Here Comes The Rain Again
We arrived safely at our first apartment in the Chiriqui region in Cuesta de Piedra to be exact and quickly settle in. It's a peaceful birding paradise with views to die for but we are hungry from our travels today and head out in search of an early dinner which is found in a quaint Italian restaurant called La Carbonera and we have a good sized, tasty, well deserved meal. Our next mission is to find the Red Sox game!
When we were in Bocas, I was able to log in to my PlayStation Vue account and watch some live TV and some of my DVR'd shows too, even though it placed me as being in the Los Angeles area - this came in handy for the one rainy day we had over there. I assumed I would be able to take advantage of the same thing here for the game as long as the internet signal was strong enough which our host Jerry said it should be, but alas, PlayStation has now figured out that I am no longer in my home country and I am not able to watch anything...crap. So, I search around for a streaming service and I find one where the stream is mostly acceptable with little to no buffering. Too bad the Sox didn't do so well in game 1 and we pretty much fell asleep before it was over.
On Sunday the morning started out promising so after a leisurely breakfast (thanks Dave) and some coffee out on the observation deck we headed out for a walk down the road from us to see the Rio Macho Monte. This is a rapidly running river in the rainy season and there is no shortage of water here lately so the river is running.
We also get to see the common basilisk also known as the Jesus Christ lizard because of its ability to walk on water, although today he is just posing for my picture.
We head back to the house to take a look at the landscape and see if we can find any birds. There is a great variety of flora here.
Sitting on our deck we start to see a few birds, parrots, oropendola which look like black crows with bright yellow beaks and tail feathers, a large humming bird, and a couple of woodpeckers with the brightest red crowns. Unfortunately I have my crappy camera which does not zoom much, has no image stabilizer and I take shitty pictures to begin with...LOL but here are a few of the oropendolas
And then the rain begins. A nice light mist at first and then a little steadier, it makes for a nice calming setting, but then the skies open up - for hours!!! It pours, and it pours, and it pours!!! We try to find a little bit of a lull in the rain because we have to go out and get something to eat. We find a fried chicken place on the map so we head out. As we are driving up the road the song "Here Comes The Rain Again" by the Eurythmics comes on the radio and in the 10 minute drive to get there it pours, then slows up a bit, then almost completely stopped, then pours again. Luckily the roads here are all paved and there are no immediate dangers of any mud/land slides. Fried chicken and beer in hand, we head back to the apartment and pray that the internet stays up!
Through all of this rain we are able to stream the Sox game on my laptop and the Pats game on my phone!!! Good night for all!
Monday we decide to drive out towards Cerro Punta and there is a garden I've found that we'd like to go see, a nice easy walk around, maybe some nice plants and flowers, it has many good reviews and if we are lucky the rains will hold off a bit.
The drive is nice all through countryside where there are dairy farms and many vegetable farms everywhere along the side of the road. No, literally along the side, they have built the farm up on the hillsides and have planted everything from carrots, potatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, cabbage, tomatoes. You can buy a huge bag of all kinds of veggies for about $5 from any of the stands along the road!.
We arrive at Jardin Mary and from the road it doesn't look like much but you can't judge a book by it's cover so in we go to find Mary sitting at a table in the cafe in front of the gardens. I summon my best Spanish and ask her if we can walk through her gardens. She asks me if we live in Panama and I tell her No, we are from the United States and she tells me to go ahead in to her garden. Once we enter the gardens I think I realize why she was asking me if we lived here, because this is more of a garden center where the plants are for sale! What? It is quite large and she has a great variety so we walk around anyway, since we are already here...we also get to see her goat (one) and sheep (one).
We drove around the area a bit more and it looks like the rain is going to roll in again so we head back towards the apartment and stop and a little Fonda (restaurant by the side of the road) and for $7 we get a typical Panamanian dish of chicken, rice, beans and salad. BTW - that's $7 for the both of us and it was delicious.
