A Morning in Boquete, Panamá

http://thepanamaadventure.wordpress.com/2012/11/14/a-morning-in-boquete-panama/   This blog is in the process of being transitioned to WordPress, so the same posts are also being published there. Those pictures should open in full size if you want to take a closer look at anything. 

November 13th, 2012

Boquete is about 45 minutes up the road, up in the mountains. Many Americans and Canadians live there because of the cooler climate, and it is breathtakingly beautiful!

How many pictures can a person put in one blog post?! The header photo is my favorite one for today. We stopped at the Tuesday market and I took it from the parking lot.

Anyway, let me start from the beginning. Every Tuesday there is a market in Boquete. Last week our car blew a radiator hose and we didn’t make it, but now that we are mobile again we wanted to go. My Spanish school,  Habla Ya is also there. I was planning to have class in person instead of on the internet for the first time, but unfortunately my teacher was out sick. Wish her a speedy recovery and we’ll do that next time.

Heading out of town to Boquete

So, we head out of town. They are making the two lane road into four lane, and of course we confused ourselves and missed a detour but it wasn’t long as we were on our way.

On our way

What a beautiful country!

What do you mean I can’t put every photo I took today into my blog??

So, we keep driving, or rather he keeps driving and I keep looking at the beautiful scenery, camera in hand. I just love the mountains with the clouds hovering over the tops. It’s hard to get a good shot without all the utility wires, but one of these days I’ll have to go on a photo excursion where I get out of the car and walk a bit for better view points. But, even with wires you can see how beautiful it is.

The market was fun. There are many vendors with hand made art, crafts, food, jewelry, plants, coffee, soaps, clothing, a big variety of things. We were looking forward to seeing our friends Donna and Ray  who were there with their ceramic work (click on their names if you want to take a look). These are the good friends who put me up when I first got here, and Joel hadn’t seen them at all since he arrived.

I should have taken pictures of the market but I was too mesmerized by the view from the parking lot. Next time, market pictures, I promise.

After the market we drove around the town a bit. It’s a beautiful little town that reminds me a bit of some I’ve seen in northern California. Others call it the Switzerland of Central America. It’s also a big tourist destination so backpackers are common, like the two walking here.

This is one of the back roads in town. There are flowers everywhere and it’s really beautiful!

We stumbled across a cemetery on one of the back roads too. All the graves appear to be above ground, and it looks like each grave site has space for more than one person, maybe 2-6 people? Most of the boxes are covered with tile, and have colorful artificial flowers in front. We saw another similar cemetery in Dolega on the way back. One day i will have to come back with my camera for a closer look.

Another beautiful back road with many flowers

Some of the ride home was interesting. There is a section where it looks about finished and it will be two lanes each way, but they are still using only half the road for all the traffic, so one side is two lanes and the other is unused. Or it is supposed to be but there were a few people driving in both directions on that part of the road too. It looked like two, two lane roads side by side! Then there is the part with the utility poles that looks like a slalom course. Construction is always such fun but it’s going to be really good when it’s done.

Of course the ride home also had some great views.

Later in the day we started looking at motorcycles, and I sat on one for the first time! They are big and look a bit intimidating at first, but I can also imagine driving one through this beautiful country and how fun that will be. First, I have to learn to ride though. People have asked me – if you aren’t working, what are you going to DO down there??? Don’t worry, finding something to do has never been a problem!