I Love A Parade
Time for the semi-regular photo tour of Beautiful Downtown Boquete, except without any photos of the actual downtown. First up: the neighbors. This is on the south side of the old, yet still for the moment current, abode. These two houses are now vacant, as is the house directly to the north of us. The one on the left wouldn't be so bad were it minus one dilapidated and stripped pickup truck.
Next is one of the two Boquete Arches coming into the city. I'm guessing they chock them full of flowers and whatnot during the festivals, but off season they look kinda bare. If you are visiting and you see this coming north, hang a quick left and stop in for a drink. The old school buses on the corner are the giveaway.
Looking north into the town proper.
I don't know what they're growing but there are rows of them.
Looking out over the back forty at the new ranch. The lumber at the middle of the photo is courtesy of the city cutting down some big trees at the top, which could have fallen on the house. We're talking big trees. I will be making use of some of the felled timber, perhaps as part of the bar. The tall grass at the bottom has been hacked away.
More of the jungle view to the south.
It's phone installation time!
State of the art electric stuff. This is on its way out.
Our happy electrician and the new inside breaker box. He's happy at this very moment because I paid him and he's in his cups. I'm letting him sleep it off downstairs tonight, though I doubt he'll be of any use should somebody be wanting to break in.
Here is our happy electrician's happy assistant. This is how you wire a house in Central America: Take a hammer and beat the crap out of the walls until you get holes. Rest a bit and do more hammering until you can stuff wire in there from one side of the house to the other. Cover with cement and hope you don't have to go back in there for something.
Now we have our second internet technician on the phone to the office accomplishing nothing. We walked up to the local office soon after this to get up to speed.
Here I am working on one of the windows. This one wound up not getting the first screen, as the opening gets smaller and wants to stop it from opening. I'll be using bigger trim pieces on this side.
On the way home last night we found a parade! In this photo it appears that somebody got Christ down of the cross, put him Lenin's tomb and dragged him around the city streets.
Here's a better shot after they stopped in front of the house for a bit.
Here's Mary all decked out in flowers. The crowd was very quiet except for a car with loudspeakers intoning on about something.
The parade stopped here in front of a neighborhood church three doors up from the house. There were distinct hissing noises directed my way as I photographed this.
I'm a little confused on this one, as by itself it could be Jesus, but considering he was leading the parade in his glass coffin I'll guess this is Joseph.
We were a little short on light but I wanted to get the full effect of the effort these guys were putting in. It's a bit obscure but I thought the contrast of the laughing girls with the struggling litter bearer makes it a picture.
