A bird told me to update my Blog then pooped on me!
So here's the update:
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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:
Panama Canal: http://www.pancanal.com/eng/eie/radar/radar.html
24 hr NOAA fax: http://www.pancanal.com/eng/eie/radar/radar.html
48 hr NOAA fax: http://weather.noaa.gov/pub/fax/PWEI88.gif
72 hr NOAA fax: http://weather.noaa.gov/pub/fax/PJEK88.gif
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:
Wind Finder: http://www.windfinder.com/
Wave Finder: http://magicseaweed.com/
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.
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| Casa Blanca Restaurant |
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| Incredible ice cream parlor, we had lime and mint sherbert yumm |
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| One of the prettiest houses |
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| now I call this "Freeballing" |
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| 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.
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| Cock-of-de-rock |
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| 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.
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| Sid Monkey |
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| Albino Parrot |
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| Baby parrots |
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| This one is hatching |
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| 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.
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| 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!
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| 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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