Last Chance Cafe

The Blog may be dead but the bar lives!

It's time for Cocktails In Boquete.

Starting on Friday the 22nd of February Bajo Boquete's newest dive will be testing the waters on its opening weekend shakedown cruise by offering two for one libations to all alcoholics and wannabe alcoholics in town. We figure we're gonna screw up somebody's margarita the first time around so the second one's on us. Come and play the odds and see if you can get two good ones in a row.

Been jonesing for a caipirinha or a martini or a tequila sunrise? We got 'em. No? We've got wine and beer too. And Pizza!

Traveling on the main road in or out of Boquete proper turn toward the volcano when you see the corner with all the old yellow school buses (across the street from the library). We're less than a hundred meters (or yards) down the road. Look for the two-storey white dollhouse on the right and park like a Panamanian.

Johnny Walker Blue or Green Label, Glenfiddich 12 Year Old, Crown Royal for you Canadians, Bombay Sapphire martinis and Flor de Cana sipping rum is going to be plenty enough to confuse bartender Sandy.

Posted by petefredbob at 06:50 AM | Permalink

Blogging now at: Boquete Cocktails.

Posted by petefredbob at 12:50 PM | Permalink

I can't seem to get the video link to work from FOX's website, but it has the most amusing segment on Manuel Noriega, former president and all around knucklehead of my adopted Panama.

I never quite understood the specifics of how we justified snatching him in the first place, but snatch him we did, and very few Panamanians want him back. A couple of weeks ago I was in a famous gringo bar in David and was poking fun at one of the bartenders about Noriega wanting to come home. Wrong move- as he intimated that were any number of Panamanians to get their hands on him they'd chop him in little pieces and feed him to the dogs.

My Spanish not being all that swift I caught bits of 'he killed my brother' flying around, though whether it was a friend like a brother, or his actual brother, I couldn't tell. The other day I was at Amigos discussing a local landowner (gossiping quite frankly) and he was accused of being a Noriega supporter. This is not a very well liked person. The gist of it was that were Manuel to come back to Panama everyone expects him to eventually insinuate himself back into the power structure.

Which brings me back to the FOX video. In it his current lawyer said he could "guarantee" that Noriega would do no such thing. I laughed out loud at either his naiveté or the outright whopper, as were Noriega to come 'home' to enjoy his grandchildren there exists a network of his 'death eaters' (small as it may be) ready to resume their place in the hot Panama sun. If what the bartender told me is true, there's also a group ready with machetes to make sure that doesn't happen.

Let's hope so.

Posted by petefredbob at 02:25 PM | Permalink

I waited all day yesterday for the electric company that never came. I couldn't find much to bitch about though as laying about and not putting stress on my back seemed to be the way to go. The other morning while making coffee I coughed and my back popped. It comes in threes they say, first the flu, then the tooth and now the back. Am I bitching? Nah. It's all good, and I made a new friend this morning.

Meet Holly, pronounced oh-lee. Or the regular way, with a lengthening of the 'o', depending on the speaker's exposure to ingles.

He (she? My exposure to farm animals has been minimal, but it sure 'looked' like a 'he' during the bathroom break) is about a month old and came by to visit today. I did my best horse whispering and we bonded a bit.

I don't know why I do these things, but for those of you who can't get enough, a short clip of Holly eating some grass (which act was met with much approval from the owners. Holly's mom died during the birth).

Posted by petefredbob at 11:05 AM | Permalink

The weekend has come and gone and at the moment I'm waiting for the electric company to come and install the second line for 240 volts to the house. It was back in April, as I consult the wayback machine, that the 'first' electrician knocked holes in the wall and generally made a mess of things, but as things tend to go in America Central there were- difficulties. The primary one being that I needed another electrician to complete and fix what the first one started.

My better half took a break from her used car salesman duties and came down from San Jose for a couple of days to add her signature to a couple of documents and preside over yet another inspection, and by all appearances it is a 'go.'