With full bellies we head back to see if we can spot more birds today since the rain has held off a bit and we are in luck! The birds are very active this afternoon and Dave spots the prize - the Fiery-Billed Aracari (toucans to most of us). We go downstairs to try to get a closer look and maybe I'll get lucky with my crappy camera to get a decent shot of them. Jerry hears our excitement as we head down the stairs and he comes out to see what we have found. He has a feeder that he fills with bananas so he plops a bunch on there and then the show really begins. Along with the toucans we see the Blue-Crowned Motmot and several thrushes, warblers, and a variety of tanagers. This was easily the highlight of this section of our trip and we didn't have to go far to find it.
Tuesday is our travel day to Boquete. It is also our anniversary. It is also another Red Sox game and the Celtics first game of the season.
It is already raining so let's see what we have in store for today....
When we were in Bocas, I was able to log in to my PlayStation Vue account and watch some live TV and some of my DVR'd shows too, even though it placed me as being in the Los Angeles area - this came in handy for the one rainy day we had over there. I assumed I would be able to take advantage of the same thing here for the game as long as the internet signal was strong enough which our host Jerry said it should be, but alas, PlayStation has now figured out that I am no longer in my home country and I am not able to watch anything...crap. So, I search around for a streaming service and I find one where the stream is mostly acceptable with little to no buffering. Too bad the Sox didn't do so well in game 1 and we pretty much fell asleep before it was over.
On Sunday the morning started out promising so after a leisurely breakfast (thanks Dave) and some coffee out on the observation deck we headed out for a walk down the road from us to see the Rio Macho Monte. This is a rapidly running river in the rainy season and there is no shortage of water here lately so the river is running.
We head back to the house to take a look at the landscape and see if we can find any birds. There is a great variety of flora here.
Sitting on our deck we start to see a few birds, parrots, oropendola which look like black crows with bright yellow beaks and tail feathers, a large humming bird, and a couple of woodpeckers with the brightest red crowns. Unfortunately I have my crappy camera which does not zoom much, has no image stabilizer and I take shitty pictures to begin with...LOL but here are a few of the oropendolas
And then the rain begins. A nice light mist at first and then a little steadier, it makes for a nice calming setting, but then the skies open up - for hours!!! It pours, and it pours, and it pours!!! We try to find a little bit of a lull in the rain because we have to go out and get something to eat. We find a fried chicken place on the map so we head out. As we are driving up the road the song "Here Comes The Rain Again" by the Eurythmics comes on the radio and in the 10 minute drive to get there it pours, then slows up a bit, then almost completely stopped, then pours again. Luckily the roads here are all paved and there are no immediate dangers of any mud/land slides. Fried chicken and beer in hand, we head back to the apartment and pray that the internet stays up!
Through all of this rain we are able to stream the Sox game on my laptop and the Pats game on my phone!!! Good night for all!
Monday we decide to drive out towards Cerro Punta and there is a garden I've found that we'd like to go see, a nice easy walk around, maybe some nice plants and flowers, it has many good reviews and if we are lucky the rains will hold off a bit.
The drive is nice all through countryside where there are dairy farms and many vegetable farms everywhere along the side of the road. No, literally along the side, they have built the farm up on the hillsides and have planted everything from carrots, potatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, cabbage, tomatoes. You can buy a huge bag of all kinds of veggies for about $5 from any of the stands along the road!.
We drove around the area a bit more and it looks like the rain is going to roll in again so we head back towards the apartment and stop and a little Fonda (restaurant by the side of the road) and for $7 we get a typical Panamanian dish of chicken, rice, beans and salad. BTW - that's $7 for the both of us and it was delicious.
With full bellies we head back to see if we can spot more birds today since the rain has held off a bit and we are in luck! The birds are very active this afternoon and Dave spots the prize - the Fiery-Billed Aracari (toucans to most of us). We go downstairs to try to get a closer look and maybe I'll get lucky with my crappy camera to get a decent shot of them. Jerry hears our excitement as we head down the stairs and he comes out to see what we have found. He has a feeder that he fills with bananas so he plops a bunch on there and then the show really begins. Along with the toucans we see the Blue-Crowned Motmot and several thrushes, warblers, and a variety of tanagers. This was easily the highlight of this section of our trip and we didn't have to go far to find it.
Tuesday is our travel day to Boquete. It is also our anniversary. It is also another Red Sox game and the Celtics first game of the season.
It is already raining so let's see what we have in store for today....
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