2012 Diciembre 27 — El Paseo Largo

December 27, 2012 . El Paseo Largo . The Long Drive

Ola-

Fairly short and sweet.
Spent most of the day in the car…

Left Chitre without problem, although even using two GPS systems we got a little lost –mostly at the end. The guidance issue is that I can get the iPhone GPS to mark our location (the little blue ball).. but if I switch out of the location – even to read the directions, I lose the map completely and have to start again, which is problematic since we have to drive through areas that don’t have any Internet reception (imagine!)… And for whatever reason the iPad which has the same application as the iPhone cannot seem to locate us.. so no blue ball. But on the iPad I can get the direction list step by step, although it does make a lot of mistakes. So, between the two devices we found our way.

Left Chitre around 10:30 (they are still working on the elevator at the Gran Azuelo Hotel, but overnight they seem to have done one coat of stucco on the wall and the guy who was standing on the upside down can to reach the top of the wall seemed to have survived.

Drove through town and onto the Pan-American Highway (one lane in each direction)… through some really nice countryside, hills, and eventually climbed in elevation as we approached Boquete. Stopped for lunch at a little roadside “café”… basically a few tables on the roadside with someone who is cooking one dish… sometimes there is a choice. It’s rather basic. My goal is stick to the chicken. Yesterday Mike opted for the pork dish and it was pigs feet — no meat, just bones.. so he had a lot of rice. I got chicken both days.. a far better choice. Anyway the dish is generally the meat (not much of it) and rice… sometimes also beans. Not very gourmet, but it’s fun to sit in these places and see daily life.. Today we both got chicken. The bill was $4.00, but that was because we each got bottled water. Obviously if you’ve been following these notes, for dinner we’ve been going a different route in restaurant choices.

Anyway, we drove to Boquete, and saw the town from the car window (we will walk around tomorrow)… It seems lively and must have a lot of ex-pats as there are way more restaurants and shopping than in a typical Panamanian town of this size. Boquete is the coffee growing capital of the country.. It also borders a very large international park that is half in Panama and half in Costa Rica, so the terrain is much like Costa Rica. Climate is clearly better than anywhere we’ve been — dry, cool. We wanted to stay in this area for a few days, but it was difficult to get any reservations. There’s a nice coffee plantation inn, but we couldn’t get reservations. Anyway, we got the only hotel room we could find online (we were a bit late with all of these plans)… and it is at a very strange place (fortunately one night only).. with a golf course and spa! There are 200 condos on the grounds and 35 hotel rooms… Seems the condos are owned primarily by Europeans and Americans… hence, I suppose the golf! Anyway, it’s just to sleep. We’re leaving in the morning to explore the area and then we head to Boca Chica.. a little island.. for two days… assuming we meet the boat on time!

….
Just back from dinner at The Rock… good, but they didn’t have half of what’s on the menu. Weather has changed drastically.. We nearly froze eating outside at The Rock… Up here in Boquete it’s drizzling and it’s about 65 degrees.. Actually very pleasant but we don’t have sweaters or jackets since we didn’t expect anything like this. But prediction for tomorrow in Boca Chia is 90 degrees, so we’ll be sweating tomorrow and happy we didn’t bring sweaters.

Buenas noche…
Hasta luego
Fern