Since we've been on this adventure, I have been at loggerheads with some of my fellow cruisers over the issue of tipping and paying for things in general. I have been told in no uncertain terms that I pay too much for things and I tip too much. Some people have actually gotten a teeny bit belligerent about it. I have no intentions to change my ways, but I find this issue interesting.
I pay what I think the item or service is worth to me. I hate to haggle, finding it unseemly. If the price is more than I want to pay, I simply leave the store. Now sometimes they come running after me with a new price, and if that price is right, I will pay it. But I rarely ever object to the price being asked, because it is way less than I would pay at home, and I think everyone needs to make a living. If I think the handbag I want to buy is worth the ten dollars they are asking, I will happily pay it. I am not going to try and argue a few bucks away. I hate dealing with money anyway, except to spend it. It makes me nervous. I still have not entirely gotten over being happy and relieved when the ATM actually coughs up my cash, even though it has been years since I have been in any financial straits. Anyway, it is my money and I can spend it as I please.
The other issue is tipping. I have been told that my "over tipping" is bad because (a)the recipients will not respect me and (b)it will spoil the recipients, who will then expect everyone to tip the way I do. ReallY? Those are the stupidest arguments I have ever heard.
First, I was a waitress who depended on tips to supplement my minimum wage salary. When I got a big tip, I NEVER sneered at the tipper. Far from it. I instead was deeply happy and would hustle to make sure they were seated in my station when they came in the next time, and I gave them the best service I possibly could. And I certainly did not expect that the next customer would do the same thing. Sure, some people always seemed to tip better than others. Elderly people were notoriously bad tippers, although they would hand you your fifty cents with a big smile, and I always thought it was because they still believed fifty cents was a good amount. They were not being cheap, but having lived through the Great Depression, things looked different to them. Bartenders were awesome tippers - because they themselves often depend on tipping. But I did not expect every customer I had to be the same. Some elderly people were wonderful tippers and some bartenders were cheapskates. But never did I think one big tip meant I was going to get the same thing every time. I do not think people down here think any differently. I will never accept the argument that I am "spoiling" the people. They aren't children.
Now cruisers in general have a reputation for being cheap and trying to spend as little money as they possibly can. Many of them are living off of savings, and can only cruise as long as that holds out. Then they have to return to the US or Canada and work again and save another cruising kitty. I can understand wanting that to last as long as possible, but that is not my situation - I have a pension. All I have to do is live within my means. But all the people who provide services for us are simply trying to earn a living, and if I can afford what they are charging and feel the value for the money is there, I am not going to haggle just because I can.
OK, that is off my chest. If I want to take my money and throw it in the street, it is my business and no one else's.
Yesterday we went fishing and I caught four fish - a small sierra (we had it for breakfast today, it was fabulous), a small snapper (given to friends on another boat), a large needle fish (given to friends on a different boat), and finally a big (8-9 lbs) golden trevally. That one we kept, as it will make four meals for us. Some of it has been frozen, and some of it will be eaten tonight and tomorrow. The fish today (the sierra, aka Spanish Mackerel, not to be confused with the cat food quality mackerel) was merely gutted, the head and tail removed, and then cooked whole on a baking sheet on the grill. Mike put some seasonings in the body cavity, and it was so tender that it literally fell of the bones, leaving a whole fish skeleton on the serving plate. We call it Pescado Rogelio, after our friend Rogelio in El Salvador who taught Mike to cook them like that. Mike, his friend Ron, and Rogelio would take the dinghy out into the mangrove jungle, use a big net, and catch and cook fish right on the beach. With the skin on, you cook one side of the fish, then turn it over and cook the other side. It is amazingly good, and there is little to no waste, as there is when you filet a fish. Plus since it is cooked outside on the grill (a special boat grill that attaches to the stern rail and has its own little propane tank attached) the cabin does not get hot. We also cooked the homemade corn tortillas on the same baking sheet on the grill for the same reason, as well as the fact you can cook more tortillas at once on the grill than I can on the stove, so less propane is used and less heat generated. And today, it is HOT. There is no breeze at all, and I am abjectly grateful that someone somewhere decided to invent fans. (An aside here. I have historically had real difficulties with heat. Now, it is no big deal to have the cabin at 85 degrees. It is actually 90 degrees in here now, and bearable with my fan going. I would never have tolerated that in San Diego, and there is was a dry heat. Here it is humid. I guess that is called becoming acclimatized.) So the fishing was really fun, and it felt good going to our neighbor boats here in the anchorage with my catch. They both seemed pretty happy about it.
