You’d think that being in the midst of surf-central, that’s where we’d want to be today, but here is the reality.

The beaches are sweltering hot, 35-40 degrees.  The sand is on fire until you get to where it is still wet from the tide.  At some, the surf makes it unswimmable with dangerous currents, and the one that is swimmable will be swarming with New Years Eve revelers today, which means blaring accordion music all day, and the drunks to go with it.  The drunks here aren’t obnoxious, in fact their quite friendly, but need I go on?   It’s just not my cuppa… Or Cass’ either.
Instead, today we went up the other river route we had heard about on the first day we got here.  We packed a few sandwiches, more water than the last trip to the waterfalls (we learn), hammocks and books.  Here’s a picture of yesterdays’ waterfalls.  Not big, but nice.

On the way there, we passed right by the restaurant where we ate two nights ago, and waited an hour and a half for dinner to come to the table.  It was, however, the best Panamanian meal we have had since arriving in October.  We just got there too early, helping set up the tables and all, while she was setting up to cook a meal for 10 by request later that evening.  Man, was it ever worth it, and now we know.

So, as we passed by this time, and I noticed the doors open, I stopped to ask if she was cooking dinner tonight, and she said she was.  Awesome!!!, and off to the rest of our day.

At first, I thought it was going to be a bust, because Ludvig had his rock crushing equipment going, and the sound carried far enough down the river that getting away from it was impossible without going so far back towards the main highway that you could see the bridge, and then you had traffic noise instead.

Not giving up, we decided to go walking the other way.  The river was never more than knee deep in most places, and 4x4s regularly traveled up and down it.  I know, we were up and down it on our tour the other day.
So, fifteen minutes upstream we found a place to hang our hammocks in the trees.

Quiet and cool, the bend in the river had several spots deep enough to call swimming holes, and with not another soul all day, it was about as relaxing as I could possibly have imagined.

The only downside was that we had to leave once the sun started to wane, and push on back to the little town 10 clicks up the road to get some gas before they were all sold out.  That happens around the holidays, at the end of a long road, with only one gas station for miles.
On the way there, we picked up two guys waiting for the bus.  They were both a more than a little tipsy, one about 40 and the other pushing 70 (and had bottles sticking out of both pockets, lol).  We dropped one at the very next town, and the other a little further down the road, where his wife was waiting in the yard.  He could hardly balance getting out of the car, and nice as could be, even tried getting a squeeze from Cass.  Can’t blame him with his wife standing in the yard, broom in hand.  Quite the picture.  We laughed as we drove off thinking of the old joke  “and then the fight started…”
Anyways, all along the road were people on horseback, walking and waving, six-pack over the saddle-horn.  It’s the safest way to get around, see?  We did manage to get gas, a few staples at the other local store, and now I’m sitting here writing this before we head on down the road for dinner tonight.  Here’s hoping the cattle trucks take the night off.

Obviously, it didn’t get posted that night.  Dinner was ok, but not as good as last time.  That’s ok, we were glad to get home to the room and chill.

New Years Day, we did the very same thing, and had it to ourselves again until about 4, when a pile in a pickup pulled up.  They were having fun, weren’t hurting anybody, but we’d had our fill by then.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, two new travelers had shown up, and we found out what The Iguana Verde is all about — which really doesn’t have much to do with Iguanas.

 

Har har.  No, it wasn’t all about hens and roosters either, although sometimes I wondered.  There were also Turkeys as well, which no matter how many times I hear, still make me chuckle when I do.

The place is an interesting collection of plants as well.  I never thought I’d care about such things, but here I am.

No, The Iguana Verde was all about saving sea turtles.  Non-profit, non-paid, totally volunteer, they go out onto the beach every night looking for turtles that come up onto this particular beach to lay their eggs.

When they spot one, they leave it well enough alone until it’s done, then come back later, gather up the eggs, and relocate them to a safe area.  35-40 days later, the eggs hatch, all in a bunch, and they release them out into the waves, and that is what we did New Years Day.

They had a …. hatching…??  of 50 baby turtles that night (there are several “bunches” brewing at a time).  First, we roamed up the beach and back looking for turtles.  This turned into a 3 km hike in soft sand, by flashlight.  It wasn’t the highlight I was looking for, but we saw lots of crabs, but when we got to the “pen”, there they were.  50 of them, all squirming about in their enclosure.

We waited another half hour or more for all of them to hatch, counted them as we placed them in a container, then walked them part-way down the beach where he unceremoniously tipped it on it’s side, and away they went.

It took quite a while to get them all into the surf.  First of all, they were all disoriented and didn’t know which way to go.  For that, the guy had a flashlight he would shine on them from closer to the surf.  This seemed to give them direction, and off they’d go.

Next, they would get tossed about by a high wave, scattering them all over the beach once again.  You didn’t dare move for fear of stepping on one, and any light but from the leaders flashlight would disorient them further, so you had to wait.  I can tell you, it’s a strange experience having a baby sea turtle crawl over your foot, then over the other, heading towards the waves.

Had it have been a larger hatching, I’m told we would have had to fend off crabs, but that didn’t happen, I guess because they all made it in before word got out.

So, that was our New Years Day Eve.  Sorry again, no pictures.  That’s just the way it goes sometimes.

We’re actually in Santiago, the province capital, as I write this.  We found a place on the road up to Santa Fe with actual internet.  !!!  Woo.  It’s an apartment/hotel type place.  Far from fancy, you could probably get a room here with kitchen for 400 a month, but that’s just a guess.  Santiago it a pain in the ass.

There is a brand new mall on the highway, I thought I could get all our running around done at, but you have to do a  @#$%# U-turn on the Panamerican highway to get into it.  That’s right.  There’s NO access from the other direction.  Exiting back onto the highway is from behind a huge blind, so you can’t see what’s coming.  This is a busy highway.  The town itself is a bizarre trap of one ways, so once you’re off course, you are on a 5 block detour to get back to “A”, the traffic is terrible, and the street lights are looooooooong.  I didn’t time them, but 3 minutes? 4?  Seems like forever in a car without A/C.

Our one day detour to Santiago will be just that.  One Day.  I did manage to get a Panamanian hat though.

Thus ends a loooong post.  From here, we’ll be heading closer to Panama City, and Playa el Palmar.  Hopefully, El Refugio is still up and running.  We’ll know later today, I hope.