at all.

The hostel is great! Just a short walk to the downtown area, the staff is friendly and the room has plenty of space for us to spread out. We have an ensuite room for $38 a night; kitchen facilities are upstairs. Once we dropped things off, we went to explore the town. According to International Living, for the last 5 years, this has been named as the 2nd most popular place for ex-pats to retire. First impression is it is like one extended strip with little shops and restaurants on either side. There are few sidewalks, so at times you have to dodge traffic. My impression is that a number of the ex-pats have cars, so drive everywhere.

We did walk blocks parallel to the main street, but found little of interest. There were a few shops, but not much else. Tucked on a corner at the end of one bridge is a theater that ex-pats use to offer plays. The last one was a few weeks ago. There does not seem to be much to amuse oneself, but time will tell.

Some ex-pat offered the suggestion for where we should eat lunch. Big Daddy’s was pricey for an ex-pat community that has moved here to live off Social Security. Ron had the special fish tacos and I had a chicken platter. My chicken was on the tough side. We found a grocery store for our evening meal and some munchies for breakfast.

Ron booked a Cloud Forest Tour for tomorrow morning and then for the next morning a coffee plantation tour.

By 5 pm, we were twiddling our thumbs wondering what to do. We found a coffee shop open, but once that was down the hatch, we only had our room to sit around in and watch movies.

Related articles

• Boquete: Our Sleepy Mountain Town Escape
• Boquete
• Habla Ya! - Boquete, Panama

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Firenze Card

I have not been able to keep up with this the way I normally would. Though I was able to get connected to the Internet in Florence, there was blocks and restrictions that I did not want to try to hack my way through. Therefore, it all fell by the wayside until getting home. That is always a mistake, so here is a condensed version of the rest of Florence.

We decided on buying the Firenze Card. I am always suspicious about the savings on these cards, but looking at the cost of this one made my eyebrows peak. They are 50 Euros each and there is only a 72 hour option. Basically, we would only have about 50 hours to use it since we have a mid-afternoon flight. Looking at the cost of entry for various places, it seemed like a good deal, but better yet, there are different entry points for card holders promising a shorter line.

Strangely enough, now that I am writing this, when I looked at their website, it shows it is now 72 Euros for 72 hours. It jumped 22 Euros since we were there on the 25th.

We did it and this is the breakdown of some, but not all of our entry fees.
Bargello – 12 Euros
Opera del Duomo – Museum of the Duomo     10 Euros
Giotto Campanile Tower - 412 stairs to the top 10 Euros I climbed to the top
Bapttistero de San Giovanni – Baptistery 5 Euros
Cappelle Medicee – Medici Chapel 9 Euros
Palazzo de Medicee – See through chairs and chapel with frescoes 7 Euros
Galleria dell Accademia – David 11Euros
Uffici too long a line on Tuesday, but went back on Wednesday and got right in.

The Jewish Synagogue and Museum were out of the way. By the time we got there, they had closed. We were going to try to get back there, but never made it during their limited hours.

During our walkabout, we discovered a craft beer place where ten beers are on tap. They were celebrating their 1 year anniversary, so we joined them for a brew. As I was sitting there, I spotted Eric walking down the street. He was meeting some friends for dinner, so could not stay for a beer.

I had spotted a pair of sneakers I wanted to try out. My current pair was wearing out. We had seen the store in our travels, but could not remember where. I had the sense it was close to the beer bar, so we retraced steps. It turned out to be blocks away, but worthy of the hunt. I bought the sneakers.

Nearby was Trattoria de Carmone with outdoor seating, but it was packed. We had a table inside all to ourselves. This one was rated on TripAdvisor.

If you go, I recommend this B and B with great praise:
Casa di Annusca  Via dei Serragli 126 
50124 Florence 
+39-338-314-1076 
fbaudone@me.com (Fabio)

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