We have not had anymore rain since we were able to fill the tanks, which is surprising because this is supposed to be the rainy season here, with rain supposed to come almost every day. That is why there are so few cruisers in Panama this time of year. But for every day it does not rain, it IS a day with no chance of being struck by lightning. We have only heard of one actual injury to someone whose boat was struck, and it was a very minor injury (no medical treatment necessary) but the damage to the boats is unreal. It often ruins the engine and the entire electrical system. And a lot of cruisers do not carry insurance. We do, so if something happened, we would not face financial ruin, but it would be an enormous hassle and I do not want it to happen. I went my whole life without meeting anyone whose dwelling was struck by lightning, and now I personally know at least six boats that have suffered through this, and heard of many more. It was not something I ever thought much about before.
We are out of beer, but have plenty of wine so we won't suffer. I am sorry to tell the following to anyone reading this who may be an oenophile, but we put our cabernet and our pinot noir and all our other wines in the refrigerator. I realize this may be some kind of sacrilege, but so be it. We are also getting low on coffee, and I think I can hold out one more week. When the coffee goes, we must head to Panama City. But we found out that our water maker parts have been resent to the agent in Miami yesterday, which means it will be there in a few days. After it gets there, I figure another week to arrive here in Panama. Then off to Costa Rica, unless something else happens to make us change our plans. Hopefully that will not happen, as I am getting ready for a change. It has been wonderful here, but it is time for something new.
So that is pretty much it for now. Mike is taking an afternoon nap, and I am going to read a book. Cheers!
"The man who is wise does not defend himself with lies. Liars are never believed, forsooth - even when liars tell the truth." (Aesop)
P.S. Buffy, if you read this, can you send me an email at wdf5496@sailmail.com? I lost your email address . . .
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Saturday, September 21, 2013
Thursday, September 19, 2013
More About Life In Panama
We have been back to Isla Espiritu Santo for about a week and a half now. We left Pedro Gonzalez after a wonderful couple of weeks there - it is a great little town, with friendly people and a couple of pretty good places to get vegetables. And once the people figure out that vegetables are what you are looking for, they seem to get them. I asked the store owner if he had eggs, and he said yes. Then he disappeared for about twenty minutes, appearing again with a dozen eggs. I have a feeling he went door to door collecting whatever anyone was willing to spare. All the eggs down here are brown eggs, which I like best anyway. (No real reason, I think they are more fun. My mom agreed with that, and after all, she is the one who taught me about brown eggs and other eggs as well. The color of the eggs depends on what kind of chickens laid them. Brown eggs are laid by Rhode island Reds.) This town also participates in one of the big sports in small town Panama - chicken fighting. All of the fighting chickens have leashes on their legs, giving them the run of the yard, but no more. Other chickens just roam everywhere. "Free range" has a really different meaning here - it means the chicken gets to fend for itself. The fighting chickens are big, beautiful roosters. I have not seen a chicken fight and likely won't. I feel bad that I would even consider a thing like that just out of curiosity. After all, I would never see a dog fight - so what's the difference? I guess because I have never petted or otherwise interacted with a chicken. Not an excuse!
Everything here is fine, except for the fact the shipping of our water maker replacement parts went south. We had two packages coming - one with the important parts and one with some extra gear oil and pickling solution (which is for when you are not using the water maker. You "pickle" it with some chemicals so there is no bacterial growth in the membrane). Of course the oil and pickling solution arrived just fine, and for some unknown UPS- related reason, the parts were returned to sender rather than being sent to out shipping agent in Miami. Great. They were re-sent yesterday(thank you Cruise RO!)and hopefully we should have them within two weeks. When we are notified by our agent, we will head back to Panama City, then on to Costa Rica. Hopefully!
It remains just awesome here. We finally got a big enough rain to fill the water tanks, so we got to take real showers and do laundry, which was starting to pile up. That was a really good feeling. We have been catching fish pretty much every time we go out, so our meat supply from our last trip to Panama City is holding out nicely. The nice part is that we catch enough to give fish to the other boat in the anchorage - their dinghy, until yesterday, was out of service so they couldn't fish. (It had holes and needed patching. It is fixed now.) It was a great rain, by the way - lots of water but the lightning was at least six miles off. That is the kind we like - close enough to be entertaining, but not close enough to hit us.
