Sheep Guarding Llama

Considering that I was up until four thirty this morning I was pretty impressed with myself for waking up on my own at seven thirty!  Up and getting started on the day nice and early.

I have nothing scheduled during the day today.  We had a lunch set up today but sadly Bob’s friend that we were going to be lunching with had a heart attack yesterday and is in the hospital.  He had to have a bypass but seems to be doing okay at this point.  Bob and Paul ended up going to lunch without me across town with Bob’s cousin.

I just spent the day working from the hotel room.  This allowed me to get a bit done and to have some time to really relax as it was nice and quiet.

After lunch Bob and Paul stopped by to catch me up and to talk for about an hour.  Then they took off and decided to call it a day.  They had a busy day yesterday and wanted to get in early and spend the evening with Bob’s family with whom they were staying since our evening plans had all been cancelled anyway.

Maria came by in the late afternoon and gave me a ride to the Pacific Mall so that I could hit the MacStore (not to be confused with the Apple Store) in the hopes of finding a replacement power cable for my MacBook Pro and a Thunderbolt to HDMI cable so that we could hook up the laptop to the television in the house.

That took a bit of the day but I did manage to find the cables that I needed (and it only cost $130!!)  Argh.

After work this evening Brynne stopped by and we headed into Casco Viejo via taxi and just started walking to see what we could find.  We stumbled quickly on a roof top terrace where we found amazing food and the best vodkatinis ever.  Ginger pear vodka martinis.  So good.  And the best bruschetta I have ever had.

After dinner there we hit an art gallery and hung out there for a little bit just because it seemed interesting.  Then we walked all over the old town and settled on sitting outside on the water front where we ran into a group of Londoners, two of whom had moved to Panama and talked to us for a while about living in Panama and having moved from Columbia.

We thought, and were told, that everything was going to be closed by this point but before completely giving up on food (our earlier food had been very light because we thought that Maria and her friend were going to meet us later on but their evening meeting ended up being over five hours instead of one!!) we walked a little bit down the water front and discovered the Whisky Bar which turned out to be the best find of the night.

The drinks and the food at Whisky Bar were amazing and the kitchen was open incredibly late.  They did whisky-themed tapas and so we just kept sampling.  Everything was great.

I will be going back to the Whisky Bar for sure.  Best find in Casco Viejo.

This morning Bob picked me up bright and early.  We had to be on the road very early so that we could get all of the way up to Panama City while it was still morning.  Paul (and Brynne) and driven up to Panama City last night.

The drive went fine, no issues.  We ended up missing the Bridge of the Americas and got stuck taking the central bridge and coming down from the north side of Panama City which was pretty awesome and wasted all kinds of time.

Getting to the DoubleTree was an exercise in dealing with big city traffic.  That was no fun at all.  I was very glad that I was not the one that was driving and dealing with all of it.

Finally we got into the DoubleTree driveway and after waiting for a ridiculous about of “line problems” with the waiting line (they kept letting people line jump) I managed to get checked into the hotel and up to my room.  At least I was able to get into my room quite early.

The room was nice but not up to DoubleTree standards.  Comfortable for sleep, the bed and linens were great, but the office chair and overall furniture situation left something to be desired.  The Internet access was an unnecessary pain.  But the room was pretty good overall.

Pitty and Paul were there shortly after we got there and Maria arrived a few hours later. A little bit after noon we rode with Pitty up to the Colón Free Zone to meet with someone.  The Free Zone was super interesting.  It is part of the port up on the Caribbean side of the country and is a tax free zone.  We had to go through security to get into it.  Everything there has not passed through customs.  It is like a city within a city.  I’ve never seen anything like it before.  It was very educational.

After work, around seven thirty, Brynne met us at the DoubleTree and we all walked down to the Executive Hotel to eat at the Executive Cafe which Maria had told us about.  It is, apparently, a staple of Panama City and is much like a high end, Panamanian Denny’s.  It very much had a diner menu and was open long hours.

We all shared a bit order or Nachos Gringos which was perfect as we were nearly all gringos.  So it was Nachos Gringos con gringos!  They were delicious.  I also got huevos rancheros which were amazing.

Bob and Paul had to take off really eary, around eight thirty, to get back to the house.  So that left Maria, Brynne and I with nowhere to go.  So we want back up the street and ended up grabbing a few beers at an open air bar right across the street.  They had a nice selection of craft beers and we tried a few things.  Hardcore IPA for me.

