RELAXING IN PANAMA

Last Monday, Ray and I started off the day walking on Coronado Beach.  Panama is one hour behind my time in Virginia.  I kept forgetting this and would wake up earlier than I wanted.  I also wanted to wake up to the sunrise, so I would keep our curtains open (this doesn't help staying asleep, but I didn't want to "sleep in").  We noticed that by our condominium complex (Coronado Bay and what was also The Solarium Complex but the hotel shut down) there was debris washing up on the beach.  Not just trash (cans and bottles) but a lot of woodsy, driftwood material.  Closer to the large and beautiful homes towards Gorgona, there was less trash.  We figured the people at the condo. building just don't throw their trash out (like a lot of what we saw on the roads--there seems to be a disregard towards keeping the streets clean). I found the black and white sand to be interesting but was hopeful to see white sandy beaches while in Panama. On the way back to our room, we walked the neighborhood.  The roads are bumpy and rough.

For breakfast that morning, we tried several places.  First El Rincon del Chef but that is closed on Monday.  We went to the food court at Coronado Mall, but at nine am...not open.  We asked the policeman in our perfect Spanish :) for any breakfast places but NOT McDonald's.  He sent us across the street to the El Rey plaza area.  Subway in Coronado doesn't have breakfast.  Pio Pio's is a chicken place.  The Corowalk Inn does not have breakfast. But there we told to go to Don Lee's Chinese restaurant.  It was almost ten am, but they were still serving breakfast.  Okay, we're game.  We walked across the street to The Village Center to Don Lee's.  But didn't really see breakfast there in the window.  A man (again, all the Panamanians were super nice to us strange Americans) told us to walk down the center (we found a casino and an organic store) to El Machetazo.  The newest grocery store had a cafe inside it, and breakfast was yummy!  Eggs, french toast, pancakes, fruit, juices, coffee (!), bread, sausage, chorizo, yogurt and more.  Ray and I just piled food on our tray and $6 later, we were full!  A great find for breakfast.  And since we were at the store already, we checked out this one and decided this was the day we would find the white sandy beach of Santa Clara.  We bought fresh pineapple from a truck stand ($1 for not so ripe, $2 for ripe and delicous/juicy!), another cooler, beer and Sangria and water, bread, cheese and sausage and we were set.

We spent a few hours at the beach (paid $3/person to have a bohio, showers and bathroom/changing room), my nephew played soccer with a boy named Anthony, shared our beer and food, swam and had a pleasant day on the beach.  The sand was white, the water was calm and the temperature was about 85 degrees.
And then the skies turned dark.  As usual for our time in Panama, it rained at the very end of the day.  Amazing bolts of lightning and cracks of thunder were part of our road trip after seeing The Decameron Resort in Farallon.  Back at the condo, we changed for dinner and that night we tried Carlitos.

Fishermen had already found catch of the day (empty fishing boats)

The restaurant next door didn't give Eric and Ray the time of day when asking about the cost of  renting bohio,  so we ended up here :)

Made Eric's day to play some futbol!

Love the striped effects

We didn't use the bohio, but having changing facilites was fantastic (restaurant is on left)

Oh dear, here we go.

When in Panama during rainy season.

Carlitos is right on the PanAm Highway about ten minutes from our condo. in San Carlos.  Again, we were the only one's there.  We liked the painted tables.  We had our bug spray on (outside under cover in pouring rain).  We noticed that many places have pizza as an offering.  They also seem to serve lasagna a lot, too.  And bleu cheese.The empenadas (we tried ten of them) were excellent.  Light crust and stuffed with meat.  The pizza was delicious (again the crust was light and airy).  My sister tried the Chicken Spinach lasagna but it was with Roquefort Cheese that she didn't love.  It was just okay to her.  I didn't love it either.  I tried the Eggplant lasagna that was very good and so filling along with having a slice of the Thousand Stacks cake with extra dulce de leche sauce!  I had never had that before and fell in love with it!  My tummy was full, and it was time for bed.