Panama’s Pacific Coast; Onward to Boquete

Once we left the Carretera Interamericana to start the drive south on the west side of the Azuero Peninsula, the road quality became …. scary. Big potholes large enough to consume an entire tire and bend rims were scattered about. Shade puddles became the enemy efficiently hiding the potholes from view. I reduced our speed to about 35 miles an hour so I could successfully slalom around the potholes I could see and be slow enough to not destroy a rim on the ones that I couldn’t.

The views from the road along the coast were magnificent! Beautiful coastline, blue sky and green water. Tropical vegetation, rolling grassy hills in the foreground and jagged peaks in the distance. I looked as much as I could but needed diligence for the potholes, caballeros and carts that traveled along side the road. Small villages, commercial districts and escuelas (schools) dotted the area. Bryant took the pictures and provided a narrative of the landscape interspersed with expletives of ‘look out!’ and ‘slow down!’. He was the navigator and I was not feeling the love.

It was fairly easy to determine which of the homes in this outpost belonged to the locals and which to the gringos. The difference was not brash but it was clear (at least to me) what a bit more money and pride of ownership could afford specific to home construction, upkeep and amenities. The gringo population on the west side of the Azuero was not large. This area was not close to infrastructure except at Santiago, a rough and long drive back to the Interamericana. The east side of the peninsula had a larger expat group mostly comprised of surfers residing near Pedasi (Peh duh see), Chitre (Chee tray) and Las Tablas, larger towns with desirable infrastructure. A visit to that area would have to wait for another time.

The directions to the property as sent by Gabby were not adequately detailed. I was glad we had GPS for clarification because roads were marked even less clearly than in Panama City. Perhaps purposely excluded from Gabby’s description was the condition of the road from the security gate over the last 1.5 miles to the property. Rocks, gravel, sand with holes and gullies etched by the rainy season escalated my concentration to keep the car intact. Max handled the jostling by taking a position between the two front seats on the armrest and peering out the windshield. Bear and Tasha were content to snooze oblivious in the back seat although the road bumps occasionally rearranged their positions without waking them. We were indeed on an expedition!

Upon arriving at Punte Duarte Garden Inn Gabby greeted us and took us to our room on the main floor, The Papo. It was fantastic! A very large suite with a king futon, sitting area with a couch, another twin bed and a spacious bathroom with separate areas for the shower and the commode. The room featured beautiful woodwork and tile and we later learned the entire house was designed and fashioned after Bali architecture which we appreciated having been to Bali for an extended stay. We also had a private outdoor deck area with our own lounging and dining area with an easy passage to a flat wooded pasture for the dogs.

Our private outdoor space

View of the pool from our private patio

(The other pictures of the Inn on the website show an earlier incarnation of the house. The outside colors and decorations were somewhat different. However, the beach and views are the same.)

We settled in and prepared for dinner. All meals were to be taken at the house as the nearest restaurant was not that near and we didn’t want to brave that road at night. Nor did we want to risk a bad meal for that effort. Bryant opened a bottle of wine we had brought with us and all was at peace as we watched the sunset and eyed the other guests. They all were speaking German!

One of Gabby’s employees, Frank, provided table service and responded to any requests of the guests. He spoke very good English and we learned that he was originally a roofer in Germany but had worked on projects all over the globe. His tall lanky stature and weather beaten good looks could easily support that claim. He seemed a natural for his position as general host with a sunny disposition and easygoing nature.

Needs no caption!

He had decided to earn a living outside of German employ because he didn’t agree with the direction of Germany’s politics and refused to pay any further taxes. We understood his position too well. He was working with Gabby in Panama for another month and then would return home for a time to be with his wife. During the 4 days we were at the inn, Frank escorted the German guests on fishing expeditions and other activities offering translation.

We learned from Frank that the property was originally built as a private home for Gabby and her husband Peter. Peter had made his money by launching an intranet division for his parent company in Germany to facilitate private data access. Together they purchased over 100 acres on the peninsula, a gorgeous piece of bluff with views from every direction, and built the house 14 years ago. Sitting on the Gulf of Montijo, the area was pristine and appreciated. Frank also told us that Peter had left Gabby the year before for a younger woman and Gabby was left to support herself by turning the private home into an inn. Many of the repeat guests were from Europe and Germany and, I would guess, knew of the couple from their past life.

Trail to the beach

Beach below the Inn

Shade at the tide line

Low tide trek

Sand designs by the crab that lives in the hole in the middle

Follow me!

One of the young guests was a lovely girl that was always smiling and open to chatting with everyone. I struck up a conversation taking advantage of her good English and learned that Salome (Sol o may) was a third year student at the University in her Swiss home town not far from Geneva. At this point, she had already studied and practiced dentistry and was leaning toward pharma research. She explained that the Swiss schooling for medicine and research applied hands-on teaching methodologies and that is why she chose to stay in Switzerland. Going to school in the U.S. was too much theory and not enough practice in the real world prior to graduation. I told Salome about our ‘adopted’ grand daughter, Jenai, and that she was also focused on pharma research currently studying at UCLA and learning German! I hoped to get the two of them talking at some point.

