Jeff stayed in bed until afternoon. Hostel breakfast was a familiar site, that damn giant bag of Krusteaz Complete Buttermilk Pancake Mix!! Needless to say, I didn’t partake! I heated myself up some bollos on the stove instead. You can buy packaged bollos in the grocery stores. They look like yellow hot dogs! I got coconut ones, they were sweet and delicious.
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| packaged bollos |
I also went for a walk to the grocery store before Jeff woke up. They have a Rey store here. I think it’s brand new, and it’s a little on the small side. This is a pretty small town. It sits inside of the crater of an extinct volcano. A main road, the highway, runs though town and most businesses, including our hostel, are located along this road. There are a few side roads that serve as residential areas. It reminds me of the town I lived in, only this one is at lower elevation. We’re at about 2,000 feet here, so it’s only a little bit cooler than sea level.
I had nothing better to do, so I thoroughly examined the grocery store. I was glad to see they too had sweet potatoes, and taro, and German bread, no stir peanut butter and Wasa crackers! They also had Go-veggie cheese and daiya vegan salad dressings for $9 a bottle! I often wonder who buys the strange expensive items in the stores. You could get packages of Thomas English Muffins from the freezer for $7 each! There are a lot of American retirees living in the surrounding hills, so I guess they are the ones that buy the strange items.
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| Expats pay a premium for English muffins in the freezer section |
When I got back Jeff was awake and feeling well enough to get out of bed and eat lunch with me. I prepared a nice salad using the juice of a free tangerine and free mustard as dressing. We also had some microwave baked potatoes with mustard and a slice of bread with hummus and veggies.
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| Microwave baked potato is one of my most favorite foods! |
We eventually took another walk, going the other direction from my morning walk. We found a produce market and I got a ripe yellow plantain for microwaving. I love microwaved plantains! I can’t wait to need more produce so I can go back and buy more from the street market, haha!
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| Very nice produce market |
We kept trying, and failing to gain control of the TV in our hostel. They have Netflix, which we haven’t had access to since we left the US. We finally just joined in on someone else’s selection and watched Bruce Almighty. It is a funny and entertaining movie, so that was good enough.
Jeff started feeling poorly again during the movie with a bad headache and fever. Dinner was veggie soup with plantains, yucca and taro. Jeff only had a few bites. He has a fever. Hope he’s better tomorrow!
Saturday December 30th
Jeff slept in again, so I made myself the remaining bollos for breakfast. Jeff doesn’t like them as much as I do anyway. The hostel also had fruit available with the pancakes this morning, so I got to have some cut up oranges and some banana sections. That was nice. There definitely wasn’t any fruit yesterday. I hope there is some tomorrow!
Jeff was feeling better when we woke up. Fever is gone, but he still doesn’t have a normal appetite. We managed to gain command of the TV room and watched a Netflix original movie called Okja. It’s a fictional movie about a girl and her pet super pig, basically an experimental GM pig. It’s a good way to learn about the animal agriculture industry in a less graphic way than the documentaries on the subject.
After the movie, my wish came true, and I got to go buy more things at the outdoor produce market. Yay! I got some more salad veggies for lunch and some soup veggies for dinner. I think it was cheaper than the grocery store and nice that it comes without packaging. It’s also really fresh. I was very pleased to have spinach. We haven’t had spinach in months!
For lunch we ate leftover soup, a nice big portion of salad and a piece of bread with hummus. I prepped the dinner ingredients at this time as well.
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| My haul from the market |
After lunch it was time for another movie! Even though we’ve already seen it, we watched What the Health again. If you haven’t seen it, you definitely should! It’s a documentary about the health implications of a meat based diet. The documentary also addresses why eating meat and dairy and eating tons of protein is so drilled into everyone’s heads. In my opinion it’s the best plant based documentary I’ve seen, and I’ve seen them all. I would gladly rewatch them all. There’s always more to learn.
Since we had a light lunch, I was feeling a little hungry in the afternoon, so we had some pan crisped Panamanian tortillas and the last of our Colombia hot chocolate. Dinner was sweet potato lentil curry soup. I have accumulated a ton of curry powder from free bins.
