This weekend I went to visit a friend in the central province of Panama, which includes the capital city. She lives close to a tourist destination known as
El Valle. She and I were planning to go to our old host community during training for a party. Another friend's host family from training decided to throw her a party for her birthday and invited us to show up and surprise her.
On Friday, I spent the day with my friend's landlord, who is a very kind man and proud gardener. His house, and by extension my friend's house, are covered with flowers and plants that end up in the fancy hotels and resorts of the area. One of those fancy places is called
Coronado. It's an upper-class neighborhood, a sort of gated community for rich foreigners. From the Interamericana, the main highway, you can tell you're coming up on Coronado from the high concentration of nice restaurants, fast food, and stores that seem to pop out of nowhere. What I didn't know was just how well those people live. Until now...
This is a view from one of the beachside condos/houses in Coronado. The residents have pools and tennis courts and spas and their own stretch of beach. It's really a very nice setup.
While on that little Coronado tour, my friend's landlord and friend took us to an especially beautiful house with mango (which amazingly still bear fruit even past the normal season) and lemon (or lime, depending on what you see) trees. Since this man sells many owners of these houses the flowers and plants that line their properties and the grounds of the complex, he has run of the place. So the owners had no problem with us taking some
limones. No big deal. Here I am reaching up high getting some tasty fruit, all while trying to avoid the thorns.
Something interesting: as you can see, these are green citrus fruits. In my mind, lime, right? The Panamanians call these
limón (lemon) as opposed to
lima (lime). No matter what you call it, these bad boys make delicious juice. Yesterday, when I went shopping at the grocery store, I had to giggle when I saw people buying limones. Hehe, I got 'em for $FREE.99!
That night she and I traveled to our host community from training for the birthday party. Here you see my friend Becca in the middle holding her birthday cake, and my friend Catherine and me on either side. Her host family is so wonderful: they threw her a party and wanted to make it memorable by surprising her with a special appearance from her best Peace Corps friends.
The next day Catherine and I went to El Valle, a nice town.
We were very wise to choose Saturday to go to El Valle, because the locals were celebrating
Semana de campesino. On that day were was a parade with floats and dancing groups and people crowding the streets.
A very colorful fruit and vegetable market and artisan stands lined streets and offered nice souvenirs.
It was a very nice start to my vacation week. And there's more to come!
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