David

We are in David, the second largest city in Panama and located in the west near the border with Costa Rica. We came last Wednesday, and it is about a six hour drive from Panama City to David, in the province of Chiriqui. We crossed the Canal via Puente Centenario, which is the second bridge between North and South America (the other is Puente Interamericana)- those are the only two links between the continents.

In David we are staying with Alex´s Tia Ivette, Tio Servio, and primos Servio Tulio, Ivette Marie, and Deborah. Alex stayed with Servio Tulio when he went to Spain last summer. This family has an amazing life! Their house is beautiful, and has a river running behind it. Ivette has a catering business so there is an abundance of delicious food here, plus Servio Tulio and Ivette Marie have a bakery in town, and Ivette Marie bakes everything from scratch at the house. And of course everyone is very warm and welcoming so we have been having a great time so far. It has also been very nice to get out of the big city where it is so much louder and less relaxing.

On Thursday we went with José and his family on a 30 minute drive up into the mountains to Boquete. It is much cooler there than in David, as you are surrounded by the mountains and it rains often. Boquete is a big producer of many of Panama`s fruits, vegetables, and coffee since the soil is very fertile. We some great espresso while there. Unfortunately it rained pretty hard for most of the time so we could not get out and walk around as much as we wanted. Still, it was a nice break from the heat and humidity that has plagued us since our arrival in Panama.

On Friday José´s family took us for another day trip. We first drove about half an hour to see the frontera- the border between Panama and Costa Rica. We were surprised by the fact that there is no fence or even recognizable border line- there are basically stores along the border where you can walk in one door on the Panamanian side and out the other door on the Costa Rican side. If you drive across there is more security, but we just walked through a gas station and enjoyed some cervezas in Costa Rica and then walked back. One similarity between the border town here and Nogales is that here it is also a much less nice town then most of the rest of Panama.

We left the frontera and drove about 45 minutes to the area around Volcán Barú, Panama´s highest summit. Barú has 7 craters and when you hike to the top you can view both the Pacific and the Caribbean on a clear day. The hike takes about 8 hours, so we didn´t have time to do it that day, but we are hoping to hike it before we leave. The first pueblo we stopped in was Volcán, where we saw some of the Independence Day parades. We continued up the mountain (nice and cool, just like Boquete) and stopped briefly for some photos at a hotel where you can pay a few bucks to fish for trout in the man-made ponds they have. Our final stop was a tiny town near the end of the road around Barú called Cerro Punta. It is well-known for its strawberries and other produce, much of which we were probably buying at the grocery stores we shopped at in Panama City. We had batidos de fresas- fresh strawberry milkshakes- so good. [Photo: me, Bosco (José´s brother), Brandy, Alex, José]

On Friday night we joined in some of the Fiestas Patrias celebrations and went out to a club called Bash to see Panama´s most famous punk band Los Rabanes. They were great, even though we could only understand half of what they were saying. The only drawback was that the club was ridiculously crowded since they are so popular.

On Saturday we woke very early (particularly difficult after the late night before) to go with Tío Servio to the family´s islands- yes they own not one but four in the Pacific. We rode in Servio´s boat for about an hour down the Río Caldera to the Pacific and then spent the day swimming, having more cervezas, and just enjoying ourselves. It was an amazing day- especially on a private island!

On Sunday we went with José´s family for brunch at his uncle´s house in Boqueron, and then we got to spend another day at the beach. This time we went to La Barqueta, which is beautiful but known for its very large and dangerous shorebreaks. There was no one swimming, everyone would stand at the very edge of the water and when the wave would hit it was hard enought to knock you down in knee-deep water. Brandy and Alex braved the waves, but had to come out when they noticed something swimming with them. As Alex was walking towards me out of the water a big wave came up and right before it broke I saw four manta rays swimming in the wave. As we watched, we noticed more and more swimming all around the area where they had been swimming- it was pretty crazy. But it did make for a good story now and no one got hurt.

Now Brandy has returned to the city with José and Alex and I are off to Costa Rica. We are starting out in the south near Golfito at a Rawtreat. It is an organic community working towards complete self-sustainability. They also only eat raw vegan food, so it will be quite a change of pace after all of the "fiestas de carne" (as Alex likes to refer to our meals) here. I´ve read about raw food diets though, and it is supposed to be a very healthy way to eat- basically a complete Juice Plus diet (yes mom we´ve been taking them). So we´ll see how we like that; we may stay for month or only a week, depending on how we adjust and what we work out with other wwoof farms we have emailing. If you want read more about the Rawtreat you can go to www.rawtreat.org.