Yesterday, after the monumental laundry doing (which really isn't much by regular standards - about a machine load. But since we use a five gallon bucket and a plunger as an agitator, that one machine load is about five bucket loads. It doesn't sound like much, but I have a new respect for anyone who has to do all their laundry by hand, including sheets and towels.) we went on a dinghy ride up a river that empties out here. You can only go up it at high tide, and because it rained and because there is a full moon, we have larger than normal tides. Therefore, we got to go further up than usual. It was amazing, mangroves everywhere and more birds than you can imagine - parrots, herons, egrets, kingfishers greater and lesser and the list goes on. Once we got into the river, we turned off the outboard and paddled. If we were super quiet, we were able to get within ten to twenty feet of the birds before they flew off.
Our anchorage is between an island and the mainland, but there is a smaller island between us and the mainland. The small island is heavily jungled, so all we have done is to poke around a bit on the shoreline. When I say heavily jungled (which I am not sure is really a word) I mean so dense there is no way to get through it, even with a machete. It is an impenetrable wall of vines, trees, and green growth of all sorts. Even with a machete, you would be out there for hours and only clear a few feet of ingress. So anyway, it was on this small island that we saw, sliding into the water looking right at us, a seven foot alligator. We had heard they were around, but hadn't seen one. It did not seem shy, either - it looked right at us and I swear it made eye contact. But before I could get the camera ready, it slid into the water and only its eyes were visible. Then it submerged and we got the hell out of Dodge. After all, although our dinghy has a hard bottom, its sides are inflatable and that thing looked like it could take a leg if it was so inclined. Plus it did not look as though it was missing any meals. This is the first time we have seen them on our own. We saw them in Guatemala and Belize, when we were on guided river trips to the otherwise inaccessible Maya ruins there. They really are pretty sinister looking.
Except for the pesky water maker issue, things are good and the boat is in good shape. We are getting low on coffee and beer, so it is possible our trip to Panama City may be sooner than we think. I (we) can certainly live without beer, but coffee is a whole different matter. I have taken to drinking tea in the morning so as to save the coffee until Mike gets up. I think that is only fair, and I like tea a lot. In fact, I was a tea drinker rather than a coffee drinker until I moved to Seattle. My first coffee drinking experience was this: I was working at an emergency shelter program, and we had a really small office. It was an unusually hot day, and my co-worker offered to get us a couple of iced lattes. I didn't know what a latte was, but I was interested in anything that was iced. So when she asked me if I wanted a regular or a double, I said a double. I figured it would be bigger, and I was really hot and thirsty. Plus I didn't want to admit I had no idea what a latte was. When she arrived, I was delighted to discover how delicious coffee could be! But then the caffeine hit, and I was almost crawling up the walls. I told my friend "People pay a lot of money for chemicals that do not work as well as this does!" And from then on I was a coffee drinker. I went from having to have it with real half and half, then worked down to whole milk, 2%, and finally skim. Now I drink it black, because I did not like the milk they served in Yucatan and Guatemala.
The coffee in this part of the world is wonderful - IF you can find it for sale. Guatemala, no problem. But in El Salvador, they export all the really good stuff (I was told Starbuck's buys the lion's share of Salvadoran coffee). They do sell their good stuff locally here at the fancier grocery stores. I would really like to buy the beans and try roasting them myself. I saw some for sale in El Salvador at the big market, but MIke wouldn't let me buy it because the beans were broken and looked old. I think he was right, although I was disappointed at the time and accused him of being a buzz kill, a label he wears with equanimity.
Speaking of grocery stores, the one we shop at is called Riba Smith. It is more expensive, but has a great selection of stuff, including things like dry salami and proscuitto. We discovered they have two more outlets and tried a different one the last time we were here, but saw no real difference. Then our cab driver, Roosevelt, told us there was another one, but said we would not like it because it was more expensive. As he put it, "It is where the Arab people and the Chinese people and the Jewish people shop. It is for the rich people." I am going to make him take us to that one. He is always trying to save money for us, directing us to places with lower prices, which is usually a really good thing. But this time I want to go all out. Besides, I like the food Arabs and Chinese eat, and I am hoping to find tahini and hoisin sauce and stuff like that.
