Janauary 11, 2011

There are a lot of beautiful pictures of Taboga Island on my Facebook page if you want to see them. I only have room for a few here. The scenery is too beautiful for words. Check them out.
I went to a ladies luncheon on Saturday. There are some 20-30 of us that meet once a month at a nice restaurant to eat and socialize. Really FUN! But it is typical (probably because it is agreed upon prior to going that we get separate checks) the lunch can drag on forever! We met at noon, good service, etc and probably finished eating by 1:15. Then at 2:30 we still had not received our individual checks. Good grief. One time, I saw four men at the cash register trying to figure out the checks. It was almost comical (ok, it was very comical). In this country, you can NOT go up and try to hurry people because that will just work against you. If they see you are disgusted in anyway, you may never get your bill. They don’t worry about the tip because a 10 percent tip is automatically added onto your bill. So go figure, 20 ladies and 20 minutes a check. I thought it was some weird plot to keep us there until dinner to have us get yet another meal. By the way, we were the ONLY people in the restaurant at that time. We finally got out and I rode home (thankfully) with a gal from Panama. There was a huge traffic jam on one of the main roads going through town and she (having grown up in Panama) knew the way to get around it. We drove through areas of Panama that I would never go into. But she had not an issue and just acted like the cab drivers and aced out several of them on the way home. Never a dull moment here.
Sunday, we had a great day. We left early in the morning with three other friends to take a trip to the island of Taboga. To get to Taboga, you have to take a about a fifty minute boat ride from Panama City. What an amazing place. Sandy beaches and plenty of places to walk and sightsee. Some call it the flora island and true to the name there are hundreds of beautiful flowers growing (yes, in January). Us old folks took quite a challenge, as we took a six kilometer (round trip) hike to the top of a mountain where there was a large cross. The trail was fine until we got to the last kilometer or so, when it got very steep and narrow with lots of loose rocks on the path. Going up was fine (for me), but I certainly feared trying to get down. But, then going down gets a lot easier once you slip, fall and roll some down the hill. I think tomorrow my already messed up knees will really be hurting. What an incredible hike though. And the biggest thing is that we “DID IT”. All the hundreds of other people on the beach did not. Well, if you see the scrapes and scratches I have, perhaps “they” were the smart ones.
Also, Sunday was another Panamanian holiday, the Day of the Martyrs. Again, like All Saints Day in November, no alcohol is to be sold anyplace. However, when we got off the boat at Taboga, the police were there to check all the coolers that got carried off and they took ALL the alcohol. Apparently, you could retrieve it at midnight. Oh my, the stock of alcohol on the dock was something to see. If you went back to the city before midnight (which most people likely were going to do), I guess you are out of luck. Of course, there were NO signs prior to boarding that said you couldn’t take any alcoholic beverages. Only in Panama!!!! And the cops certainly got a big bonus yesterday!