Maria had to get going because she had a meeting to get to.  So Brynne and I decided that since it was early that we would just walk to a bar that Maria had been telling us about.  Before Maria could leave, though, she offered to give us a ride because that was where she was headed to pick someone up.

Maria’s friend ended up wanting to join us so the four of us ended up staying out until the bar closed down, sitting out on the upstairs balcony near the water front, but not close enough to see the water.

Once the bar closed down, Maria took her friend home and Brynne and I set off to walk back to the DoubleTree but we decided that we would attempt getting some food as it had been about seven hours since we had had dinner.  We tried going back to the Executive Cafe but they were closed even though everyone had been telling us that they were open twenty four hours a day.

There was another place just up the street called “something” Azul, but that place was closed too.  We asked some locals and were sent on to a place called El Prado, which later we were told is a staple of Panama City’s late night eating scene.

The walk proved to be really, really far and the directions that we were given were not good but some locals that we ran into on the street were headed that way and walked there with us to make sure that we made it.  We would never have found it on our own!

It was about three thirty when we got “dinner”.  Brynne got a cuban, I got shrimp fried rice.  It was a huge menu and quite varied.  Very obvious why they are a popular late night stop in Panama City.

I was up around seven thirty this morning.  Dominica was up not long after me.  Liesl had slept in our bed last night because she found an ant in her bed when she was trying to sleep last night and freaked out and needed to sleep with us.

Once the girls were up this morning we got them ready and right out the door, which was about nine thirty, to walk down to the beach and spend the morning in the ocean.  We actually did really well and put in probably two hours down on the beach!  It was pretty awesome.  That was a great way to start the day.  We got some exercise as the walk is pretty far and the girls had an awesome time playing out on the beach.

The tide was going out when we got there so we got to slowly move out with it. The girls had so much fun playing in the sand. Dominica sat on a chair and I spent my time walking the beach.  The girls did a lot of shell collecting.  I found the outlet of the Farollon River and we played in that too.  We discovered tons of crabs living in the rocks there too.  It was very interesting.  The girls got to see their first crabs.

I got a little bit of sun today.  Still don’t really have a tan, though.  I can’t believe how much sun I get and how little tan I pull off from it.

I worked all day standing at the kitchen counter.  I am trying to avoid sitting too much which is so easy to do.  The chairs in these rental places are terrible for trying to actually work.

Liesl managed to do a bit of school today.  Keeping in that habit with all of the moving is very hard.

This evening Dominica and I sat outside.  I had a lot of database documentation work that I needed to do this evening so I was working on that and wrapped it up around midnight.

Bob is coming to pick me up around seven thirty in the morning and we are driving out to Panama City.  I will be staying at the Hilton DoubleTree Panama City all week.  Going to be a long day.

We got up this morning in El Valle.  I was awake around seven thirty by my Ciana was so sweet and snugly, I stayed in bed for another hour.  Before getting out of bed I accidentally knocked my iPhone 5s off of the top of the bed and it hit the tile floor and the screen shattered.  My first every broken phone.  I knew that all of the tile floors in Panama were going to get me eventually.  It only took a week.

This made for a complicated morning as being in Panama without a working phone would be a disaster.  This has to be fixed right away.  All the more complicated because we do not have a car.

We had breakfast at the house, Bob’s mother in law cooked for us.  Then Paul and I went out for a walk to see if there was anywhere around the village that would be able to deal with the phone for us.  We walked all of the way down to the hostel that we were at last night but did not have any luck.  There was a MoviStar store and they said that no one in town could do it and that we would probably have to go to Panama City to get what we needed, which seems ridiculous that we would have to drive three hours to get a phone fixed.  This might be a rough day.

Paul and I stopped and got a coffee before returning to the house.  Dominica had the car all packed up and the girls ready to go.  We had to be home before noon because the Internet access out in El Valle was just not good enough for me to be able to work effectively.

The drive back was pretty tough on the girls.  All three of them were feeling pretty sick.  We took the detour back to Coronado and thankfully in the first plaza that we went to we found a phone repair place!  Half an hour and a hundred dollars later my phone was fixed (although I no longer have the cool finger print reader that I love so much) and all is well.  While we waited Dominica and the girls went shopping at the dollar store next door and we managed to get colouring books and sand toys so that they can play at the beach which we hope to go to in the morning.