In my earlier post about culinary week, I forgot to mention that I am now a pizza cook. I take the bread dough and after the first rising, use it for pizza. I can take the dough and flop it around my fists just like they do in the restaurants, albeit more slowly and awkwardly. I can't throw it up and catch it (and we have a VERY low ceiling for that sort of thing anyway). But our pizza is almost as good as restaurant pizza, and better than most of the frozen kinds. I can make my own with no cheese, which is also a good thing. Mike wants to have pizza about three times per month, and I have gotten myself on a bread making schedule of making two loaves about once a week, with the second loaf put in the freezer until it is time to eat it. I discovered the hard way that homemade bread gets stale way faster than store bought. Plus this environment, while great for making bread, is not good for keeping it due to the humidity that caused mold to grow on everything.
Anyway, I must get going as it is time for me to turn on the SSB radio and handle the Panama Pacific Net. As usual, life is good her in Panama.
"The eyes of others are our prisons, their thoughts our cages." (Virginia Woolf)
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Everything here is fine, except for the fact the shipping of our water maker replacement parts went south. We had two packages coming - one with the important parts and one with some extra gear oil and pickling solution (which is for when you are not using the water maker. You "pickle" it with some chemicals so there is no bacterial growth in the membrane). Of course the oil and pickling solution arrived just fine, and for some unknown UPS- related reason, the parts were returned to sender rather than being sent to out shipping agent in Miami. Great. They were re-sent yesterday(thank you Cruise RO!)and hopefully we should have them within two weeks. When we are notified by our agent, we will head back to Panama City, then on to Costa Rica. Hopefully!
It remains just awesome here. We finally got a big enough rain to fill the water tanks, so we got to take real showers and do laundry, which was starting to pile up. That was a really good feeling. We have been catching fish pretty much every time we go out, so our meat supply from our last trip to Panama City is holding out nicely. The nice part is that we catch enough to give fish to the other boat in the anchorage - their dinghy, until yesterday, was out of service so they couldn't fish. (It had holes and needed patching. It is fixed now.) It was a great rain, by the way - lots of water but the lightning was at least six miles off. That is the kind we like - close enough to be entertaining, but not close enough to hit us.
Yesterday, after the monumental laundry doing (which really isn't much by regular standards - about a machine load. But since we use a five gallon bucket and a plunger as an agitator, that one machine load is about five bucket loads. It doesn't sound like much, but I have a new respect for anyone who has to do all their laundry by hand, including sheets and towels.) we went on a dinghy ride up a river that empties out here. You can only go up it at high tide, and because it rained and because there is a full moon, we have larger than normal tides. Therefore, we got to go further up than usual. It was amazing, mangroves everywhere and more birds than you can imagine - parrots, herons, egrets, kingfishers greater and lesser and the list goes on. Once we got into the river, we turned off the outboard and paddled. If we were super quiet, we were able to get within ten to twenty feet of the birds before they flew off.
Our anchorage is between an island and the mainland, but there is a smaller island between us and the mainland. The small island is heavily jungled, so all we have done is to poke around a bit on the shoreline. When I say heavily jungled (which I am not sure is really a word) I mean so dense there is no way to get through it, even with a machete. It is an impenetrable wall of vines, trees, and green growth of all sorts. Even with a machete, you would be out there for hours and only clear a few feet of ingress. So anyway, it was on this small island that we saw, sliding into the water looking right at us, a seven foot alligator. We had heard they were around, but hadn't seen one. It did not seem shy, either - it looked right at us and I swear it made eye contact. But before I could get the camera ready, it slid into the water and only its eyes were visible. Then it submerged and we got the hell out of Dodge. After all, although our dinghy has a hard bottom, its sides are inflatable and that thing looked like it could take a leg if it was so inclined. Plus it did not look as though it was missing any meals. This is the first time we have seen them on our own. We saw them in Guatemala and Belize, when we were on guided river trips to the otherwise inaccessible Maya ruins there. They really are pretty sinister looking.
Except for the pesky water maker issue, things are good and the boat is in good shape. We are getting low on coffee and beer, so it is possible our trip to Panama City may be sooner than we think. I (we) can certainly live without beer, but coffee is a whole different matter. I have taken to drinking tea in the morning so as to save the coffee until Mike gets up. I think that is only fair, and I like tea a lot. In fact, I was a tea drinker rather than a coffee drinker until I moved to Seattle. My first coffee drinking experience was this: I was working at an emergency shelter program, and we had a really small office. It was an unusually hot day, and my co-worker offered to get us a couple of iced lattes. I didn't know what a latte was, but I was interested in anything that was iced. So when she asked me if I wanted a regular or a double, I said a double. I figured it would be bigger, and I was really hot and thirsty. Plus I didn't want to admit I had no idea what a latte was. When she arrived, I was delighted to discover how delicious coffee could be! But then the caffeine hit, and I was almost crawling up the walls. I told my friend "People pay a lot of money for chemicals that do not work as well as this does!" And from then on I was a coffee drinker. I went from having to have it with real half and half, then worked down to whole milk, 2%, and finally skim. Now I drink it black, because I did not like the milk they served in Yucatan and Guatemala.
