Gato Solo

You know it’s hot when you can’t wait for the next fly to buzz by you so can catch that little breeze off its wings.

So we got our boat….for now, to hold us over until we know for sure this is where we want to stay. ‘Gato Solo’ is her name. She came with it. A Gato Solo looks like a strange cross between a raccoon, cat, monkey and anteater. Hmmmmm? If you’re just dying to know more about a Gato Solo, Google will give you all kinds of information.

The boat is a 20 foot panga with a 40HP motor. We’ve taken it out once and sure enough, it catches fish! Perfect!!! We were only out for about 1 ½ hours as our current gas tank is small. Within about a ½ mile from shore we caught a nice Cero Mackerel. GOOD EATIN.

As with most things here not a lot makes sense so Wayne is busy trying to make the boat right. For instance, getting a brace made for the motor for when we are towing it since the motor doesn’t have that handy little position just for that purpose, towing it! The seller of the boat said ‘just leave the motor down, no problem’. Perfect, let’s just drag that thing along the road. I’m sure it won’t do much damage. Or as pointed out by someone else, leave it all the way up. So that’s what we did and had a guy pass us on the road with his passenger hanging out the window frantically waving his arms up and down to demonstrate SEVERE BOUNCING…which I understand is not a good thing.

Because we are launching it from a boat ramp here in Pedasi we have to wait for the tide to be right. Our first trip out, the tide was ok until the last 2/10 of a mile of which we had to push and pull it into the ocean. The river was still a bit low. The river by the way is through the mangroves. Mangroves, you know, where snakes and crocs live! Worked off a couple rum drinks so all was good. We’ll eventually moor it and buy a little rowboat to get out to it.

We are having a really hard time finding land. There’s so much of it here but everyone wants to sell HUGE pieces. No one wants to be bothered with smaller lots unless in a development type of community which we don’t want. We found one piece a little over an acre. It’s perfect in every way. 2 miles from the beach, electric, water, nice view, flat to build, etc., etc. And then…..there’s the pig farm. It’s several hundred feet away but we are told depending on the winds, it could get pretty ripe. We keep driving by at different times of the day with our noses out the window.

Because the quality of construction here is so bad, we really want to build something ourselves. Plus it’s a LOT cheaper so we aren’t really looking to much at turn key stuff. Because in most cases, the key probably won’t work any way!!! We met one guy and he’s building a house out of shipping containers. I know what some of you are thinking, shut up. Believe me, you’d never know it was a container. It’s got real walls, floors, etc. and you can cut walls right out so you can have a very open floor plan. Who knows.

Lastly (for now), there’s something else I really miss. A good napkin. What I’d give for a Vanity Fair napkin. What they give you here won’t wipe the snot off a fruit fly. Plus they wrap your utensils in the napkin first so by the time you tear it off you are left with shreds. If you are lucky enough to have some left on your table, you end up going through about 87 of them and the pile at the end of the meal is still only about the size of your baby toe.

Bank acct, Altos del Maria, Friends, stuff

First of all THANK YOU to all of you who been responding and calling and keeping us posted on what’s happening back home and with you. We LOVE hearing from all of you!!!!! You guys are great.

WOW. So much has happened over the last week or so.

Opened a bank account. Heard nightmares about the process and that it took a minimum of 10 days before the acct gets opened. I also heard if you beat them at their own game and bury them in documents they will pretty much do whatever you want them to. They LOVE, LOVE paperwork and getting out that little stamp and stamping everything. Goldie, you are right, they actually have to step back and take a breath in between all the stamping. We went into the bank on Wed. They took copies of every page of our passport and our drivers license (Still a US license….we haven’t attempted to get a Panamanian one yet). That took about ½ hour. Returned the next day and 2 hours and 15 minutes later, we had an account. We brought with us the required documents: Passport, driver license, letters of recommendation from 2 people in Panama (we had 3 people willing to do this for us. Go figure!) and a utility bill. The bill could be for anything and in anyone’s name. Seriously! So we got the electric bill from the lady we are renting from. Then we also supplied them with things they didn’t ask for and their eyes rolled back in their head and they shouted with glee. Police records, letters from our banks back home and birth certificates. YIKES, I hope we don’t give them any bright ideas and now they will add those to the requirements.

