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Published: February 20th 2011
Travels of February 19th
(Skip) Today pretty much started as usual, coffee near by, cool breeze gently passing by, the sounds of the town coming to life and me at peace just taking in everything and enjoying. Everything in our present reality has changed from the USA lifestyle to a country who's lifestyle harkens to a past lifestyle in the US. Not so much on rules, rules and rules but more on living. What comes to mind immediately are the electrical cable running from the main power line directly across the road to this Hostel; bare wires and plenty of jumper cables. (our bureaucrats would be aghast) Other areas of interest that I find pleasing are the open air cafe's found everywhere and how the food is served. Certainly not up to American standards but to my untrained eye everything appears clean, the servers, plates, tables etc.
Barb will present her observations, much better than I, of the experiences we encounter when venturing forth, from morning to night, in search of nutrition. However, I do find, to my liking, many, many open air beer gathering places, located under roof enclosures, in every town we pass though; in fact even along the highway where very few houses are present.
Today the plan is to drive from Chitre down the main highway to a small town of El Cruce and take an unnamed highway through the Azureo mountains to a town near the tip of this peninsular called Tonosi.
My best guess as to distance is approximately 120km from Chitre or around 60-70 miles US. Barb and I have found that traveling is a real adventure, namely there generally are no route sign's or visual directions on highways or in towns. Oh yes, I don't remember if Barb or I mentioned our Garmin GPS has a mind of its own. Typing in destinations is a real challenge, most of the time the alpha letter chosen is not the letter chosen by the GPS. Neat huh!! Thanks Eurpocar!
We started off on this adventure by missing our turn off to a town named Macaracas. After a fashion we corrected our direction, found our correct road and proceeded in the proper direction. The character of the land started to slowly change as we proceeded toward Macaracas. Very beautiful homes with colorful flowers and bushes abound aside the main road and in the many small villages. Occasionally we noticed very beautifully homemade ornate furniture being offered for sale outside of the artisan home.
(BARB) Before I say anything about the landscape...let me chat about the food. This is the hardest part of the trip...ordering food. I bring along my little Spanish dictionary everywhere we go...but often I'm not sure if the word is an noun or an adjective and the verbs are often conjugated. I can figure some of the items offered out..mostly if it's a beef, chicken, ham, egg, rice, garlic, red sauce, vegetables, shrimp, fish, lobster, squid and fried. Often, tho, I have no clue other than that what it is. We are both pretty adventerous so often we just point, not sure of what we will get for sure and then when they offer options we are lost...we did figure out salad orsoup tho. The first restaurant we ordered shrimp in garlic and french fries and the shrimp was swimming in garlic and butter..nothing else...it was pretty overwhelming. So I'd suggest to anyone going to another country to learn at least the food terms! People either laugh at us Americans when we are floundering or they try to help...we don't care if they laugh..we laugh with them and shrug our shoulders...sometimes a person at a next table will try to help and we use 'gracias' a LOT!
(Skip) Traveling toward Macaracas brought us through a changing country side from gradual rolling hills to very steep, perhaps 1500' high mini mountains. As our journey brought us closer to Macaracas
homes generally became smaller and it was not unusual to find saddled horses tied out front or just horses in a coral next to the house. Once our journey took us past Marcaracas the paved road started to deteriate and both large and small potholes became common place. During this part of the journey the road became a switchback and very steep, as we climbed steeper mountains and crawled through valleys. This area is very isolated, rual and at the same time extremely pretty. Certainly very easy on the eyes. Once we arrived at Tonsci, our final distination and the end of the paved road, we both were
ready to grab a snack and head back. Roads from this town, in either direction, were down graded from gravel to dirt and to my untrained eye looked to be best tackled with a truck or a more rugged car then we rented.
The trip back to Chitre went smoothly with no problem finding our way back to Mikes. On the way back we stopped at a super 99 supermarket to purchase some bottled water, and were greeted with armed security guards carrying 12 ga shotguns. Mike explained that certain area employees both collect and cash their weekly or monthly checks at this store and for that reason the armed security guards make sure nothing happens. The President of Panama also just happens to own this chain of supermarkets.
(BARB) We saw lots of milk cans by the side of the road near driveways..sometimes just one sometimes several...apparently the people milk very early and leave their cans out to be dumped ..not sure how it all works out..but took me back to my childhood on the farm. We saw no barns so I'm guessing all milking is done outside...not sure how it works during their rainy season. Also saw little straw huts which we assume is for the children to wait for the bus maybe...protection from the sun and rain we guessed. One thing I came to conclusion...a post office was not a criteria for a village to have a name...but I think a beer garden and a bus stop was!
On the way back there were a few places with sausages hanging from racks on the side of the road near Los Santos...Skip had read about them and so he stopped. I had no intention of eating any of them and he changed his mind when he found out they were not cooked...they had been hanging in the hot sun all day and the smell was BAD...I was kinda glad he changed his mind!!!
When we returned to the hostel we found Dan and a couple of young folks from France had come for the nite. Don was in a camper, parked on a side road and the other couple I have no idea. Don was an 'interesting' guy...traveling from Michican to Panama via camper...he had lots of stories about his travels thru Mexico and gangs etc....but his cigar smoking drove us to bed early. Never did meet the other couple.
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norma vassar
non-member comment
exiciting venture
Barb, i look forward every day to reading your blog. Im so happy for you not many people get this chance. Enjoy and stay safe !!!!! :0)