The coffee in this part of the world is wonderful - IF you can find it for sale. Guatemala, no problem. But in El Salvador, they export all the really good stuff (I was told Starbuck's buys the lion's share of Salvadoran coffee). They do sell their good stuff locally here at the fancier grocery stores. I would really like to buy the beans and try roasting them myself. I saw some for sale in El Salvador at the big market, but MIke wouldn't let me buy it because the beans were broken and looked old. I think he was right, although I was disappointed at the time and accused him of being a buzz kill, a label he wears with equanimity.
Speaking of grocery stores, the one we shop at is called Riba Smith. It is more expensive, but has a great selection of stuff, including things like dry salami and proscuitto. We discovered they have two more outlets and tried a different one the last time we were here, but saw no real difference. Then our cab driver, Roosevelt, told us there was another one, but said we would not like it because it was more expensive. As he put it, "It is where the Arab people and the Chinese people and the Jewish people shop. It is for the rich people." I am going to make him take us to that one. He is always trying to save money for us, directing us to places with lower prices, which is usually a really good thing. But this time I want to go all out. Besides, I like the food Arabs and Chinese eat, and I am hoping to find tahini and hoisin sauce and stuff like that.
In my earlier post about culinary week, I forgot to mention that I am now a pizza cook. I take the bread dough and after the first rising, use it for pizza. I can take the dough and flop it around my fists just like they do in the restaurants, albeit more slowly and awkwardly. I can't throw it up and catch it (and we have a VERY low ceiling for that sort of thing anyway). But our pizza is almost as good as restaurant pizza, and better than most of the frozen kinds. I can make my own with no cheese, which is also a good thing. Mike wants to have pizza about three times per month, and I have gotten myself on a bread making schedule of making two loaves about once a week, with the second loaf put in the freezer until it is time to eat it. I discovered the hard way that homemade bread gets stale way faster than store bought. Plus this environment, while great for making bread, is not good for keeping it due to the humidity that caused mold to grow on everything.
Anyway, I must get going as it is time for me to turn on the SSB radio and handle the Panama Pacific Net. As usual, life is good her in Panama.
"The eyes of others are our prisons, their thoughts our cages." (Virginia Woolf)
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Thursday, September 5, 2013
Culinary Week on Magda Jean
We spent most of the last week experimenting with new foods, and delighting in eating things with fewer steps between where ever it comes from to our plates. For one meal, we had fish sandwiches with fish we caught, bread we baked, and mayo we made from scratch. yes you heard me, FROM SCRATCH. We will never buy Hellman's/Best Foods again. Who knew that mayo could be more than just white gloppy stuff in a jar? Then we learned to make coconut rice, which included making coconut milk from the coconut meat. Again, a roaring success. I have learned a ton of different ways to cook fish, and also how to use local fruits effectively. Papaya can be eaten green if you treat it like potatoes or squash. Mango can replace carrots in bean soup.
I don't post too often these days because I don't want to gloat about how awesome my life is now. I mean it. What can I say except this: I spend my days watching fish and birds, swimming, fishing, visiting with great friends on another boat, and also spending time with the local people in the village we are currently anchored in front of. (I know that is the wrong way to end a sentence. Sorry.) A couple days ago we went into town, and stopped to watch the locals play pool. There are three little tiny stores in town, two of which are run out of people's houses. The selection is limited, but if you pay attention to deliveries, you can keep stocked up reasonably well on produce, and of course, beer. There is also one bar, and a pool hall. The night we were there, a fishing boat had pulled in, and these guys must have done well, because they were buying beer for everyone in town, including Mike and I and our friends. We got pretty drunk, to tell the truth, but had a wonderful time, just being part of the scene.
We have also done some exploring by both dinghy and walking around the island(s). If there are no paths, it is almost impossible to get through the undergrowth unless one literally wants to chop through with a machete, just like in the movies. It sounds really jungle-ish too, with lots of bird and bug sounds. Mammals are usually pretty quiet in the forest, where birds and bugs seem to yowl just because they can. There is always something to listen to. We have found more agates that we could imagine possible in one place. They are good quality too, not simply plentiful.
