As I post these pictures we’re going to the mechanic to figure out our next move. I’m of a mind to ship out next week as planned and send out wheel bearings from the US to our shipping agent in Colombia. She gave us her mailing address so I need to find a victim in the US to receive the parts and ship them on.
Meanwhile here are a few pictures of our various drives around Davíd, Panama’s second largest city. It’s named for King David in the Bible and was founded by the Spanish in 1602.
Its population is around 83,000 and it’s a busy place. The dystopians say it’s wealthy and by my own observation there are lots of cars, few motorcycles, fewer bicycles and almost no horses used for transportation. That’s kind of my yard stick to judge the standard of living.
The tourist people will play up the history and architecture but this is really a dull hard working town with no interest in tourists. We had no plans to hang around as long as we have but this town has a lot of what you might need. The stores are packed with consumer goods comparable to the US.
Anyway here are a few street scenes of a town that’s pretty clean, pretty tidy and pretty dull!
I’m glad we had our mechanical problems in Davíd, the perfect place to make repairs but I’ll be glad to move on.
Shopping for shrimp. You can eat out here pretty well too, barbecue and Chinese advertise everywhere. You can buy marrow peas riadside (“Guandu”) to make peas and rice Panama style. It’s a long complex operation to clean and boil them so eating them when cooked by someone else is recommended!
American brands are everywhere.
If you want local food you look for “comida criolla” or creole food. I had a local lunch specialty that immediately put me in mind of Indian fry bread. It’s called “Hojaldre” (hoe-all-dray more or less) and it’s fried dough. The eggs and vegetables gave it some flavor. I’d describe it as a bit Grenadian if you recall a recent post about odd foods.
Christmas presents going home?
Boquete is hot at the moment as often as it’s cold and gray and windy so the locals say it must be summer.
If today goes well we are planning to drop GANNET2 off at the container terminal in a week. They say the food in Colombia is exquisite and the people are lovely. I hope we shall see.