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| Sweet potato and lentil curry |
We’ve been reading since dinner. I am currently reading a book by Doctor Michael Greger titled How Not To Die. Dr Greger is the one behind the popular website NutritionFacts.org. Jeff is reading Love in the Time of Cholera. It’s a Gabriel Garcia Marquez book. His books were very popular in Colombia because that’s where he is from. There were an abundance of his books in English in the bookstore in Cartagena, so we got it, even though it’s not the type of book Jeff would normally choose for himself. Hopefully Jeff will be even better tomorrow and we will get to go for a hike. I didn’t mind sitting around again today. It rained very heavily most of the day.
Sunday, December 31st 2017
We stayed in the hostel all day again today. I went out once to the market for more produce. Jeff remained in jail. Although he is feeling better, he woke up with red spots on his hands and feet. We did some searching online and found “hand, foot and mouth disease” to perfectly match what he has experienced over the last few days. The name sounds terrible, but it’s simply a virus that has to run its course. It’s supposed to clear up after about a week. It’s strange that he got it because it’s most commonly something that children 5 and under get. Anyway his feet are extremely tender, making it painful to walk. I sure hope we are done being sick after this illness!! We’ve sure had more than our share of sickness on this trip.
Here’s info from the CDC about Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease:
https://www.cdc.gov/hand-foot-mouth/about/index.html
It absolutely poured most of the day. I got rained on walking back from the produce market. We couldn’t have gone out hiking even if we were able to. We looked up weather all around Panama, and it seems to be raining everywhere and more rain is to keep coming. We felt bored and cooped up today. Our only entertainment is internet, reading and the Netflix (when it’s available). We didn’t watch any Netflix today and it’s hard to read, because there is always loud annoying music playing all over the hostel. The only place to escape the music is in the dorm room, but unfortunately there is a pack of hooligans staying here that likes to play music from their cell phones and talk loudly amongst each other while hanging out in what could be the one quiet place in the hostel! I said yesterday we generally find people are considerate in dorms, these guys are the exception. They were loud last night and turned on lights after every one had gone to bed, then returned drunk at 3:30 in the morning to create another ruckus. It’s a group of young Panamanians and we’re getting real sick of them.
We are supposed to be checking out tomorrow, and we have considered moving to another hotel in the area, but with Jeff’s feet the way they are, we may end up staying here again. We will probably leave this town without doing much of anything. With all the rain we’ve had this week the steep trails will be muddy.
Today’s meals:
•Chocolate banana oatmeal for breakfast.
•100% whole grain (!!) pasta with peanut sauce, veggies, herbs and starfruit
•dinner: leftover sweet potato curry, big salad and toast with hummus
It’s New Year’s Eve and the club music is bumping. At 10 pm, our hostel mates are eating a dead animal feast prepared by the hostel workers. We will be ringing in the New Year asleep (I hope!!).
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| Pasta with peanut sauce, veggies and star fruit. |
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| Sitting in the backyard watching the rain pour and run down the roof |
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| A diablo rojo aka red devil driving by on the highway |
Monday January 1st 2018
Despite the constant entering and exiting of the room last night by the Panamanian hooligans and the leaving open of the door and the sound of the music entering, I managed to get to sleep by 11. I was promptly awoken at midnight by fireworks blasting over head. They went on for quite some time. I’m in the 3rd story bunk and the roof of the hostel is a simple tin room with no noise insulating features. I was awoken again at 3:30 when the hooligans returned and were laughing hysterically. Subconsciously in my sleep I yelled at them to shut up in Spanish. They have left today, good riddance!
It rained again all day, but on the bright side, it was pleasantly cool. There was a brief dry spell in the afternoon and the sun even came out for about 20 minutes, so for the first time all week we were able to sit in the grass in the backyard and take sun and earth! Neither of us left the hostel today. We ate more oatmeal for breakfast, with apples and spices. We had corn on the cob, baked beans, sliced tomatoes, baby potatoes and coleslaw for lunch. For dinner we had more salad, the last of our German bread and hummus and the rest of the sweet potato curry. It’s been nice to eat so healthfully all week and to get to eat fresh farmers market produce. While lounging in the grass I discovered an herb garden in the back yard, so I picked some mint and basil and put them in a banana chocolate smoothie.
