Kenny Chesney has a song that says, “and I woke up with a hundred mosquito bites” and well, that’s pretty much me right now. Except they aren’t mosquito bites, they are fly bites, and I got them because I forgot to close my window Tuesday night. I looked like and felt like I had the chicken pox on both Wednesday and Thursday. God, it was horrible. I used an entire tube of hydro-cortisone cream and took an inhuman amount of Benadryl which could possibly explain why I have been so tired this week. I am doing better now, but I still itch a bit, and still have red blotches all over me. This is why there have been no pictures of me yet. I don't need my current state of uglyness recorded for all history. When I get a little better, I'll take and post some.
Contrary to what this pic implies, the cars here are, on average, nicer than the ones driving around in the US.
These flower trees are everywhere
Classes have been great. I am learning the past tenses, which are pretty important to being able to have a conversation. Things are getting easier. Well, at least to understand when folks are talking to me. It is still hard to get what I want to say back out. But it is slowly coming along. And I know all the words that have to do with “bites” “itching” “hurting” and “scratching” now. I have to say though, everyone here has been so helpful in wanting to lessen my agony. The nice woman at the coffee shop brought me some calamine lotion and several other people have offered me their home remedies.
In a boost for my confidence in Spanish, I am able to read selected newspaper articles without a dictionary. That’s pretty awesome. I am gonna start the first Harry Potter book in spanish this afternoon. We'll see how that goes.
Not a banana tree, but something cool.
The village of Los Naranjos, it is just up the valley from my house.
I went for some major hikes this weekend. Well, they were kinda hikes… they were multi-hour expeditions in which I walked a lot, but they were along roads so if I got tired I could just flag down a taxi or passing bus. These roads were just little one lane-ers with very very little traffic that take you high into the hills outside Boquete. So maybe they weren’t really hikes per se, but they were close.
I bought an orange from this stand. He really wanted me to buy a Panama flag too.
Looking down the valley towards Boquete, the headwaters of the Rio Caldera.
Saturday’s hike was nice, I climbed a bit, but it was manageable. Sunday I climbed about 2000 feet and it felt like it was straight up. I seriously am not exaggerating when I say that some of these inclines were over 45 degrees. I was dying and the cars that came by no doubt were putzing up in first gear. It is not really hot here, but it is humid, and I annihilated the water I brought with me within the first hour I was out. Ugh.
A cabbage patch.
This might be Volcan Baru.
Onion fields and the 11,000 foot volcano, I think it is the peak on the right.
The area is primarily commercial agriculture and coffee plantations, and the land is worked by the indigenous population who also live up in these hills. It’s remarkably beautiful up there, and pretty quiet. I don’t really want to do a lot of hiking on the trails in the area because I am alone and don’t really want to hire a guide for just me. So I’m sticking with hikes like this, which are hard enough and allow for a quick stop in the villages for a snack. I’m also not really into birds which is the primary reason to go into the jungle. And I don’t need any more bug bites.
Coffee Plants.
The workers and their families live in barracks like this one.
When I got home from my hike yesterday, I had every intention of studying. I really did. I gathered up all my stuff, and decided to treat myself to a nice lunch at the nicest place in town. I ordered a sandwich, which possibly was not the right thing, because, well, it wasn’t that good, and just about fell asleep eating it. I tried to tough it out, but just couldn’t. I went back to the house and told myself I could sleep for an hour. I didn’t wake up til nearly four and a half hours later. Perhaps that is the benedryl catching up with me.
You will kill Tweety bird if you build too many houses in the valley.
Sunday I went into town for some ice cream and pizza after I got back from the hills. I felt like I deserved it. Then I ran into my friend Mort. He’s the great retired guy who has a son who travels a lot and is often helped by strangers. So, Mort has decided to pay his son’s travel karma forward, and I am the glorious recipient. I hung out with Mort, and some of his friends in the late afternoon, on his veranda that overlooks the river. We had some wine. It was very nice.
Really cool tree.
Afternoon rain coming in.
I really haven’t been impressed with Panamanian food. It’s just bland. And what is not bland is fried. Like hot dogs. Fried hot dogs are a favorite breakfast food. Ugh. That’s just not for me. But the fried plantains are good—we have those at dinner most nights. Along with a lot of rice, some meat, and not a lot of spices. And of course, I really haven’t found any good foreign food here either, except for maybe at the Peruvian place. But they play nothing but Peruvian flute music there, and which, if you’ve ever seen the South Park episode about the Peruvian flute bands (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandemic_%28South_Park%29), you’ll understand why I can think of nothing but giant guinea pigs the entire time I’m there, and thus probably won’t be able to frequent the place.
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