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The cruising adventures of Sid and Manuela

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Pig Roast for the 4th



A bird told me to update my Blog then pooped on me!
So here's the update:


Summer is here and rainy season had already prematurely started. Mildew patrol is in full swing and boat work is controlled by the many rain showers and thunderstorms.
We are often asked what we use for weather, so here are few kewl Internet sites:

Accu Weather Satellite, this one is really good to watch how the weather moves:
also
This one is great to follow hurricane, also if you scroll down there is a good weather map for the whole Atlantic including the coast of Africa where the hurricanes come from:
Caribbean Satellite:
World Radar:
Buoy Weather:
And last the worlds earthquake monitor http://www.iris.edu/seismon/

The most valuable weather forecast we get is from Chris Parker. We can get his daily weather either via Single Side Band Radio or online 

With the rain comes long power outages; ranging from just a few minutes to almost a whole day. At times we have them on a daily basis then nothing for a while. Just good we have a generator so nothing gets lost in the fridge or freezer and the fan can keep us cool. The interesting thing about these power outages is that each is cause by either a car crashing into a power pole or a tree hitting the lines due to thunderstorms and heavy rain. Well, that’s what we are told each time. 

Thunderstorms here are fierce and unnerving. When they come through it’s one bolt after another. One day driving back from Colon, Binnie and I watched a transformer mounted on top of a power pole which was the 3rd pole away from us getting hit. Wow, what a spectacle, I have never seen anything like it, it looked like a shot of firework that kept going and going, sparks flew out from all directions, the bold kept flickering on and off for several seconds then smoke rose from the sparks and thickened and the bolt was gone while during the whole ordeal our car was shook by the enormous roaring thunder. I had goose bumps for a while. A few days after that a heavy thunder cloud rolled over Puerto Lindo, Sid was sitting at the computer when a bolt hit the telephone line at the main house knocking line 1 out and sending sparks out of the wifi computer socket on our computer. Luckily it did no harm to the computer.
On another drive back, Heather was driving there was so much rain that there were waterfall where they should not be and a thunderbolt with a diameter of a giant Sequoia or Redwood trunk hit just a few yards from us.  The Caribbean part of Panama has also the claim of fame of boats getting hit by lightning strikes the most.

When I go on my shopping trips Debbie on Runner usually keeps me company and we always have a fun time. One run into Panama City we had so much to do for one day, we decided to spend the night in town. Yeah, a fun girls out! We took a room at the Mar Paraiso Hotel on Via España with somewhat a view of the harbor. A small room but with the strongest shower, we both agreed that this is the best shower we’ve ever had in any hotel. Casca Viejo, the new old town of Panama,  is fairly close from here and so I took Debbie to my favorite Restaurant Casa Blanca.
We enjoyed it so much that a couple of weeks later when her sister in law Glori visited we took her there. This time we decided to stay in the Casco Viejo area and found a room in the oldest hotel continuously running in Panama “Hotel Casco Antigua”. It was built in 1915 and still shows its historical charm with a Moorish tiled lobby and tall ceilings. A beautiful fountain was built into the wall and the ceilings in that area was all 3 stories tall, the ceilings all are high as it is. The fountain can be viewed from all the floors. 



A long stairway up to the first floor opened up into a big room with tables. Breakfast is served here. What caught our eye was this weird looking 3 sided wood wall that seemed to be out of place. We thought it was a room for private parties but could not find a door to enter. Weird?!
But the following morning for breakfast our nosy question was answered.
This hotel was built by the Spaniards for entertainment and this room was the restaurant. When festive Balls were held uninvited guests could enjoy dinner at the restaurant while watching the lavish Ball. The weird wood wall is just that with windows that were opened for the festivities and has a spectacular view of  the Ball room where the Spanish tiled ballroom floor was right under the windows. Seeing this Glori, Debbie and I could just imagine the lavish ball.

From this floor we walked to yet another stairway and this one lead us to all the other floors to the guest rooms. When you come to this point you go wow what kind of dump is this. Then when she opened our room we all went "wow". Our room was probably 35 feet long 15 wide with modern Japanese style decor. Two queen size beds and a reading bed, Japanese divider, several dressers and a big mirrored closet. No windows except next to the door to the inside of the hallway, can't open the windows though, but AC was pretty darn fast.

On the top floor we found a big terrace, with a 320 few overlooking the sky scrapers of Panama City, the bay and islands, the entrance of the Panama Canal including the Bridge of the Americas and the roof tops of charming Casco Viejo.

 

A fun afternoon stroll revealed beautiful Casco Viejo to us. It definitely reminds us of beautiful, except that it has more buildings in shambles then not, but they are slowly bringing them back to what it once was. There are construction sites everywhere. A few fun tourist stores can be explored and the many wonderful restaurants could give you a hard time to decide where to eat. 



Casa Blanca Restaurant

Incredible ice cream parlor, we had lime and mint sherbert yumm


One of the prettiest houses
Land Cruisers, finding exotic places to fix the van!

