March 3, 2015
Our guest house host offered us a free breakfast today. We
assume because we are staying here for two weeks and this is a real boost to
her income. Most guests stay one or two nights. So at 8:30 she and her helpers
appeared with a larger fruit salad of melon, bananas and almonds, fried eggs to
order, coffee and toast with butter. It was very generous of her and very
sweet. We usually have granola with a banana for breakfast and prepare eggs on
the weekend. We have the option of her preparing breakfast daily but we prefer
a lighter breakfast most days and prefer to save the expense for travel treats
like yesterday’s hike or tomorrow’s tentative volcano trip.
The wind continues to rip through the valley but we have
sunshine again today and a bird outside our door is singing a beautiful song,
one of the simple pleasures of life. We walked to the Tuesday market, chatted
with a woman there whom we met yesterday on our nature hike. She is a former
Peace Corps volunteer and true to form she has traveled the world extensively.
We bought a lovely colorful woven straw ‘tray’ from a local woman who had made
it and her husband who was the salesman. We decided it wouldn’t take much room
and it was light weight and it would squeeze in somewhere in our luggage.
March 4
I haven’t said much about the local indigenous people in the
highlands. They are the Ngobe-Bugle, composed of two separate ethno-linguistic
categories. They are Panama’s
largest indigenous population, numbering around 200,000. They retain their own
autonomous region with their own system of governance and economy, while
maintaining their language, representation in the Panamanian legislature and
full voting rights. In the villages they survive on subsistence agriculture.
They live in grass huts with dirt floors. The men practice slash and burn
agriculture in order to raise crops such as plantains, bananas, corn, cassava,
and rice. During the coffee harvest the younger men work as laborers in the
fields around Boquete which generates a lot of income for the villages. The
women are primarily responsible for raising the children and some work as
skilled artisans, especially since their craft commands a high price. The two
most common items are the colorful dresses with hand sown appliqué which is
worn by the women and girls. The dresses are unfitted, have a dropped waist and
cover the body from neck to ankle. The dresses have short sleeves. See photo.
(Some of this information is from Lonely Planet).
We got up early. I had another bad night of sleep. Fernando
picked us up at 7:00 and off we went to see the volcano Baru. Our first stop
was just a few miles down the road in a housing development. There was a great
overlook of the canyon and a good view of Baru from here.
Fernando is very knowledgeable about the tropical birds and
early on we stopped to observe birds. Ron got shots of a Crimson Backed
Tanager
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| Yellow headed caracara hawk |
We stopped to use the restroom at a tiny eatery. Ron and
Fernando had a drink made of sweetened milk with corn. They had a tree there
that grew a fruit that is perfectly round. Although the fruit isn’t edible, its
peel can be dried to make a perfect bowl or spoon. Every time
Fernando saw a bird we stopped so Ron could get a photo. The scenery was
absolutely gorgeous and we came to appreciate even more what is here and what
draws people here to stay.
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| wild parrot |
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| American Vulture |
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| Fly catcher |
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| Great White Egrits |
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| Fly catcher |
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| American Vulture |
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| Forked-tail fly catcher |
We stopped at a small estate where an archaeological dig had taken place. The owner gave us a wonderful tour of her collection of
pre Columbian artifacts that had been found on her property. Many were
fascinating. According to her there is evidence that both Asian people and
African people migrated from those regions over the Bering Straits.
One of the
more interesting pieces she had was a statue (replica as the original is in a
museum in Panama City)
was of a man with another man sitting on his shoulders. The man on the bottom
has African features such as hair more typical of Africans and the man on top
is wearing a conical hat and has classic Asian eye folds. The archaeologists’ interpretation was that the two cultures supported one another and got along
well. It is not thought that the Asians had African slaves.
After seeing her
collection she showed us the archaeological dig site and we walked throughout
her wonderful piece of property that had lots of paths through many interesting
trees, vines, scrubs, and flowering plants. Near the end of our walk we came
across a ancient burial site. The funeral jars were left intact in the soil
because once they are removed they dired out and crumble completely.
Our host was born here but attended school in Panama City and lived for a number of years in Santa Barbara CA.
After the tour she showed us a Thai lemon tree with lemons the size of melons. See
photo. She said the juice is very sour
but they make marmalade with the fruit. Later she treated us to some homemade
cheese with three marmalades: guava, lemon, and blackberry.
Next Fernando took us by an agricultural region with some
farms that grew produce on very steep inclines and all done by hand not
machines. Fernando is very respectful of how hard these people work and never
fails to acknowledge how hard working they are. He never spoke ill of the local
Indians or anyone else. We saw a horse farm with horses that are shown around
the world. They were beautiful animals.
We passed through two larger towns,
Volcan and Cerro Punta. Both looked very prosperous with very nice grocery
stores, etc. I was taken with how green everything is and this is the dry
season. Many of the farms, if not all, have irrigation but the countryside
outside of the farms was still green. I think the interaction of the Pacific
and Atlantic air currents must create enough mist to keep the area green but
who knows. I one day will settle down (when I am too old to travel) and take
that meteorological class.
We ate late at a small place with a great view. We had
little corn meal pastries, one with what tasted like mozzarella cheese and one
with chicken. We arrived home around 3:00. I fell asleep on the way home. We
rested, then went out to dinner at a hotel restaurant that got good reviews and
that was located next to the 
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