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Who can resist a good rainstorm when you have such fun things to hide under? March 20, 2018 Cerro Punta has become one of our favorite places to go for a drive. It's so beautiful up there! It's amazing to see the farmers working their fields up so high and on such steep hillsides. We've spent quite a bit of time touring around up there and finding fun things to do. We stopped at Hotel Bambito one weekend afternoon because you can wander the grounds there. The kids had a blast in their ginormous bouncy castle (which we later found out was for hotel guests only!). We were glad they got a chance before we found that out! March 18, 2018  The ponds there have fish in them and there are ducks hanging out waiting for treats, even if you don't have any. This one duck decided he really like us - mostly Bailey. I'm beginning to think she's the animal whisperer. Doesn't matter where we go she has animals following her around. If we walk to town, we leave town with at least 4 dogs on our heels. I couldn't resist taking pictures of this duck! He has so much personality. We ran into a couple of crazy people there! Honest, they weren't with us.....  The kids liked climbing around on this horse with it's covered wagon. We're not totally sure what the Flintstones are doing there but why not pose with them too? We couldn't get Keiran or Bailey to pose in the heart of flowers but the rest of us had fun with it. Thankfully, we still have a couple of little ones who will pose for pictures. No trip up is complete without a stop by Haras Cerro Punta, a stud farm for thoroughbred race horses. The best is when they have the foals and mamas in the field by the road. We could stand and watch them for hours. The girls pick handfuls of clover and try to get them to come over and eat from their hand. It's hard not to go crazy with the pictures because the background is so perfect and the horses are such fun to photograph in that setting. We have to stop at 'The Wandering Sloth' on the way back down. Bailey needs french fries!!!! It's hard to go back in my pictures and make sense of a lot of them when I'm trying to write a blog. There a lot of stuff that happens that doesn't all tie together. They are just little pieces of life that happen over days but were worth noting. I'm going to try and put a few of those together here rather than blogging about each of them. Maybe 'Mishmash' may have been a better title! I'll keep it in mind for when it happens again! Adyson plays with everything except the toys that we brought with us. She plays with rocks and we have quite the collection on our back deck because of it. You have to watch when you step out or else you'll be roller skating across the deck and wondering what happened! One day she took her rocks and made a trail for us. She's very much about order and pattern right now. Once she started this trail it needed to run all the way through. She even went and found some more rocks so that she could complete it.  Bailey and Keiran like to work outside because it's so nice, why not?!! Bailey brought her ukulele with her and she often goes outside to play. The two of them will often head outside after supper and dishes are done to sit in the dark and listen to music. Bailey is getting really good on her uke! Keiran is getting really good at playing music on his speaker too..... ;-) This cute boy just needed a pic because he got a new hat!  I found a praying mantis laying on the ground and brought it home so the kids could check it out. He isn't actually dead, but almost. After taking a picture of him we placed him the bamboo behind the house. A mother bird laid her eggs in one of the little 'lighthouses' around the field. They didn't end up making it to the point of hatching because the field is way too busy for the mama to sit in the nest and feel safe. We got a good rainstorm one afternoon and the kids couldn't resist playing in it. There are 3 girls under that umbrella! Even Keiran couldn't resist getting wet! I'm trying to catch up a little on our blog. Clancey had to show me how to export my pics so that I could change the size of them down to something that could actually be uploaded. Our internet isn't always fast so I would write a post and then try to upload some pics. They would still be uploading the next morning! So, here we are......starting back in March! If you look back in our blog you'll find one about my parents visit here, too. On March 3rd we were invited to go for a group hike. Some of the friends that we've made here organized a bunch of us to get together and hike back into the Janson Lakes. The Janson coffee farm has been here for 3 generations and they grow regular and geisha style coffee. The lakes are private but they opened them up to the public so that families will go and use them. We met up at our friends house then gathered our snacks and waterbottles to hike down the road to the lakes. The road into the lakes is definitely easier walked than driven but we did pass people who had driven in. They keep the lakes stocked so that people can fish in there. The kids are itching to go back and try fishing. After snacks, repeated attempts to fall in the lake by the little ones and calling the older kids back from halfway around the lake we started the hike back out. The kids found a cool vine on the way in so they decided to try some of their Tarzan moves on it on the way back out. It's been really neat to see their creativity and play here since they don't have the devices, internet and toys that they have at home. We didn't have a vehicle at this point in our trip here so our friend kindly drove us home. On the way she thought we needed to check out the Janson Cafe since we hadn't been there yet. They had coffee berries laid out in the sun to dry. We watched as a man turned them all to dry on the other side. Grandpa treated the kids to drinks and brownies. Not a bad way to end a hike! The bathroom at the farm is tucked away under the deck. The girls thought it was so cool and wanted me to take pics of them in there because it felt like a tunnel. It's not every day you get to use a washroom in a cave!
