Well, finally off and rolling. ATTN: If you click on the pictures they will come up in a bigger size. Some of you don’t know this.

I left Boquette at 8 AM yesterday morning, and in no time was glad that I left so early. I had put off the trip due to some continuing car problems that I have now worked out, and finally seem to get gone. I made a run for it yesterday morning only to make it to the bottom of the hill, stop for gas, and find under my seat a set of Kens’ keys. By the time I made it back up to return the keys, it was 10 AM. I had already lost an hour…

I decided to wait until the morning and not leave later in the afternoon, and a good thing too. It took until noon to make it to Santiago, the capital city in these parts, and it was HOT!! The road in between David and Santiago has a lot of re-constructive surgery going on, and the places where it isn’t happening, there are fine stretches of road, and then Wham, stand on the binders!

A lot of the main highways that I have been on in Panama are made of concrete. A helluva good idea, if you ask me, as it lasts a whole lot longer than asphalt. The problem being that when concrete cracks, it breaks. Unlike an asphalt road that merely gets a pothole, the breaks are absolutely brutal if you nail them at highway speed. These roads were built quite a while ago and repairs are due. There were perfectly good sections of brand new highway, smooth as glass, but for the 50 km or so before Santiago….well, let’s just say I am glad that I had finally worked the bugs out of the car.

The road to Santiago winds randomly through the lowlands, and is completely draped in trees for long portions. Quite lush, for what is supposed to be the dry season, and a scenic drive for the most part. Then you start climbing up into the highlands and everything just sort or disappears. The trade winds were back, it was hot and dry, and I don’t know how the people I saw there lived from day to day in such a place. You would really get to know the value of a drink of water around a place like that.

Once past Santiago, it was one of the nicer highways I have ever been on. I looked down a few times catching myself clipping along at 120. It sure felt slower. When you get to Deviso, you turn out to the penninsula, which is mostly farmland and cattle country. There were places you could smell the sugar cane in the air. Hot and windy, this time of year, rolling hills go on for miles in either direction, but I hear that farther inland they have destroyed things from what it was, and made a desert.

It wasn’t too long until Chitre, where I am now, a small city with a pile of good looking women. B) On a Tuesday night, the church just down the street from me, with an overactive bell-tower, is packed to the rafters and spilling out into the local square. They sure take their religion seriously around here. Actually, everywhere in Central America. North America is Godless compared to this place.

Anyways, I got a room here for $15/notche con aire condicionado. Cheap! You pay a premium to be around all the other Yankees in Boquette (a note of sarcasm there). It is called Hotel el Prado. It is just down the street from the main church, and although there is a lot of traffic on the street during the day, at night it is quite quiet. In the morning I am going to head down to the beach, about a half hour from here, and spend the day. Or so I think. I miss the ocean, and now that I have a bit of a tan, I don’t have to hide in the bushes for fear of crisping.

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So as I sat and ate breakfast, across the street from me they were setting up scaffolding for Carnival, which starts on the 15th, I think, and goes for four days. I didn’t expect to sit there and watch people doing what I do for a living in Canada. I’m glad I make better money and work a little safer that what I was watching.

I swear the local bell tower is actually a tower with a speaker in it. You can hear it crackling when it goes off. Too funny. Why they would do it that way is beyond me…but that is what it sounds like. |-|

I went out to the beach after that, which was only twenty minutes away. There were two to choose from at a fork near the end of the road leading down to the waters edge. Playa Monagre and Playa El Rompio. To my disdain, both were mere places where the ocean met the land with some sand. It was windy, which I didn’t mind at all, but the beach was shallow and the waves had stirred up all the sand so it looked the color of mud.

I took this picture,

stayed for a little while pondering what I was going to do next, and returned to Chitre where I found they have wireless internet at my very hotel! A/C, nice room, hot and cold water, guarded parking, and wireless internet all for 15 buks a night.

Awesome! They also tell me that I have to go to the southern tip of the peninsula for the good beaches. Live and learn…