We lounged in the hammocks and we read our books. We also watched Mr Bean’s Holiday on Netflix. It was a great movie for watching here, because there isn’t much dialogue! It’s often hard to hear the movies here with the constant playing of music in the hostel and also the rudeness of other people that like to talk over movies!
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| The strange red spots |
We were supposed to check out today, but extended our stay for two more nights. Tomorrow will be our last full day here. Hopefully it will stop raining long enough to get out of the hostel for a little while.
Tuesday January 2nd
After breakfast we paid $2 each to rent bikes for an hour and ride to a nearby waterfall. It was sunny-ish when we left, but that quickly turned into a misty light rain. It was only a 20 minute ride, but was uphill most of the way, on a paved road. When we got there we weren’t certain we were in the right place. It seems the waterfall is owned or managed by a company that runs a zip line tour over the falls. You have to pay $5 to get in, then walk for 10-15 minutes on a cobbled path through the forest and over a couple suspension bridges to a waterfall viewing point. You don’t get very close to the falls, and in my opinion they have ruined the view with the zip lines! On the way out we took a little spur trial to a section of the river in which they have diverted water into a pool for swimming. It’s nice that they are protecting the area, but regulating the swimming and the trampling of the area, but it wasn’t a very natural experience. The waterfall is called Chorro El Macho. It is 115 ft tall and is always listed in all the guide books as a sight to see in this small town. My knowledge of this waterfall dates back to my days as an exchange student. There was another girl in the same program year as me that got placed here in El Valle de Anton. I remember being jealous of her, specifically because of the waterfall, haha! I wanted to see it!! It’s funny because this town seems almost identical to where I lived and there were trails and waterfalls where I lived too.
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| Chorro El Macho |
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| River water swimming pool |
In the late afternoon we left the hostel again to walk to some cheap hot springs. It was about a half hour walk, again in the light misty rain. The hot springs closed way earlier than we thought they would. We only made it there 20 minutes before closing, so we decided not to go in. The walk there and back was nice though. On the way we walked the main road through town, the highway. The town is set up predominantly along the highway, with a few side streets that are more residential. On the way back we walked one of the side streets. There are a ton of retirees from the US that live here. We admired what we believe were their fancy estates. If not them, then super rich people from Panama City that have vacation homes here to escape the heat and the city. All of these residences had names, and an elaborate archway and gate to drive through and ornate fencing around the property. There were also lots of pretty trees to looks at. We had partial protection from the rain, thanks to a crappy umbrella that Jeff found in the hostel. We walked slowly and Jeff’s feet did ok.
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| The main road through town. The mountain in the middle is La India Dormida. |
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| A side road leading to the hot springs |
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| Free umbrella for use from the hostel |
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| One of the many fancy houses on the road to the hot springs |
For dinner we ate our leftover coleslaw, corn, baked beans, potatoes and tomatoes. Afterward we headed for the movie room again. The same girl was in there again, so we watched what she had chosen, a comedy called 30 Minutes or Less. Tomorrow we leave here. We are so ready to go!
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| Baked beans came from the grocery store in Panama City |
Wednesday January 3rd
Our food stock has run out, so we ate peanut butter and jelly Wasa crackers. We haven’t had much sugar all week, so it kind of made us feel ill having the jelly. Other than our first day here, today is the only day we have woken up and it wasn’t raining.
It’s moving day, so we packed up after breakfast and stored our bags and set out for a hike. We are glad to be moving out. Although we weren’t impressed with the hostel at all when we arrived it grew on us a little. In the end we decided it wasn’t so bad, but I still think 27 beds in a dorm is a bit excessive. One thing I was able to pinpoint that we didn’t care for is that there appear to be more volunteers than paying guests. There is a volunteer website called workaway.info in which anyone can post an add seeking volunteers. A lot of hostels get a free workforce this way. The volunteers receive a free place to sleep in exchange for unusually about 20 hours of work a week. I’ve looked into and we’ve considered doing it, but never end up going for it. There are other jobs too, like farming or building/construction, and sometimes the positions are in a family home. Whenever we are at a hostel that is just filled with volunteers we don’t really enjoy being there as much as if it were all people just passing through like us. Also the volunteers tend to be on very tight budgets, so they all cook, making it more challenging for us to cook.
