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Published: February 13th 2010
Monkeys!
From our balcony in Panama City. They're pretty quick but we saw 3 chasing each other around.Early Saturday morning: We flew from Panama City to San Jose—just a one hour flight. I thought I’d take a minute and let you know about the accommodations that we’ve had so far. Our room in Panama City was minimal but clean. It had a queen size bed and private bathroom. It had in room A/C. The bed was made up with a colorful sheet for the top sheet/bedspread. There were a couple of common areas where you could sit and chat with others, a couple of balconies where we could watch the birds, monkeys, squirrels, and a sloth. These were also the areas where we ate breakfast in the morning. They had made to order eggs or pancakes and then buffet style fruit, juice, coffee, yogurt, cereal, etc. The B&B itself was on Ancon Hill, an old US army base--on the edge of Panama City but away from the traffic and mostly in the jungle. From a distance you can see the top of the hill and the Panamanian flag flying. Our place was about ½ way up. There were guard stations to get into our section of the hill (there were multiple other places on the streets nearby—probably all
Sloth
The lighting wasn't good to take a picture but this sloth was trying to find his way off the palm tree. He finally made it about an hour later. army housing at one time but very nice. There were even guards stationed outside the parking lots in many restaurants. None had guns that I could see and they never stopped us and asked where we were going. We actually felt very safe in the areas where we went but we had a driver take us out at night.
Remember out Avis story? Well we did turn the car into the local airport just a few miles from our hotel after having it only 2 or the four days planned. The Avis guy there said he would take up back to our hotel (much better service) and then offered to ‘taxi’ us later that night—using his own car. We took his where we wanted to go and he said for $8.00 he would pick us up and come back and get us whenever we wanted. We used him for the next night, too. It was nice to know someone was going to be there to take us back at night after a couple hours at the restaurant.
Now we are in San Jose. We have a 4 wheel drive SUV (Nissan) and we’re ready for the next ‘leg’
B&B in San Jose
We're not really in the city of San Jose. It feels like a ranch with views of the mountains. of this trip but I wanted to tell about this B&B. Very nice!! This place just opened last June. It’s called Airport B&B but it’s really about 15 minutes away and we’re actually on a hill in the country here rather than in the city of San Jose. It’s like a large ranch. Like in a motel, the rooms have a common patio but each room has a table and chairs and blooming poinsettia among the other plants. The room is large with a vaulted ceiling, king size bed and very nice bathroom. No AC here—just open the window. We slept with the ceiling fan and just a sheet very comfortably. The owners are Dutch. They moved here about 10 years ago and operate a travel business over the Internet and had this built. They have 10 dogs and 6 cats!! I haven’t heard them and there’s no “evidence” of the dogs in our yard. I think they keep most of the dogs behind a fenced area on the office/house area. The owners of the B&B in Panama City were Japanese and the owners of the place where we’re going on the coast are Canadian. Interesting, huh? They all speak
Our patio
Lovely to sit outside on the patio. very good English.
We went to a large supermarket type grocery store yesterday. That’s an adventure in itself. Almost nothing looks like brands that we buy. We wanted to take some snacks, sandwich meat, wine, beer, etc. to our next place since we wouldn’t be familiar with where things are there. The money in Panama is dollars but in Costa Rica it’s colones. Last I looked it was about 568 colonies to $1.00. Those big numbers for a bottle of wine boggle my mind (but after doing the math, we found that alcohol is about the same price as in the states.
For dinner, the owners suggested a small restaurant just about a mile away named Chery’s. We ate at a little table outside. The menu wasn’t fancy but I found it interesting that it had no prices for anything. I’m sticking to ordering seafood at any opportunity so I ordered seafood with butter sauce. Jim ordered shrimp with rice. It’s was so beautifully presented that we took pictures (see below). Mine had some clams, mussels, and I’m not sure what other fish was cut up, with white rice, pickled veggies, and some kind of pink potato salad—really
Jim's dinner
Shrimp and Rice good. Jim’s was like a mound of stir fry rice with shrimp (Spanish style) —very tasty, too. He had a couple beers and I had a couple glasses of wine. The bill was $26. We’ll be going back there again when we come back through here on our return trip!
It’s just 7 AM and they’re getting breakfast ready in our outdoor ‘pavilion’. See picture.
People have asked about bugs - there are almost none - a few ants and one or two flying insects are all we have seen on the trip so far.
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Joy
non-member comment
Wow
Well I think I'm going to stop reading your blogs :o) It all sounds so great.. We are still enjoying our snow. Actually it is very beautiful but won't stay very long here in Tx. Enjoy you time there and keep the blogs coming. I really enjoy reading and seeing the pictures. Joy