Some funny stuff about Panama
1. “No necessary, no necessary!” Just go ahead and try to put a seat belt on in the back seat of the car. It’s not the law so if you are in a car with a Panamanian they will literally put their hand over the buckle and say ‘NO necessary’. I mean really for them to obey a REAL law like having to use seat belts in the front seat is like asking them to give birth to a goat. So when someone takes it upon themselves to do something that is not the law…well that’s just f*cking stupid.
2. You can catch a buzz at the grocery store…FOR FREE. Since they sell booze at the grocery store, they have a cute little chica at the end of the isle giving out sample shots of various ‘deals of the day’. We happened to hit on VODKA day. Hello, is this paradise or what! She had 8 different flavors and you could literally stand there and have each and every one. They were REAL SIZE shots too, actually closer to a shot and a half! I had my 2 and while I shopped Wayne held down the vodka fort with some other gringo and went through a good portion of the flavors.
3. The locks of the Panama Canal are fresh water, not salt. Go figure. So the locks are filled with fresh water when a boat comes in in order to lift it up to the next lock. The entire transit through the locks requires over 50,000,000 gallons of water. Once the boat is on it’s way, the lock dumps it’s fresh water into the ocean. It gets its fresh water from surrounding lakes. There can be 40+ boats going through the canal per day!!! That’s a lot of friggin water. Ok, so I asked a dumb question….won’t the lakes run out water at that rate. Since Panama gets 200+ inches of rain per year, not likely!
4. A security guard will stop you at the bank entrance and make you take off your sunglasses and hat if you are wearing one. In most cases he also does a metal detection. At some banks you can’t wear shorts.
5. Panama is the only country in the world, due to it’s ‘S’ shaped configuration of it’s land, where the sun rises in the West and sets in the East.

We spent the weekend away with some great people Friday night that we met on line before leaving the US. Mary and Goldie. We were in Altos del Maria which is up a mountain from the first place we stayed when we arrived. It was AMAZING. The company was too much fun as my head wasn’t right for a good 24 hours after!! Or maybe that was the wine!!! Great conversation, great food, wine and a view to die for. OH MY GOD, the view was incredible and as luck would have it, we got an amazing storm that came thru. We were in the clouds so we were in the storm. It was very cool. Next morning we could see for miles and miles and miles. On a really clear day you can see both oceans from where we were. (is that right Mary and Goldie or did I just make that up?? I know we can see one because I saw it.)

Saturday we went into the THE CITY or HELL as I like to call it. Thankfully this time wasn’t so bad. We didn’t get lost going in, thank you Mary and Goldie. We did some boat shopping. Then headed to a different part of the canal than we’d been before. Because we had The Woo with us we didn’t do the museum but did see a HUGE ship come through the Miraflores Lock. Amazing. We will go back without the dog in the car.

Sunday we enjoyed an AWESOME breakfast with our friend Barbara that we met in Coronada when we first arrived. We had hoped for a Sat. night pool party but it got rained out. Tis the rainy season!!!!

So much more has happened. Bought a boat….or are in the process. Once it’s a done deal I’ll post more. It’s a wee one but will do for now.

Firmed up a deal to rent a house RIGHT ON THE BEACH starting Sept. 1 for 6 months. If anyone wants to visit, this will be the time!!!!!! Will post more info. As we get closer and can get some pictures taken.

Happy SUMMER everyone!!!!!!!!!!!

Finally, TUNA

We had a great fishing trip on Sunday. LONG DAY!!! Headed out at 5:00 am from Pedasi to Bucaro which is about 1 1/2 hours away. No real need to drive that far to fish but the guys we were going with like to 'get away' for the day. Bucaro is a very small fishing village. Very remote. If we weren't with people who knew the area, we'd have turned around. Our original captain was a no show. He decided to go hunting instead which is 100% illegal. He was hunting for iguanas and turkeys. So instead we got a great young guy as our captain and his newphew as co-captain who smiled pretty much from the minute we left to the minute we got back. We went out only about 2 miles and started catching fish right away. Wayne got the biggest for the day, a tuna. He also got a cero mackarel and some smaller tuna. I only got a couple small tuna. One guy got a salt water salmon...??? We are going to have a little of all of them tonight. Some amazing storm clouds started coming in so we headed back and got drenched. Some pretty good sized waves too. The boat was so old you could watch the floor flex above where you could see the frame cracking and above that you could see day light shining in. Life preservers. YEAH, RIGHT!! Any way, made it safe and sound. From there I thought the day was over. Nope, not with these guys. We stopped at a great bar/restaurant in the village and ordered up lunch and about 8 beers each for the guys. Not me. I decided I would be the driver. From there we headed home but again made several more stops for the guys to quench their thirst even more. Ok, getting a bit old not to mention I'm in wet cloths and the dog has been trapped in our house for 12 hours. By hour 13 we were home and so ready for showers and poor Woo was ready for peepees. Poor guy. No complaints though as I'm about to get dinner started now and we've got 3 kinds of fish to eat. Yummy.

