We Are In Gorgona!

Well, we made it to our next destination! We flew Air Panama from Bocas to Gelabert Domestic Airport, then cabbed to PTY where we got our Alamo rental car. We are now in a beautiful house in Las Palmas, Gorgona. We traded in our water taxi for a Toyota RAV4 and for two weeks we will be staying about an hour west of Panama City. We now have the Pacific Ocean at our feet.

Sadly, for some reason this internet connection won't let us put pictures on our blog. We will add them in later when we can. It is too bad that we can't throw in a couple of pictures, because this place is absolutely beautiful! This home is "grand" and opens directly onto a black sand beach!

Before I go on, I need to mention that it took us up until the last two days in Bocas to find the best place to eat. It was ironically right next door at a bar called The Pickled Parrot! The previous storm had nearly destoyed this establishment, but that didn't seem to hamper their ability to cook! We discovered this place when we decided NOT to take a water-taxi into town in the rain. We just applied our bug spray (did you know that DEET removes fingernail polish?) and sat down in their small, over-the-water, thatched restaurant. We ate great food while watching re-runs of Eric Clapton and the Eagles concerts on a gecko-covered T.V. The owner of the restaurant looks like Tim Egan--a teacher I worked with at Talent Middle School--wearing ONLY surfer swim-trunks! That gives new meaning to the "no shirt, no shoes, no service" phrase we have here in the States!

Today some of our children joined us here in Panama for the Christmas holiday. Adrianna, Chris (her husband), and Cassandra flew in this morning WITHOUT their luggage! Yes, we are still waiting for the airlines to locate their swim suits and shorts! The only clothing they have is the winter clothes on their backs! We are just lucky that they made it. The winter storms in the USA sound horrible and the kids had a little difficulty getting here. We would love to have the WHOLE family here, but we will take what we can get!

We have fewer Chitras here, or maybe we have just become more "local" and by doing so have become less interesting to them. They are more interested in the three new WHITE-skinned kids that have just joined us.

Kathy