Most of it was great! The road winds around, up and down, with many river crossings. The river crossings are at the bottom of ravines, which mean the road is very steep going down to then up from each crossing. The slope was about 10%-13%, with a couple steeper than that!
The road was quite narrow in spots, and there were a couple of sections that were church roads. (Quite Hole-y!) We got to a point where they are building a new dam, and the road kind of stopped. There was a bit of a gravel trail around a corner, so we tried it, and ended up on the steepest section of the road, not sure the grade, but our truck was in low gear, full gas, and no acceleration! I would have put it in 4x, but didn't think I could get started again if I stopped. We made it out the other side, and over all it was a great trip! The scenery was amazing (GeoLin has some pictures to post) and because of the road, there was hardly any traffic (a couple of taxis, and a bus or two...). We did pass one village that had cool bamboo arches with flowers over the road, and it was the first time in Panama where people actually stopped to look at us. Not sure if it was because we are gringoes, or if it was cause no vehicles and come through that way in a while... ​We will try the road again in a couple weeks when there is more water to see how the rivers look. By Keiran McNeal |
| | Panama has great coffee. I was expecting the fruity/sour coffee that I've had from Costa Rica, however so far this coffee is really good. Some quite dark and a bit bitter, but a few local farms have very good, smooth, not bitter or fruity coffee. The Black Mountain Coffee is up there with the best I've had from Rwanda or Kenya. |
We don't have bugs here, but we do have spiders. Quite a few of them, and they are large. Not as big as the ones we had in Kenya, but still large. The seem to come out in the evening, after we close up the doors and windows, and turn the lights on. We usually do a walk around the house in the evening to get rid of the big ones in the bedrooms.
We have seen a few other bugs around, a couple of beetles, some tiny ants, fireflies, various moths, a few cockroaches, some caterpillars, a centipede or two (one stung Caedon), Tiggie found some tiny jumping worms, stick bugs, locusts, grasshoppers, praying mantis, spiders, a single mosquito, dive bomb beetles, tuner moths, large moths,... Hmm, so maybe we do have bugs here?
But mostly, just spiders. Not sure what type they are, or if they are poisonous - one looks like a wolf spider, but not really sure. If you can identify any of these, let us know! I tried making a lemon oil and water spray, it was supposed to make the spiders move along to somewhere else. I think instead they liked it, and invted their friends over.
We have seen a few other bugs around, a couple of beetles, some tiny ants, fireflies, various moths, a few cockroaches, some caterpillars, a centipede or two (one stung Caedon), Tiggie found some tiny jumping worms, stick bugs, locusts, grasshoppers, praying mantis, spiders, a single mosquito, dive bomb beetles, tuner moths, large moths,... Hmm, so maybe we do have bugs here?
But mostly, just spiders. Not sure what type they are, or if they are poisonous - one looks like a wolf spider, but not really sure. If you can identify any of these, let us know! I tried making a lemon oil and water spray, it was supposed to make the spiders move along to somewhere else. I think instead they liked it, and invted their friends over.