Category Archives: Retirement Abroad

As my readers know it’s the rainy season here in Panama and we’ve been getting more than our share this year. New records for rainfall being set nearly every month.

Last January I wrote a post about fog. Up here at 2,600 feet overlooking the Pacific Ocean we often encounter the phenomenon of “up slope fog” which forms when winds blow air up a slope  (called orographic lift), adiabatically (occurring without loss or gain of heat) as it rises, and causing the moisture in it to condense. This can happen at any time of the day and we get plenty of it here. One minute it will be clear and sunny and the next thing you know you can’t see the far side of your yard. And then, a few minutes later it will be clear again.

This is what it was like a couple of days ago just after noon time.

It lasted like this for about 20 minutes then disappeared. THEN it started to rain…LOL. When it did start raining we had thunder and lightning like I haven’t seen here before and while friends not far away lost their electricity for several hours for once this house was spared that irritation.

We had several more episodes of fog during the day and on into the night. The street lights on the dirt road that passes by the house were eerie yellow dots in the distance in contrast to the fire flies blinking brilliance and I can only imagine what driving must have been like for those out on the narrow, twisting two-lane carreterra heading down to David.

Back in 1958 Marshall “Mike” Dodge and Bob Bryan recorded their first collection of “Bert and I” records. Sort of an early Down East version of Lake Wobegon immortalized by Garrison Keillor. Bert and I depicted Maine fishermen and woodsmen with dry, classic humor and spot-on Mainer accents.

One of the stories that always stuck with me was the one in which Bert won a raffle for an all-expense-paid week-long trip to Boston. When he returned everyone in town came to greet him and were hungry for details of his trip and the delights he had experienced in the big city. “Well,” he said, “there was so much going on at the depot I never did get to see the village.”

That story sprang to mind the first time I stepped off the bus at the bus terminal in David, Panama. If you want to get a true slice of Panamanian life there’s no better place than at the terminal. I just love it there and enjoy waiting for my bus to arrive to take me back up the hill. It’s a people-watcher’s paradise.

The terminal is filled with dozens of little kiosks where you can buy an eclectic assortment of snacks, ice cream and shoddy goods. There is a good sized cafeteria and a couple of small “fondas.” Street vendors walk up and down hawking belts and pirated audio CDs. Students in their pressed uniforms walk together in groups and the Ngobe Indian women and their children in their traditional mumus  add color to the parade. Over it all are the “puerteros,” young men who are sort of like conductors opening the bus doors and collecting the fares from the departing passengers, sing out the destinations of their bus routes which are plainly visible in huge lettering on the windshields of the buses.

I’ve never understood why some people say that the transportation system in Panama is so poor. I find it to be excellent. Buses run throughout the country. True, they aren’t all luxurious motor coaches and I’ve noticed that as you get away from the more metropolitan areas the buses get smaller and smaller. In my early explorations of the country I went from Panama City to Pedasí on four different kinds of bus. A large coach from PC to Santiago, then on a smaller Toyota seating about 30 people from there to Chitré. A slightly smaller Toyota from Chitré to Las Tablas and then a 12 seat rattle trap from there to Pedasí. And then there are the ubiquitous yellow taxis everywhere. Check them as they come out of the terminal exit and passing by on the street.

A word of advice…NEVER get in a cab until you have established how much it’s going to cost to get to your destination and if it sounds unreasonable to you move on. I’ve been quoted prices I KNOW aren’t right and I always ask, “and how much is it for a Panamanian?” before going elsewhere.

I have often marveled at how tenaciously trees cling to life. Not only are some species of trees the oldest living things on earth but they have an aversion to death that is enviable.

In my back yard in Fort Lauderdale there were two tree stumps just off the back porch. One was simply that. A stump. But on the other, two new branches were growing. The tree refused to succumb.

Here in Panama trees are commonly planted and used for fences. I’m not talking about grown, cut down and put in as posts, but actually planted in rows and then barbed wire, usually, is stapled into the trees.