We were back at Playa Blanca at a quarter after eleven.  The exterminators had come this morning while we were gone which was perfect timing.

Dominica and the girls sat outside for an hour or two to let the fumes dissipate in the condo before having the girls play inside again.

After the exciting morning we had a quiet evening and just outside while the girls watched Nick Jr. in Spanish.  We let them watch television more here than back home (which is basically none) because it is in Spanish and we are hoping that they are picking it up to some degree.  We have no idea if that theory works or not, though.  I should try watching it with them.

We spent some time tonight working on our plans for Nicaragua.  We think that we know which house we are going to attempt to rent while we are there.  We found a place that looks really nice, has an indoor pool and is very cost effective.

This morning Paul drove out to Playa Blanca around nine this morning to pick up the Miller family and drive us out to El Valle about forty to fifty minutes away to the north.  It was closer to ten when we finally made our way out of Playa Blanca and the drive up to El Valle took nearly an hour.

The mountain drive was beautiful but was way too much of a winding trip for Dominica and the girls, even with their motion sickness medication. We had to stop at an overlook along the way to get a minute outside of the car.  This has already ruled out El Valle as a long term location for us, we just would not be able to handle the driving in and out on a regular basis.

This was our first time off of the PanAmerican highway to get to really see Panamá and what real life is like as opposed to the highway businesses and the resort setups.  It was far more interesting than where we are living this month.

We got to Bob’s mother in law’s place and we were there for probably only about half an hour before we all set out for a walk across town to go out for lunch at an Italian place.  Bob truly underestimated the distance that was involved as it was probably a mile or more in the heat.  There was pretty much no shade the entire way.

About halfway there Bob was in rough shape and sent Paul back to get a car to come back for us.  It was just too far to walk.  So Paul headed back and Bob, Dominica and I continued on with the kids.  We did not go very far before I missed the sidewalk just a little bit and the sandal on my right foot did not hold well enough and the pressure of me slipping cause the sandal to spin on my foot and down I went.

Bob said that I can down so hard on the pavement that I bounced a little.  My left knee or very high shin hit quite hard but mostly I caught myself with my hands.  Nothing tragic but I hit hard enough that there was quite a scrape and a bit of blood going on.

We walked on a little ways and found a shady spot to sit and wait for Paul to arrive with the car.  It was a good thing that we had waited for him, it turned out to be rather a long ways yet to go at that point to get to the restaurant, DaVinci’s, which was way out to the east of town by the Rey’s grocery store.

Lunch turned out to be really amazing.  It was a very fancy Italian bistro with an extremely high end menu.  I got a smoked salmon in vodka sauce pasta dish which was amazing.  Both girls tried it to and they really liked it as well.  They would have eaten my entire meal had I let them.  Liesl got a really awesome mushroom soup but she declined to eat it.  Everything was awesome there.

We drove partway back and stopped at a little ice cream place halfway back so that the girls could get ice cream.  Bob and I both got rum & raisin ice cream.  Dominica actually got a grape nut ice cream which was really odd, but pretty good.  Luciana got strawberry, of course.  Liesl got vanilla with sprinkles.

We went back to the house and spent the afternoon there.  Such a peaceful location.  We got a lot done.  Before dinner Paul and I took a walk through the area north of the house which was neat to get to see the backroads and what was out there.

Dinner was amazing.  A Panamanian fish in a cream sauce.  So good.

Dominica and Bob both went to bed early.  Paul and I went out to explore down and find a bar.  We started first going to a hostel on the east side of town and ended up going out with four of the people who were staying there.

We just went to the Balboa bar right across the street.  This was my first time in a Central American bar but it was pretty much exactly as I had imagined it.  Big, dark and mostly empty.  Nothing like what you would find in the US.  It was basically a converted barn.

We had a really good time, bought a few rounds for the house and got a party started.  We didn’t stay late, maybe ten thirty at the latest.  Sampled some local beer like Balboa and Atlas.

We went back to the house where Bob was awake.  We had a few more beers there and were up probably until about one in the morning.

Luciana got into a lot of trouble tonight.  Dominica had fallen asleep around eight thirty, which is surprisingly easy to do in a place that gets dark around seven, and at some point after she was asleep Luciana attempted to sneak a box of cereal in the dark and spilled it all over.

We slept in a cottage near the main house.  No air conditioning but the evening air was not too bad here in the valley.