There are at least 4 hikes listed in the activity guide put together by our hostel. We chose the one that is the most popular, La India Dormida (Sleeping Indian). It’s possible to do it as a loop hike. Most people go up and down from the paid entrance, but our hostel told us we could go up a different way for free. It was kind of hard to find, and had us walking on narrow cement pathways through new shanty style homes being built into the hills. After enlisting the help of five different friendly locals along the way, we found the path up. We hiked about 20 minutes until we reached an artificial tree line and began hiking through tall grass, along a ridge. The sun came out and the sky turned blue and we sweated our butts off! The only sun all week and it has to blast us in a time of exertion! Once we attained the main ridge we stopped to take a rest in the grass and enjoy some bananas that we’d bought from a produce stand on our way. The view was lovely, we could see all the way to the Pacific Ocean and we could see all of town and the crater that it sits in.
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| Above the man made tree line |
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| That is the Pacific Ocean you can see in the distance |
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| View of El Valle and the mountains that make up the crater |
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| Where the trail ends in the distance is the official top |
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| full panorama |
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| Watching the clouds |
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| The ridge we walked along |
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| Some ancient petroglyphs on a large rock face, along the walk out |
Back in town we decided to go for our first meal out in El Valle. Our plan was to go to one of the typical restaurants that serves meals of the day and ask if they could make us one without meat. We sat for awhile at one and no one helped us. I went to the counter and tried to order us a smoothie and a guy told me he’d come soon to serve us at our table. We sat awhile longer and still nothing, so we left. We walked a little further down the street and tried another one where we were helped right away! We were offered plates of rice, lentils, plantains and salad. Perfect! We also got a banana smoothie and a papaya smoothie and shared them. We were rather dehydrated from so much sweating. Luckily we also got a pitcher of water. The meal wasn’t quite what we’d envisioned when it was described to us, the salad was pasta with a few tomato cubes and the plantains was only plantain, just one little slice. The cost of this cheap meal out was $15 with drinks and tip, which is so much more than we ever paid in Colombia, and I could buy so many groceries with that! We have decided going out is probably not worth it to us, unless it’s a vegan or vegetarian restaurant or like today we need it for convenience.
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| An O.K. meal. Pasta and rice is a common combination in Panama. |
After lunch we walked to the thermal pools we had tried earlier, Pozos Termales. I don’t know anything about the source of the water, but it’s diverted from somewhere into a couple of cement pools of varying depths. The water is not hot, just warm and heavy with minerals. They also have two pots full of different kinds clay for giving yourself a clay mask. We chose one of each color. The pools are surrounded by lots of nice old trees that are covered in mosses and bromeliads. It was very relaxing to lay in the shallow pools of warm water and look up and the trees. We didn’t stay too long because it was getting late in the day and it was time to begin our bus journey.
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| clay masks at the hot springs |
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| Basic but pleasant facilities |
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| Another fine cafeteria meal. Tastes better than it looks. |
We are staying at Miami Mike’s Backpacker Hostel. It’s a rather run down place. Some reviews I read said Mike was the only good thing about the hostel and he’s not here. The place is fully run by volunteers at the moment, and we are the only guests! We have our own room for $22. Tomorrow we will continue the journey to our final destination of Venao Beach. We had a really good day. It was nice taking a break from our vacation and resting up and eating healthy in El Valle, but we are glad to move on!
Not the best stop. Hope Jeff is getting better. Us old folks got a Typhoid shot last week for Panama and our malaria pills will be arriving soon. Our doctor recommended those for our trip. That was a rough week for you guys.
ReplyDeleteIt was indeed a difficult week, but at the same time it was nice to relax a little. That´s easy for me to say, since I wasn´t the sick one. Jeff got better after a few days, but has had peely sensitive skin on his feet ever since.
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