One of many nice sunsets

Moonrise at sunset

A lovely woman joined our conversation and I could not help but notice the resemblance between her and Salome. This was Salome’s mom, Katherina. We chatted amicable and carried the conversation over to dinner where the family invited us to dine with them at their large table. Paul, the father, was a man of few words but an active listener through head nodding and facial expression. His passivity to the conversation and his skill to interject key words to keep the flow going was honed by the years of his practice as a psychiatrist. He spoke the least English of the family but didn’t seem to miss anything.

Salome’s two younger brothers, a year apart, were referred to as the scrappy puppies because they were constantly putting choke holds on one another and punching and jabbing with obvious love. The younger was just 18 and the older 19, Misha and Amon. They were adept at flying a drone they brought with them and the aerial footage they produced of the Inn was so terrific that Gabby plans to put it up on her web site.

Nightfall

Another brother Tobias, the eldest in his late twenties, was in Columbia serving as a Swiss diplomat and was serious with a Columbian girl, Jhannet. Katherina produced a photo of a very handsome young man with his arm around a gorgeous dark-haired beauty posing in a body hugging red dress. This was the couple attending a party at a Columbian diplomat’s home. The two families were to meet for the first time in Columbia the following week.

I could not help but think that this was a physically beautiful family, tall and graceful, articulate and worldly. Each Bosshart (Boze hardt) seemed blessed with an impossible fortune of attributes. They enveloped us as additional family members and as we got to know them we discovered their inner beauty as well.

Daily routine

Surround by German speakers, I realized that I had an innate aversion to German… just the sound of the language unsettled me. That had not occurred to me so succinctly before. My ancestral ghosts apparently. Salome and I discussed Nazi Germany, the unfolding of Hitler’s rise to power and the Swiss involvement. She was well versed in world history and Swiss politics and offered that many Germans did not willingly follow Hitler. Their lives were in peril if they resisted. She had recently broken off with a guy from a family with Nazi history. Not because of that, she explained, as they were not proud or happy of their legacy. He just wasn’t a match for her.

Katherina and I continued to chat about various topics leaving nothing off the table. It was delightful to meet someone from across the globe that analyzed and thought about many things in the same way that I did. Very quickly the German accent ceased to be unsettling. Katherina was an anesthesia nurse at a small specialty hospital and responsible for management. Her duties, stresses and human resource challenges were all familiar ground to me and we discussed methods, approaches and work politics. She and Paul had met when both were just launching their careers.

The family obviously enjoyed each other’s company and had many activities planned during their stay. This was their third visit and they had the lay of the land.

On our third day, Paul invited us out to see the turtles come ashore that night on a beach a short drive from the Inn. It was to be a full moon at the right time of year offering a good chance that we would see action! We took him up on the offer and after dinner settled the dogs in the room for the night, grabbed the camera and flashlight and set off behind Paul who drove their rented SUV through the gravel road as if it was smooth pavement. I was challenged keeping up and keeping my kidneys intact!

We arrived at the designated spot after dark to meet with the tour guides from the turtle research station on Playa Morillo and paid our $10 pp. The station had been in operation for several years and turtle egg harvesting was being done to better incubate and assist the turtlettes (watch it… not terletts!) for a better start in life. Turtles are endangered everywhere and this effort made me smile.

Moonlight beach walk

The playa was a long pristine stretch of beach that went about 1.5 miles in both directions from where we stood. The surf was rolling in and out gently and that bespoke of the gradual angle of the beach out to deeper water and that would be gentle on mama turtles coming ashore to lay eggs.

Guide, Salome, Micha, Paul, Amon & Katherina

The moon was so bright that it was easy for me to take pictures without a flash by pushing the ISO speed. My error was in not bringing the tripod as the shutter speed was too slow for crisp focus without it. The pictures you see in this blog entry were taken only by moon light.

We walked and talked as a group following the guides along the waterline so as to not inadvertently crush any eggs that were buried in the sand several feet above in the drier sand. 45 minutes into it, we came up to a rocky outcropping on which we explored a small sea cave and tide pools by flashlight. We sat for about an hour until the guides declared that no turtles would come ashore that evening in this spot. Perhaps if we walked to the other end of the beach, we would see something.

The evening was very comfortable and my sweatshirt was proving a bit too warm. Even with it tied around my waist, I had had enough of walking through sand in the dark. Bryant and I decided to go back to the car and relax until everyone had completed their visit. We hoped they would see turtles and have stories to tell us. About 1.5 hours later they returned to tell us that no turtles were in sight that night. We both wondered if this was all a ploy to garner donations for the larger effort. Didn’t matter. We were good with that.

We managed the drive back to the Inn and bid everyone goodnight. It was almost midnight. We had one more day and night of total relaxation before driving the last leg of the journey, 4.5 hours, and arriving in Boquete.

The morning of our departure, we enjoyed a hug fest of goodbyes with an invitation to visit Switzerland! Should Katherina and her family return to Panama and Boquete we offered an open door and hoped we were settled in a house large enough to comfortably accommodate the entire family!

As we drove out, my last view of the Inn was Paul standing outside waving his long arms in a friendly farewell.

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