Today marks three weeks in David (pronounced Daveed).  Though we didn’t plan for the car to take this long, I have seen and learned a few interesting things of how the locals here live.  Thought I would share some.

No pictures can show how much of a cash society it is here.  I saw my first credit card in the grocery line up the other day.  I have seen many cheques cashed through the register clerk.  Its weird using the penny again and one dollar bills.  Their loonies resemble our toonie.  They have both paper and coin for one dollar.  Coin is Panamanian, and the dollar is the US dollar.  Mike says the Panamanian Balboa is pegged to the US dollar 1:1.

This is the monument at Parque Central.  No biggie, but that it’s a local land mark close to ‘home’.   “Three more blocks to go”  I’d go play but there’s armed ‘guards’ all over lol  Pretty, but not friendly.  Mike says all the locals hate it, compared to what it used to be without the Masonic symbol in the middle.

This is the sugar cane juicer.  Straight up with a squeeze of lime.  It was delicious!! and very filling.   Yumm, big cup of chlorophyll.  It wasn’t very sweet at all.  Maybe I should’ve stirred it?

This is their snow cone machine!!  Him and a big block of ice.  The guy puts a cup upside down on his scraper thingie and shaves ice into the cup.  You’ll notice on the right he has one in the holder.  Then he rattles off all these Spanish flavors to choose from.  I pointed to the red jug.  SLURPEE TIME     A delicious cup of flavored ice!!  I could have hung out with him all day!

Their is a group of people here called Nygabe people.  Same but different to our Natives back home.  The ladies of all ages wear the same style dresses.  Kids are so cute.   A while back I snapped a picture of a young lady at the bus stop.  Mike told me they didn’t like their picture taken, it “steals” their soul.  In looking back at the picture, the lady was obviously squeamish and uncomfortable.  Few pictures later I noticed I had another lady in the background and upon zooming in on her, her eyes burned holes at me.  I deleted them both and took pictures from behind. Very colorful.

 

All the kids wear uniforms.   At lunch time and when school lets out, good luck finding your kid.

 

What I wouldn’t do to own this truck!!  One kiosk booth at Parque Central sells little bags of cut up Pineapple for a buck.  Not nearly enough for the price.  Couple more days here and I might have to invest in a cutting board and sharp knife… and a kitchen.

This ‘yard’ was on main street up in Boquete.  Once the car is good to go, we’ll venture up the hill and attend a meeting.

 

 

 

However, across the street from our garage is this bar, where they take ‘Dominos’ a little to seriously.  We listen to the rowdiness daily around noon and just smile at one another.

Lastly, this is where most days are spent so far, in the ‘garage’.   As Mike shares in some of his posts under ‘Twogunz, we have a cozy set up.

Two weeks and 3 days making the car safe, and I wouldn’t trade a day. K, maybe… For just one splash in the fountain at Parque Central.  So much more to come.