April 14- 21- Week 5 in Panama

For something different to do we took a drive and checked out  Costa del Este, a kinda suburb east of Panama City. Costa del Este is famous for many upscale high rise condos and has a beautiful road running along the ocean shoreline.

Because it was Sunday ,we assumed, the road was totally deserted. We parked our car and took a walk along the ocean front taking lots of pictures of some pretty incredible highrises that were way beyond our budget.

We found a Papa John's where we had a couple of beers and a pizza for lunch. Take a look at the pictures of this road- wide street, palm trees, red tile roofs, gated subdivision
- sure looks like our old home Chandler, Arizona. It really is a small world- the more we travel the more we realize this.

On Monday it was back to nature  with another hike in Cerro Azul on the 'Jurassic Park' trail, this time starting from the river and walking towards the trailhead we had departed from last time.

Each time we have hiked it has been eerily quiet, rarely bird sounds, never any critters even though we stand still and look around often. I'm assuming they are all watching us stroll past hidden away.

After lunch we decided to take a swim in one of the many natural pools along the river that we had discovered on one of our previous hikes.  We wore our bathing suits. packed our towels and parked our car along the river. We found a likely spot within a ten minute walk along the hiking trail.

The water was not cold at all and totally clear. Since I was in charge of the camera there are no pictures of me in the water but trust me, I swam across the pool and then back so I could take pictures of Uwe under the little water fall.

Even though it is not yet rainy season, we had 2 days of rain this week. On Tuesday it rained all day and we had another quiet reading day- thank god for my kindle- and on Thursday, after our morning 2 hour hike, it rained hard all afternoon.

After those two days I hate to think how rainy season would be- six months of rain, June to December. Obviously not for me.

I've tried to take some pictures of some of our residents animals. Every evening a couple of toads come to our closed  window door to take advantage of all the bugs that are attracted by our light.

We also have many hummingbirds not only at our feeder but at the many wild flowers.

One of the more interested birds that hang around here is a kind of kite, very beautiful.

We've had many a wonderful cocktail hour sitting on the deck and watching the baseball games that Uwe gets on his MLB package on the Ipad or computer.