This photo was shamelessly pirated from my neighbor Mary Farmer’s blog: http://ntsavanna.com/living-fence/ If there’s anything you’d like to know about the flora of the Republic you’ll find it here and what she doesn’t know  probably isn’t worth knowing anyway.

Of course some small trees are cut down and used as posts. Like this along the drive leading into the house here in Potrerillos Arriba.

And sometimes sections of 4X4 are mixed in:

A couple of months ago a neighbor gave the house a couple of seedlings. I don’t know what they are, but I found a couple of good spots for them in the northwest corner of the yard. In a phone conversation with the owners of the house shortly afterward they asked if the saplings were doing okay. I said I think you could stick a 2X4 into the ground here and it would grow.

Well, I wasn’t too far off in that assessment. Yesterday evening when I walked down to lock the gate at the end of the drive I spotted this. I don’t know how I missed seeing it before since I pass it at least twice a day. But there was a post that had been hewed from a tree. Top and bottom lopped off and one side planed flat. And yet this piece of wood refused to die. It wouldn’t accept what should have been its inevitable fate. There, standing proud, was a new branch reaching for the sky. A piece of lumber stuck into the ground that took root and continues to cling to life. No, not clinging to life. Thriving.

I don’t know if they grow here in Panama but the leaves remind me of the locust trees that thrived in the sandy soil of Cape Cod where I grew up.

The wood of the locust tree is extremely hard and durable. The house I grew up in was built before the American Revolution.

The small section of the house, an addition, actually, was built sometime in the latter part of the 1700s and was our kitchen. The corners were made of large hand-hewn beams and, since nails were very expensive in those days, the whole thing was tied together with two-inch thick pegs made of locust. That house has withstood countless hurricanes and who knows how many n’or easters in it’s day. And it’s still standing as it approaches nearly two and a half centuries.

The Merriam-Webster definition of inertia is: a property of matter by which it remains at rest or in uniform motion in the same straight line unless acted upon by some external force. I think the definition could also apply to ideas, too.

For the past couple of months as I ride the bus from Potrerillos Arriba down into David the route parallels and crosses several small rivers running at a pretty good clip. Those eight plus feet of rain have to go somewhere and that somewhere is the Pacific Ocean. About three-quarters of the way down the hill on the east side of the road is a small valley and a  rather scenic waterfall. Visible I pass it I always say I should stop off and take some pictures. But inertia establishes itself and I forget about it until the next time I pass by.

This morning was gloriously sunny, though now at 3:30 in the afternoon it’s clouded over and should be raining shortly, and I shook off the lethargy, gathered up my cameras and tripod and set out on an expedition.

The first stop was in the small town of Dolega. There, a concrete-channeled river flows under the road to end up in some waterfalls at what appears to be a Union Fenosa sub station. Union Fenosa is the local electric company. I suspect there is a small generating capacity located there.

It flows under the road and divides on the other side.

You can see the waterfalls in this picture which is off of the right fork. I don’t know what happens on the left fork though it’s probably similar.

But my ultimate destination was located farther down the road in a small valley and what is called, around here, a Jardin, a combination bar/dance hall.

It sits at the edge of the river and on the other bank is the waterfall. I learned a new Spanish word today… La Cascada (waterfall). Easy enough to remember. Almost the same as the English word cascade.

Certainly no threat to the grandeur of Angel, Victoria or Niagara Falls or I’m sure other falls here in Panama, but it still has it’s own appeal. I wonder how many of the local residents scurrying from David to Boquete and Potrerillos glance over at it and appreciate its beauty?

There were three young men washing some clothes in the river and simply relaxing on the bank. Two more men came later and went swimming a bit upstream.

After taking the photos I stopped at the bar for a beer. I was the sole patron and spent a pleasant half hour or so chatting with the young bartender, Francisco. He said it was a very popular spot on the weekends and during the summer months and that Saturday and Sunday evenings were crowded with people coming to dance the night away.

In the spirit of the television show Sunday Morning, I leave you with this bit of film.