We didn’t have that problem as our mouth was watering already for more steamed clams and Salmon/Tuna Tartar at Casa Blanca. The service, food and décor are first class the only complaint we have is for such a fine place they should not use paper napkins LOL.  We had a wonderful time and enjoyed being spoiled. Amazingly the bill does not match the excellent service and food; we are hooked on this restaurant. And next time - I know there will be a next time - we will bring our own napkins.

Wie endet the evening with another bottle of champagne on the roof top of our hotel.
Needed a flashlight to pop the cork
And on our way back to Puerto Lindo we filled the car with groceries, poor Glori was sandwidged.

She even managed to sleep

Back at Summer Place, Binnie’s maids Teresa and Maribel saw something crawl on the ground then saw it crawl into a tree. It was an injured Night Monkey. What a cute little critter.
The night monkey also known as owl monkey or douroucoulis are in the primitive monkey family, Aotidae). They are widely distributed in the forests of Central and South America, from Panama south to Paraguay and northern Argentina. “Douroucoulis” means “earless”; they have ears but the external ears are tiny and hard to see. Night monkeys have huge brown eyes and for increased ability to be active at night. They are called night monkey because they are the only nocturnal monkeys. Both male and female weigh almost the same about 2.75 lbs.
They make a variety of vocal sounds, with up to eight categories of distinct calls: gruff grunts, resonant grunts, screams, low trills, moans, gulps, sneeze grunts and hoots. A frequency range of 190-1,959 Hz.  They  have no color vision, presumably because it is not of an advantage being nocturnal. They live in family groups of the mated pair with their immature offspring. Families defend their territory by vocal calls and scent marking. Only one infant is born each year. Their biggest enemy is the human using them for experimental malaria research.

This little feller was badly injured. His bones on one leg were exposed. Both hind legs were severely injured and it now sat in the crevasse of a tree. I laid a banana close to him but of course it is was not interested in it. It was in a lot of pain that was for sure as it kept licking the wounds. It let me hold its tail as I gently talked to it. Binnie called her neighbor Jaco who owns a huge property in Puerto Lindo, a  home of many exotic animals. He has veterinarians on staff and two of his boys came and rescued the cute little monkey. Unfortunately his injury was too sever and it died a couple of days later.






A couple of week later Jaco invited us to visit his animal farm. OMG was that enormous and incredible. The entrance leads you straight to his orchid farm the size of a tennis court. An open football field size field separates the orchid house into 3 bird aviaries also each the size of a tennis court. 



Between the aviary, and along the property wall were lots of little guinea pigs mingled with turtles. But what caught our eye were two kangaroos male, one an albino wow. They were pretty shy and sprung away from us. I tell you though when you see them jump away I had to laugh, you'll see why.


now I call this "Freeballing"

What would you call it?!!
The first aviary had all the little exotic birds of all colors. I have never seen so many birds at once. Every tree had a different colored bird. The second aviary a female quetzal sat just 3 feet away from me, studying me. Not moving, I stood there for minutes before taking photos, it never moved. 











Some red cock-of-the-rock (national bird of Peru), flew around my ears. This aviary had the bigger birds so I was really curious what the third aviary had. Binnie and entourage was still in the first aviary while I venture into the thirds one.  
 
Cock-of-de-rock








Female Cock-of-the Rock


The birds in here were definitely of the bigger kind and lots and lots of male and female cock-of-the rocks. The females seemed very interested in me and 4 of them circled me constantly by jumping from tree limb to the next. All of a sudden something landed on top of my head, it startled me and I let out a short scream. I guess these birds liked it and another one landed on my head just sitting there and sliding back and forth in the slippery hair and moving my bangs up and down, not to mention my sunglasses. It was funny, not even my hand reaching for my sunglasses spooked the birds off my head. Since nobody was around, I was alone with these funny birds I had to take my own pictures. The 4 females took turns on my head. Everybody else finally caught up with me. The birds seemed not interested in anybody else but one landed on my head again while I followed the others. It did not mind being walked around.


After the Aviaries, Jaco escorted us to the monkey cage with several species, from there up a short hill alongside a fenced we saw several deer, giant turtles I think you only see in the Galapagos, a tapir, emus and a whole bunch of others not native to here animals. Up on the hill two cages with two big eagles, another one with a tame royal vulture we could pet and a big cage next to it two big jaguars. We did not get to see his camel; that was enjoying a stroll down by the beach area. It was amazing and I hope I will be able to visit again.

Sid Monkey


Albino Parrot








Baby parrots

 
This one is hatching

incubating eggs
 
I have to add that most of the animals are rescue animals and if possible they will be released into the wild again.
Eatable decoration my Manuela

Happy 4th of July
Sorry we’re a bit late for that so Happy belated. We had a blast. I organized a pig roast and all 40 guests showed up. Sid did an awesome job in marinating the 60 lbs pig and cooking it in a Chinese BBQ box or also called a Cajun Microwave. It was cooked to perfection and we had an incredible feast with all the wonderful foods everybody brought. It was a day with good food, fun games and very happy people. We all can’t wait do use the BBQ for Turkey Day!!!
I think photos will tell a better story than I will!

















The tampon game is always fun










The left over pork was cooked up by Master Chef Sidley as Eastern North Carolina Pig Pickin’ style with corn bread and whatever everybody else brought for the Sunday Ping-Pong. It was yummy!

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