Also pictured is the little girl that lives next to us. She's so ugly, she's cute. She's in heat so she's got on her 'I need to find a papa' outfit. She loves Fischer and he wants no part of the hussy. Poor girl.

Another thing we witnessed today. A funeral. We heard church bells ringing at a strange time, around 3:30 today. Then saw a large group of people start walking down the street. I'm assuming it was the wife and daughter in the front and behind them the casket being carried by men and then probably most of the town behind them. It was a sad to see but interesting

Oh regarding the bombs. We had the wrong weekend. It's this coming weekend that the bombs will be going off. It's a big celebration weekend coming up. We are not going to be around. We are headed to Alto de Maria, about 4 hours away to visit some people we met online that will be staying up in the montains Friday night, then to visit our friend Barbara in Coronado on Saturday (where we first stayed). From there we are going to head to the dreaded Panama City to look at boats on Sunday. I'm dreading that part.

and this little piggy went to market

....and this little piggy went to market!!! Farmers and fishermen drive around town with all kinds of good stuff. Obviously this one was pork. Over a pound was about $2. Then the shrimp man came around and we picked up 2 pounds for $7. They even have a full grocery truck that comes by with everything from toilet paper to fruit and veggies....Panama's PeaPod.

Bombs AWAAaaaaay

Bombs away!!!!
So we’ve spent our first weekend in Pedasi. I can’t say I wasn’t warned that the weekends can be a little loud. You also have to be a huge fan of roosters and chickens…which we are but that could change. What we weren’t prepared for were the ‘bombs’. Not firecrackers but handmade bombs. Now keep in mind, there is ZERO crime here. ZERO!! In the past 4 years someone heard of having a pair of flip flops stolen during Carnival. All the Gringos leave their doors open, no one worries about a thing. It’s real community feel here. So when a few bombs go off you kind of just have to say, Hey if one hits us we know we can rush out to the hospital and not worry about locking the door. HA! What they do here is make hand made bombs and then there’s a contest to see who has the loudest and biggest. To whet your appetite they start with teaser bombs sometime mid morning on Saturday. These are something you might expect to hear in Bridgeport, CT. Enough to make you ALMOST shit yourself at first then it’s a just an annoyance as you have to hold your conversations until the round is finished. As the day moves into night you think Ok, it’s dark, they’ll be shooting them off and then we can call it day. Well as long as you don’t mind calling it day sometime around Sunday mid-morning, you are fine. Now sometime around midnight right into day light, literally they are BOMBS. They skies light up, the window panes shake and this time you do actually shit yourself!!!! Remember that shinny new blue truck we just bought? Sunday morning is was a nice new shade of ASH with accents specks of brown. Now for the good part, we found out yesterday that last weekend was just a warm up. This weekend there is going to be a carnival and the actual contest. Hmmmm, do we stick around or find a place to stay for the night. Poor Fischer. We try to get excited and say to him ‘is that a squirrel?’ when a bomb goes off so that he won’t be so freaked out.

I posted a few pictures, nothing much:
1 Wayne got a haircut in Las Tablas, $3 and the guy spent about 20 minutes on him. Gave him a ‘flat top’ as that was about the only words that were understood.
2 Found a great rocky beach right next door to the ex president of Panama (the first female). She’s got a heck of a compound and a kick ass Cabo.
3 Went fishing for the first time. Both of us caught bonita, yuck. Our friend Asir caught 3 dorado but none made it into the boat. It rained/stormed most of the trip but still nice to be on the water.
4 Getting the boat in the water is done by truck, same when it’s time to get it out.
5 Our friend Asir lost his truck keys so the locals were more than happy to try to break into it for him. After an hour of no luck our boat captain looked down and there was the key!
6. Fischer has discovered Vultures. We call them Winged Squirrels. This in itself is worth it’s own blog because it’s too friggin funny to watch him try to catch them. I’ll have more on this in the future.

Well that’s all for now and I think we’ll stick around this weekend. Really grab onto that Panamanian culture. I’ll try to get some of the bombings on video. (Can you imagine this happening in the states!!!!!)

