We arrive at Purple House Hostel

---

Monday February 21st

(skip) With nothing to do but sit back and enjoy the city sounds, a nice breeze swirling around me beating back the heat, I decided this might be a good time to lay out a broad outline of where we plan on traveling to while staying in David, population of approximately 80,000+ .

After traveling back north from Chitre to Divisa, located on the Pan-American highway, we will make our way to David, probably 5 hrs away. While staying in David, Barb and I plan on exploring the following communities; Vocan, Broquete and Puetro Armuelles together with any and all other smaller communities.

First just a little history as I understand it at this time. Vocan is located in or in the area of a long, long sleeping volcano and Broquete is not that far way. Both are at a much higher elevation than David, with daytime temperatures of 75-80 and night time temperature of low 60's. Puetro Armuelles is now a fishing town where Chiquita Corp raised and shipped their banana's. It's my understanding that Chiquita Banana has closed operations and the town is left with just fishing as its main source of employment. This port is also a deep water port of which, I believe, was designated as a duty free zone, as an attempt to start development. Colon on the Atlantic side of Panama is also a duty free port.

This part of our trip will be nice in a couple of ways. (1) in our next hostel we will have hot water and air conditioning, yea! ( actually it's not all that bad taking a shower with cool water or using a fan. Being on the second floor definitely has a strong advantage of a nice cooling breeze during the day and especially at night. A cool shower and then hit the sack – to sleep in just a few minutes. (2) because both Vocan and Broquete are located at much higher elevations than David our day time journeys will be very comfortable. The trip to Puetro Armuelles will be interesting when comparing this peninsular to the Azureo peninsular.

I know this comment/thought is out of context but since I have publishing liberties here is what I keep forgetting to include in my writing, thoughts. The Panamanian people really are a very happy, enjoyable and pleasant people to know. Once they see that you're not a snob but a fun loving person, they just open up and be themselves. This includes men, women and children, young and old and everyone in between. I am very much a believer that a smile will bring back a smile

February 22nd

It's now around 6:15 am with plenty of light for walking, but cars still require lights. Cars and trucks are starting to pass by the Mike's Hostel and Chitre is starting to wake up for the day. Delivery trucks are making their delivery to the merchants in this area, with patches for rather loud vehicle noise and patches of quiet where I am able to listen to the birds in this brief interval. The view from Mike's balcony is really pretty nifty, sort of like a birds eye view of the activity.The air is cool and nice to the skin (probably 70), pleasant and refreshing.

Another interesting guy stopped by Mikes last night and we all enjoyed a couple of Balboas. I believe his name was Ron and he travel's between the States and Chitre a few times each year. Ron owns several hectares of land around the Pedasi area and has spent the last few years improving the land. A very colorful person who had to leave after a short while because of a previous dinner engagement.

It's now 6:40 and lights are not required. Daylight and night time is pretty much split into 12 hours each.
(Barb) We are at the Purple House...such a very cool place. We've been talking to a young man (26 I think) from Indiana. He has been backpacking all over Panama. Love hearing the stories.
The drive here was pretty good. Lots of fields of sugar cane, lots of people on horseback riding on the side of the road. Lots of darn big trucks...I thought I was in the USA for a minute! Georgeous mountain terrain. Going thru one area we saw indigenous Indians on the side of the road under home made open air booths/cabannas selling the beaded jewelry that they make by hand and the colorful dresses...children and adults...that they sell by the side of the road. We did stop but I could not understand the pricing...so we just took pictures and moved on.
Skip is cooking dinner again...lucky me sitting here drinking a cerveza on the veranda while he is slaving over a hot stove...life is good!

(Skip) It's funny how things just work out if one just keeps being positive and moving forward trying different approaches, but not giving up. Where I'm going with this observation is how we found our way to the Purple House Hostel. Last night in Chitre we looked at a google map and decided that we pretty much had the location of the purple house fixed in our minds, ya right. Keep in mind the garmin that came with the rental is worth less than nothing!! Everything went A-ok all the way to David; however when we started matching the few names we found of the occasional street sign nothing matched with our notes. Oh s-----!!! Last census david had a population of 85,000+, not a small village. We became tired of just driving up and down one of David's 4 lane highways and just said to hell with it and turned right. Made a few zigs and zags, stop and goes and found ourselves in front of the Department of Argiculture. We both decided, what the hell, lets go in and see if anyone can speak Engllish. Guess what – it's closed between 12:00 and 1:30. Somewhat dejected and desparate we went to plan B or C. We hailded a passing taxi, pointed to the address of the Purple House Hostel and offered to pay just to follow. You guessed it, within less then 3 minutes we were parked in front of the Hostel and the taxi driver would not take any pay. Bless Him!! Talk about almost finding a needle in the hay stack.

Enough excitement for a day. We decided to find a grocery store, purchase some fixings for dinner, stock up on beer and settle in for the night. All is well that ends well, and thank god for warm hearted Panamanians who came through again.

---