LAS TABLAS AND LAS UVERITA

On Sunday, Bonnie took us to Las Tablas which is  about  10 minutes  away to see a 90 ft ketch which a friend had been  working on  but he was  away.  Looked around the  little  fishing  harbour and then drove to Las  Uveritas for a couple of cold ones and a bowl of ceviche!

The little fishing fleet moored in the river at Puerto de Mensabe

The ketch still needing some work

Tried posting a video, but it takes ages to load and no means of resizing it.
Apologies for the short post!

VARIOUS PICS I'VE FORGOTTEN TO POST!

Having both a camera and cellphone, I'm getting forgetful as to which images are filed where and not having my laptop with my filing system in place, doesn't make it any easier! So here's a variety of pics from the past week in Panama - hope you enjoy.

The first three are of a "bongo" tree situated down the road from us. I checked it out on google and wiki and this local name seems incorrect, so unfortunately, I'm not sure of the species. It's hard to believe it's only 150 yrs old - as you can see, it really is enourmous!
The guy - he's on the extreme rhs in the last pic - on who's farm it's on was really friendly and asked us to join him for a beer - being such a hot day, I just HAD to accept ;)

Our host on the right and then Gail, Alan & Carmen

The next pics shows the beautiful church in Las Tablas, about 8 mins away.

The next pics are for Des and Terry - fishermen at Bull Beach, Pedasi bringing in the catch of the day - red snapper and I think a kingfish?

The last two are from Playa los Destiladeros in Pedasi - a really stunning beach!

Just found some more! 
Traditional folk dancing by kids at the local museum in Guarare.

Really liked this old chair standing outside!

DOWN THE COAST TO PEDASI

This morning  Bonnie  arranged for  us to meet up with a  couple  nearby  who own  a house in Pedasi which is  near  completion. Allan's originally from NYC and he'said married to Carmen  who's Panamanian. Allan speaks  Spanish and served as our translator as Carmen, who has  an extensive  knowledge  of the  area, only  speaks Spanish.

We drove down to Pedasi to look at their  nearly  completed home which is  situated  close to a stunning  beach  - easily the most  beautiful  we've  seen in  Panama.

Man, my 2 week  old  laptops hard packed  up  2 days ago - been  trying to get  it fixed ever  since.  Seems like  we're  going to have to  fly back to the States.........😣
So I'm  trying to  write  this  blog on  my phone. We  then went to really  beautiful resort  near by and then visited another beach. Really  nice area  but too humid and a bit  remotr.

Solid  teak  bath

Everything  has been  beautifully  designed with  wonderful  attention to detail. Got back around  5 and  had a salad at the casa.

GOING DOWN THE PAN AM TO PLAYA EL PUERTO DE GUARARE

On Thursday morning we headed off from Playa Corona down the road to Puerto de Guarare - our next stop for a few days. One thing that has stood out all over Panama are the trees - there are some magnificent specimens all over. Since the easter weekend is over, the traffic flows really smoothly on the Pan-am which is an amazing road - 48 000km in length from  Prudhoe Bay, U.S. to Ushuaia, Argentina.

Some beautiful scenery along the way although this is the driest time of year. Our little cabana is situated right above the beach and although it's rustic, we love it.

Not the best swimming beach so just went for a walk along the beach and then had a great fish super of sea bass (which we shared - wimps that we are!)

Beautiful avenue of trees on the ay to our accommodation

This morning I broke a tooth while brushing!!!!! our host promptly arranged or me to go to a dentist who speaks some english, in Chitre - a fairly big town about 30 mins away.  really impressed with him and withing 45 mins I had a temp filling. If it holds and I have do discomfort, I can avoid a root canal and an inlay! On the way back, stopped at the beautiful church in the middle of Chitre. Then drove to a little town on the way back and had one of Gailie's great samies overlooking a little fishing beach.

The church in Chitre

 

The little fishing village of El Rompio

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Then back "home" for a swim and then went to the little local museum where there was a photo graphic exhibition and a display of local dancing by children which was really cute. 

Something that we have seen in all the towns we have visited and cannot understand, are the amount of derelict and abandoned properties RIGHT ON THE BEACH FRONT sitting right alongside really upmarket homes.  The pic below isn't the best example, but it shows the little guest house where we are currently staying and the property right next door.

Caio for now!

EL VALLE DE ANTON

This beautiful town is situated in the crater of an extinct volcano about 40 mins from where we are staying. The most wonderful, large properties with huge, beautiful trees in the town - the climate is cooler and not as humid compared to the coast - we could definitely live here! Went for a walk in a nature reserve to a small waterfall - beautiful experience. There's a weekly farmer's market and people from all over the surrounding areas come to it. It's an expensive area but we might come back and spend a few days here.

The waterfall in El Valle

Natural still life

Beautiful stream along the walk

Really love this sign...

Some pics of El Valle de Anton and a coffee shop where we stopped .

The coffee shop where we stopped

FIRST WEEK IN PANAMA - THE BEACHES ALONG THE SOUTH EAST COAST

Flew into Panama on wednesday April 1, picked up a car at the airport and then proceeded to get lost in rush hour traffic trying to find our hotel for the first night - what should have taken half an hour or so, landed taking nearly 4 hours! Thursday is a public holiday here and it seemed like the whole of panama city was leaving for the easter weekend. We eventually got to our hotel and had a really nice evening at the Bilbao yacht club - a really laid back, open air bar & restaurant on the edge of the canal.
The following morning, it was another 4 hour trip crawling along with the easter weekend traffic - should have taken us an hour to get to our self-catering unit in playa corona, where I'm writing this from. It's okay - no view and you can hear the pan-am highway all the time, but there's a nice beach down the road and Coronado, which has almost everything you need is about a 10 minute drive away.

Playa Corona - the beach down the road from us

 On friday, we drove to playa (spanish for beach) farallon and playa santa clara about 20 mins down the highway. Both Gail and I love this little beach town - only 1 or 2 small shops, but the properties are wonderful - the most amazing trees growing on most of them and beach access is close by. There's a great little restaurant on the beach which has small cabanas for rent - we'll definitely go back here towards the end of our stay in Panama.

The beach at playa santa clara

The restaurant on the beach

The shaded "chill area"

CABO SAN LUCAS

I'm not going to start at the very beginning, just a brief summary of our time there - the resort was absolutely enormous - it makes sun city look tiny. The food was on the whole exceptional, especially the the seafood and sashimi! The beach was beautiful, but it shelves very steeply so when the waves hit the shore, they are really big and powerful, but once beyond the break, it was lovely.

  Sunrise - around 6 am on our first morning

It was the start the start of the american colleges summer break and hordes of students descended on the resort for wednesday thursday and friday and it was hectic! After that they left and peace and quiet (relatively) were restored!

View from the rim flow section of the pool

We were in a separate section of the resort with it's own swimming pools, restaurants and bars  - the kids loved the pools and they were really close to our units.

Looking out to sea from one of the pools with a "floating hotel" arriving

Just part of the resort......

We all eat and drank more than we usually do ;) and really enjoyed ourselves. We took a trip on a water taxi to the rock formations at the end of the peninsula and I did some snorkeling in a protected area which was really great!
It was great seeing every one before moving onto the next stage of our journey...