Random stuff

Every night at least 3 times we spring out of bed from a crash sound. The cause: Mango’s falling on the metal roof across the street.

Speaking of mangos. OH MY FRIGGIN GOD. It’s mango madness here. Every day we have a few mangos. Let me tell ya, they do the body good!

Fischer is so proud. He’s been able to actually capture some priced sized flies. We are looking for some driftwood to mount a couple on. I think the heat causes them to be slower than the buggers we are used to at home. We gave him some special bologna as a treat for his hunting skills.

Bologna…the only reason I know how to spell that is because of that commercial years ago w/that little kids singing ‘my bologna has a first name, it’s Oscar. My bologna has a second name, it’s bologna!’ ‘How’s that?!?!’

What I miss? I’ve been asked this a couple of times. 2 things. My nights out with my girlfriends and butter. And not necessarily in that order!!!! Ellyn, Amy, I think you both might be our first visitors….leave room in your bags for a couple of pounds of Land O Lakes Salted Butter. I don’t care what you have to do at customs, just get me the butter man!!!

What I don’t miss. The price of rum. It’s almost free here. Again, it does the body good. NOT!!!..But sure taste yummy.

The tomatoes here are so good. I mean SO GOOD. The best tom you’ve ever had in the US, that’s them.

Washing machines are pretty much located outside. No dryers. It’s all cloths lines. I like that. Ask me in a year if I still like that.

Empanadas. I’ve been on a mission to find some that blow my mind. Ok, toot, toot, that’s me tooting my own horn. I finally just had to make my own which I’m sure is no where near traditional. I did cheat and bought the dough already made. Then, onion, peppers, garlic, local Pedasi cheese and cilantro….but it’s cilantro like you’ve never had. Fry those babies up in a little ‘butter’ aka ‘yellow slippery stuff’. Oh my!

There’s a crazy bird here. He talks to me in Spanish and then yells at me because I’m not responding like I should. I can’t even understand the damn bird. So I’m trying to teach him ‘Hello. I like you’. Wish me luck.

Tried to open a checking acct today. Yeah right. We need 1 commercial reference. Ok we can cover that with the purchase of our truck however, that was 6 hours away and god forbid they allow emails. Then we need 2 personal reference and not from the US. We’ve been here 2 weeks. Helllllooooo!

The little diesel that could..our new truck

We bought and actually received our truck. Whooohooo. We shopped for the truck a week ago Monday. It took ALL DAY in Panama City. Have I mentioned yet how much I do NOT like PC. We got out of there without getting in a horrific accident. We should get a medal for that. We wired money on Tuesday. It came right out of our acct. however took a bit of time to show up here in Panama but it did arrive FOR THE WRONG FRIGGIN AMOUNT. Thank you very much TD Bank. It actually was our banks fault but we didn’t find this out until we were half way to PC on Saturday to pick up the truck. Our phone rings, it’s the salesman and he says, you owe another $1,000. Well we’ve heard how you can buy something here then show up to pick it up and the price goes up. My legs started shaking. OH NO please don’t do this to us. After a few calls back and forth we do find out in fact TD wired less money than we requested. By the time we drove to PC, returned our rental car, made the payment we owed and waited for the truck to show up, it was a full day. Literally about 8 hours….and the truck still showed up without the trailer hitch or bed cover installed. That’s ok, they were in boxes and it gave Wayne something to do for the next day. We narrowly avoided several good crashes on our way out of PC in our shiny new truck! I was so happy to pull into the driveway with all of the truck intact as well as ourselves. Oh and here’s a good one, we didn’t get a license plate. Just a paper one to keep in the vehicle. Why? Because they ran out of the metal they use to make plates. That just cracked us up.

Some facts on buying a vehicle if you are only a tourist....have a drivers license, passport and a way to get money to the dealer. Also, you need to get insurance but the dealer and the insurance co. can speak directly to each other and get everything done for you. You can pay for the insurance with a credit card and it's about half of what it costs in the US.

The downside to buying a new vehicle is Wayne’s mental illness has gotten drastically worse. When he owned his Silverado, he felt a special connection to every other stranger that owned one. He’d point out every single one of them on the road at the same time as us. Well now of course the connection has been made to all Hilux’s, in addition to Silverado’s of course. That’s ok, but it’s progressed now to pointing out Chevy Caravans, Mercury Capris and Datsuns. Well, maybe the Datsun was worth a glace. Not sure if there’s a treatment for this disease. I’ll have to check out WebMD.