Whew! Time is flying by and there’s much too much to tell, Here it goes…

I haven’t had a second since Thursday to sit down and write . All the fun began on Friday at Spanish school. As usual, the first half of the day consisted of me struggling through class and trying my best to make my head comprehend something. We always have about a twenty minute break at about 2:45ish then we resume our lessons until 5:00. Here is where you begin to get more of an understanding of just why I have fallen in love with my teacher…Yubal, he had the brilliant idea to commence our studies at the bar down the street! He arranged for another class to join us so we could practice our Spanish. And practice we did, with the aide of Margarita’s suddenly Spanish lessons were beginning to become a bit more fun. We sat together and began to converse in español. Mi nombre es, Holly, yo de los estados unidos. Vivo en Boquete. Estoy jubilado. Yo vivido en Boquete por un mes. Blah! Blah! Blah! The last two hours of school flew by incredibly fast and when Scott found me at the bar having a margarita aided lesson, boy was he envious! (Big smile here!) But far be it for my man Scott to hold a grudge, especially when cerveza is close at hand! LOL!! He quickly joined in on the fun and began to take advantage of the opportunity to chat as much as possible with his burned out brain ! We ended up staying at the bar until about 8:00 then everyone decided it was time to go Dancing!!

It turns out Yubal is quite the Salsa dancer and was excited to get us all on the dance floor with him! There is really only one dance club in town, Zanzabar, and we all headed there. Scott and I had our car and we had earlier thought we may be meeting with Keith , the car guy , to give him our down payment for our second car (this is another story, I’ll get to that) anyways, we had a bit more cash on us that we felt was prudent to go into a club with. So Scott dropped me off and went to our house for a bit. I had a dance with Yubal and was having a good time but it turns out two Margarita’s and a questionable amount of Vino tinto made this girl suddenly very sleepy!! So as soon as Scott got back I made him take me right home, whew, I’m too old for that stuff!! I didnt even say goodbye to everyone, I will have to apologizse to all my classmates for disappearing!! But honestly, I didnt think they would notice.

Saturday morning we had arranged to meet Kris and Joel just outside of Dolega (just about 20-30 minutes away) so we could follow them to Mocho De Monte. I had seen Utube videos of this place and have been looking forward to seeing it in real life for a really long time. The drive towards Volcan was on a very windy road and very steep in some areas but the scenery was just beautiful and extremely lush. We crossed a couple of rivers and drove over a couple bridges then we pulled over just after crossing one of the bridges. We parked our cars and Kris and Joel guided us to the most beautiful spot, Macho De Monte. It’s a slot canyon, basically it’s a river flowing through these sheer cliffs and there are little waterfalls all over and the clear blue water . In the Utube video I had seen the guy was able to actually hike down into the river and he jumped down some of the waterfalls into pools of water. We were itching to do it but were unsure how we would make it down given the fact that we couldn’t tell how deep the water was down below. We were not certain when the video we had seen was filmed, right now is rainy season so it’s quite possible the water is deeper? I don’t know, I think we were just a bit wimpy. We knew we would be able to safely make it ‘down’ but getting back up would be questionable. Too bad Mariah and Elisabeth weren’t with us, they would have had ropes and much more bravery than we possess! So we were happy to just walk around and soak up the beauty of this magnificent place. I’m forever stunned by the beauty and unending vastness of nature and will never tire of exploring and experiencing the world around me. It’s a bonus when I get the chance to do this with great people.

After our afternoon with Joel and Kris we headed home to relax a bit and then go over to our good friends ,(A &S’s) house for dinner. Earlier in the week when we were making our grocery list, Scott planned to make burgers but we don’t have a BBQ. Yes, we could use a frying pan and cook em up on the stove but it’s just not as yummy…Sooo Scott had the brilliant idea to ask A & S if we could bring all the fixins’ up to their house and prepare dinner for them. They were game!! And we had a great evening drinking delicious margarita’s ( A has the margarita making down to a science!) and cooking some good food. We tried our hand at making crab cakes as an appetizer with canned crab instead of our fresh caught crab from Half Moon Bay. We were pleasantly surprised that they turned out pretty good! I think our Amigo’s would agree that canned crab did the trick just fine! I just love spending time with these two. After all the delicious food we put on our swim suits and sat in their jacuzzi on the deck. Its just so great to be outside when it’s pouring down rain, thunder and lightening lighting up the night sky yet it’s still warm. What a great ending to a really great evening with some (yes, I’m gonna say ‘great’ again) really great people!

And this brings me to today, Sunday. We thought we would have a leisurely morning with nothing planned until this afternoon when we would meet up with Cindy and David and Kris and Joel for lunch. But as we were lazing around the phone rang and it was Lyn inviting us to go along with her to check out a piece of property in Caldera. What the heck, we love an adventure. It wasn’t really a piece of land that we would be interested in but it was great to see and we got a bit of a hike in. Lynn is , like us, always up for just about any kind of adventure . Our Sunday began well and continued on that way as we met up with my two blogging friends and their husbands for a late lunch. We enjoyed a leisurely lunch and there was live music to enjoy as an added bonus.

As you can see, we haven’t been able to fit in any Spanish study at all this weekend! Geesh! How does time fly by so fast? Tomorrow, Monday, I will begin private two hour lessons instead of the four hour class. Unfortunately my new class is at 8:00am instead of 1:00. Darn it! Just when I was getting used to my leisurely mornings. I think this plan will suit me better. I’ll have plenty of time to study while Scott is in his class from 1-5. I wont be so brain-dead at the end of my lesson. Oh, and we have located a car for me. We had told Keith, the car guy, what kind of car we were looking for and to let us know if he came across a good deal. He was able to find a good deal on a used 2010 Toyota FJ Cruiser and he negotiated a price that seems fair to both parties. He is going to Panama City to get it for us and to take care of all the title transfers and registration and all that good stuff. I’m so grateful to have found out about Keith,(the car guy!) he is a really good guy and has a stellar reputation with every single person who has done business with him. Being such ‘Newbies” here, it would have been so hard for us to have located a car , negotiated in Spanish then dealt with all the paperwork that goes into buying a used car. Thank goodness Keith does what he does! I know soooo many Gringos who , like me, count their blessings that he’s around. I’m looking forward to having a car, it’s been many years since I’ve had my own wheels. In the states my car died about 6 years ago and I decided I didn’t really need one given the fact that I could walk to work everyday.

As another week begins I look forward to the arrival of each new day. Waking to the sound of birdsong and looking out my window at the lush green mountains and the beautiful clear blue sky, I will smile. There is a sense of peace that you feel when you know you are where you should be. Our Adventure is progressing along just fine. Cheers!!

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