At 9 am on Tuesday I was in my 7th Pilates class. You’d think I’d be becoming very lean and svelte by now. Heck, I’m still struggling to keep my shoulders relaxed, my tail bone tucked up, my belly pulled in and my rib cage down and in. Try that! I’m a little late to this game, for sure, but hey, I think it will help me retain balance and improve strength in otherwise rarely used muscles. If improved balance is all I get, the stretching, breathing, and figuring the right way to suck-in-in, will be worth it.
With not a lot on our agenda today, we made a little bite to eat while the apartment’s handymen took care of a multitude of little worrisome issues. Afterwards we went to the pool deck to simply relax for a bit and listen to our books. We read books audio fashion almost exclusively these days. While I love the feel of a book of paper in my hands, listening to the sound of pages turning and breathing the wondrous smell of a well-read book, reading in bed with bi-focal glasses just won’t get it. One of us keeps the other awake with the lights on too long or even worse I wake up to find my glasses on the floor – just after I stepped on them. Audio books solve all those problems. While I have listened to some fantastic books in the last few weeks, I’m in a gap and nothing is available that I haven’t read or might be interested in. When that happens, I revert to classics. Right now I’m listening to Bram Stoker’s “Dracula”. If you weren’t required to read it in high school, try it now. It is amazing. It is enchanting. It is frightening. It is Dracula.
Windy season is approaching and it is a welcome relief. Air on the pool deck circulated freely around us. Humidity was low today; the sun warmed us and we were the only ones on the floor. Peace. We listened to our books, breathed in the fresh-made air, felt the sun and dozed. A tremendous cloud with bright lighted edges moved in. Stan pointed it out to me. I took a picture and noted how wonderful it is to have time to appreciate beautiful clouds and smell the roses.
Not long later a serious rain system moved in. The clouds were huge and thick and round. When the wind began to blow we knew we were in for it. The atmosphere was electric. Rain fell in sheets. We stayed outside but moved to an under-cover seating area, continued to listen to our stories and savored the time. When the rain started coming in sideways, we gave up our seats.
I made lasagna. It destroyed the kitchen. What a mess! And considering I went to Pilates today, having lasagna tonight seems counter-productive, but it smells so good. Besides, I had no choice, I had to make lasagna. Jill and Gary left us cooking items they could not take on the plane to Costa Rica. Among their gifts of toilet tissue and jams and jellies, they gave us spaghetti sauce, a box of lasagna noodles and a jar of parmesan cheese. You must know me by now, I waste no food.
I browned ground beef with onions and spices and doused it with the jarred spaghetti sauce. In this sparsely equipped kitchen the wide flat noodles had to be creatively boiled in a pot far too small for doing so. I spiced up the cottage cheese with parsley, oregano and basil and shredded the mozzarella. Please note I had to search three stores to find cottage cheese here in Panama. The stuff made enough for two or three dinners.
I don’t know what you are having tonight, but we are having lasagna!!!!
While I did my cooking, Stan researched our next outing. It’s time to see some new territory. In a rental car we are driving to Colon on Thursday after my exercise class. The city is on the other side of the isthmus on the coast of Caribbean, but it’s only about an hour’s drive from Panama City. Everything we’ve read about Colon says it is not a particularly safe place to visit. In fact visitors are advised not to walk around, day or night unless in one of the heavily policed and guarded plazas. Muggings can take place day or night. Rest assured we won’t be strolling around in Colon but we hope to see is the new Gatun Locks. This set of newer locks is at the opposite end of the Panama Canal and accommodate the new larger, mega-ships passing through to the Caribbean. We think it might be worth seeing.
We plan to keep the car overnight and start out early Friday morning for a day trip to the Anton Valley which lies atop of an extinct volcano. We hear the town is quaint, picturesque and home to vacation houses of wealthy folks who live and work in Panama. We will take a look and maybe hike a trail or two. Regardless, the higher altitude there will be refreshing with cooler temps.
Today is Wednesday — I surely don’t know why or how but every day seems to have its own rewards. Our goal was to walk to the old iglesia, Santuario Nacional del Corazon de Maria. We headed out to the Bella Vista area of Panama. On the way we dodged a rain shower and had lunch at fonda. These little food shops are easily found almost everywhere. They are often informal usually family-run restaurants that serve only desayuno and almuerzo (breakfast and lunch). The menu includes a choice of daily fresh-made protein selections like pollo, cerdo, pescado o pulpo, simmered in a stew or cooked hot on a grill with acompanamientos for a very small price. Today we had what I might call braised pork. It was cubes of very lean pork cooked with peppers and onion in a nicely seasoned gravy or sauce, served with rice, salad, lentils and cooked plantain. — OK, I’ve about had my fill of rice and plantains. I like rice but I don’t get the fascination with plantains. Are plantains like grits? You have to grow up on them to adore them, right? Our lunch cost $8. Eight dollars total for both of us.
That’s one.
I heard about a little art gallery in Bella Vista, called Weil Art Gallery. We walked there. . . what else did we have to do? Senor Carlos Weil met us. He welcomed us. He showed us around his cluttered but completely enamoring studio stacked and littered with his collections of paintings, wood works, sculptures and art applied atop French Panama Canal bond papers. Whoa!!
Along the walls and aisles of his studio were rows of paintings not only from Panama but works done from all over the world . This man loves and collects beautiful things. As a girl not often exposed to art I found Carlos’s gallery collection new and exciting. Carlos has a beautiful soul. Stan, Carlos and I chatted like old friends; we talked Panama; we talked US and Panamanian politics; we talked heart attacks and stents. We could easily be long-time friends.
That’s two.
Rain clouds formed as they do every afternoon. We were a long walk from home. The sky looked threatening. We just kept walking. I carried my umbrella just in case but you must know there are times when the rain comes here when an umbrella does no good. The rain comes straight down and then it swipes left and right. In 15 minutes more when you are soaked and your shoes are squishy, it’s all gone.
Amazingly we walked toward home in the dry. Just before we had to take the crosswalk across busy Avenida Balboa, we passed a man selling pineapples and papaya on the sidewalk–a frequent sight here. His sign read: Pina $.50. Stan said, “Do you want one?” I said,” Yes, why not? Let’s support the street sellers.” While we used our elementary Spanish to say what we wanted, Freddy introduced himself in perfect English. We bought a pineapple and a ripe papaya for a total of $1. I think we will make a point to buy fresh fruit from this young entrepreneur again. We like Freddy.
That’s three. Three gifts in one day is a plenty.
Santuario Nacional Del Corazon De Maria 
Iglesia Nuestra Sra. del Carmen 
Senor Carlos Weil
🥰❤
Loved, loved chatting with you today!