Sometimes being in the so-called "Third World", or the more contemporary term "developing nation" is hard for me. I tend to romanticize everything, but animals do not have it too good here. There are too many dogs here on this little island in this tiny little village. They are all skinny, poorly tended if at all, and most are suffering from a serious case of mange. There is no concept of spaying or neutering. It is heartbreaking, but there is little to nothing that I can do about it, other than alienating the local people. Mike says we should load up on Frontline, worm medicine, and mange treatment the next time we are in Panama City, and then surreptitiously treat each dog we can get our hands on without getting bitten. He is only half kidding. I have seen no indication the dogs are packing up to cause trouble, so that is a good thing, but I think it is due to lack of energy more than anything else. In town, there are free range chickens - but here, free range means they scrounge for whatever they can get - and at one point I noticed that along with all those free ranging chickens, everyone seemed to have a huge, gorgeous rooster tied up outside their house. It took me a bit longer to realize that these are fighting roosters, as chicken fighting is huge here in Latin America. I have not been to a chicken fight, and probably won't if I have a choice about it. The cats are skinny but seem to be in better shape than the dogs are. Every raccoon I have seen is fat, as are the agoutis.
So here I am, and things could not be better. We are awaiting the new water maker parts, and as soon as we are notified they have hit Panama City, we are off to pick them up. Then our plan (our ever changing plan) is to head north to Costa Rica, leaving by early October or whenever conditions are right for it. Carpe Diem.
"No journey carries one far unless, as it extends into the world around us, it goes and equal distance into the world within." (Lillian Smith)
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I don't post too often these days because I don't want to gloat about how awesome my life is now. I mean it. What can I say except this: I spend my days watching fish and birds, swimming, fishing, visiting with great friends on another boat, and also spending time with the local people in the village we are currently anchored in front of. (I know that is the wrong way to end a sentence. Sorry.) A couple days ago we went into town, and stopped to watch the locals play pool. There are three little tiny stores in town, two of which are run out of people's houses. The selection is limited, but if you pay attention to deliveries, you can keep stocked up reasonably well on produce, and of course, beer. There is also one bar, and a pool hall. The night we were there, a fishing boat had pulled in, and these guys must have done well, because they were buying beer for everyone in town, including Mike and I and our friends. We got pretty drunk, to tell the truth, but had a wonderful time, just being part of the scene.
We have also done some exploring by both dinghy and walking around the island(s). If there are no paths, it is almost impossible to get through the undergrowth unless one literally wants to chop through with a machete, just like in the movies. It sounds really jungle-ish too, with lots of bird and bug sounds. Mammals are usually pretty quiet in the forest, where birds and bugs seem to yowl just because they can. There is always something to listen to. We have found more agates that we could imagine possible in one place. They are good quality too, not simply plentiful.
Sometimes being in the so-called "Third World", or the more contemporary term "developing nation" is hard for me. I tend to romanticize everything, but animals do not have it too good here. There are too many dogs here on this little island in this tiny little village. They are all skinny, poorly tended if at all, and most are suffering from a serious case of mange. There is no concept of spaying or neutering. It is heartbreaking, but there is little to nothing that I can do about it, other than alienating the local people. Mike says we should load up on Frontline, worm medicine, and mange treatment the next time we are in Panama City, and then surreptitiously treat each dog we can get our hands on without getting bitten. He is only half kidding. I have seen no indication the dogs are packing up to cause trouble, so that is a good thing, but I think it is due to lack of energy more than anything else. In town, there are free range chickens - but here, free range means they scrounge for whatever they can get - and at one point I noticed that along with all those free ranging chickens, everyone seemed to have a huge, gorgeous rooster tied up outside their house. It took me a bit longer to realize that these are fighting roosters, as chicken fighting is huge here in Latin America. I have not been to a chicken fight, and probably won't if I have a choice about it. The cats are skinny but seem to be in better shape than the dogs are. Every raccoon I have seen is fat, as are the agoutis.
So here I am, and things could not be better. We are awaiting the new water maker parts, and as soon as we are notified they have hit Panama City, we are off to pick them up. Then our plan (our ever changing plan) is to head north to Costa Rica, leaving by early October or whenever conditions are right for it. Carpe Diem.
"No journey carries one far unless, as it extends into the world around us, it goes and equal distance into the world within." (Lillian Smith)
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