Daryl and his other brothers Daryl as per par didn’t make it yesterday to continue clearing the jungle out back. They stopped by last week while I was out front doing something or other and pretty much begged for work for the three of them. After showing them the yard and explaining to them what needed to be done we started back toward the front of the house and one brother espied the sink outside the back door. He approached it as if it was something he had heard about but never seen in person before. After consulting for a moment with Daryl, he twisted the valve, observed the water magically appearing for a moment, and proceeded to sate himself. If they ever do show up I promise photos, as you just can't make this stuff up.

Speaking of photos, on Sunday the little lady and I had fun watching and listening to the die hard drunks attempting the journey home. One in particular was having issues, and he made it as far as the front of my house before he gave up. His exasperated buddy finally left him there in the gutter.

The view from my front door through the plant. You can just see the blue on the other side.

Needless to say the side of the road isn't all it's cracked up to be as a resting place, yet our trooper was there for most of the day.

Around 2 or so our subject felt the call of nature through his dreams, and got up to wander to the other side of the road to answer. It was an epic journey with many false starts, but as we don't have all that much traffic here, he made it and proceeded to spend a good five minutes watering the ground on the other side. Having spent an evening or two in an equally intoxicated state it was amusing, but not surprising, when somewhere inside his cranium the command decision was made to take another nap right where he had just relieved himself.

That concludes our personal update and cultural broadcast for the day.

Posted by petefredbob at 10:15 AM | Permalink

Happy Fourth of July from Panama!

Knock on the door this morning was the guy with one bad eye. He wandered by yesterday and commented on my laying of the slate tile that I reclaimed a couple of weeks ago. Roughly translated, "hey, nice job gringo, but if you pay me to do that it will be better for the both of us." Considering that laying tile, mixing cement and other masonry type skills never made it into my repertoire I had to agree with him.

That's the weird thing about Panama, everybody is a do it yourselfer, everybody has simple handyman skills that they rent out at need, kind of like political opinions. Professionals however are hard to find and tend to be expensive. Ego-wise, for a guy like that me that has a smattering of knowledge of most (other) things construction, pretty much anything I do is on a par with the locals. If your walls are plumb, square and level you are a master technician.

This time though I knew my work wouldn't survive the first real rainstorm. As I'm a curiosity around here, and the terrazzo is pretty much my welcome mat, my humbleness wasn’t all that hard to dig up in this case. Like I tell all the workers that ask for jobs I said he should come back tomorrow. The return rate runs about 10 to 1 in favor of they'd rather be somewhere else when the time comes to clock in. I figure this saves me the bother of having to fix half-assed jobs that I could do better myself.

So in a rare show of responsibility Blinky showed up today and off we went to the supply store to order up some cement and sand. Another thing you may find about Panama is that no matter what your driving habits are, with the exception perhaps of our Asian friends in Koreatown, you are likely qualified to be a driving instructor here. This was demonstrated to me once again this morning on the above-mentioned trip to get the materials.

I've been in high speed crashes and cop chases, in taxis and busses on dangerous mountain passes in the third world and the passenger of many a drunken driver, but it takes a special talent to frighten me at low speed. Blinky got it done without even trying. But, we made it back and he's got a level, a bucket and a trowel.

As the work is ongoing as we speak, I'll reserve comment on the outcome, especially as it looks like rain today, which may require a return engagement for Blinky to finish the job. I just might yet find myself learning the joys of mixing cement on the morrow.

Posted by petefredbob at 08:54 AM | Permalink

Raining like hell today, and was the first day it came in through the north window- which is near where I'm sitting writing this. It's the paperwork and electronics corner and I'm glad I wasn't out somewhere when it happened. During the windy season of February the wind comes from the north through the mountain passes and light rain follows from that direction. After, in this, the rainy season, the rain comes from the south. That's about when I moved into the new(er) place.

Still all in all it doesn't seem as oppressive as San Jose's rainy season, but maybe it's just that the bloom isn't off the rose yet. Too many years of Los Angeles living has put me in the mood that the occasional rain annoyance with the 'oh my God it's raining' local news coverage that follows is standard and tolerable. It's been many years past when winter snowstorms and spring thundershowers for weeks at a time in the Northeast was a way of life.

The mornings here are glorious with blue skies and clouds rolling over bringing on the flowers and colors. I spent some time yesterday staring at the back yard imagining little walking paths for customers so inclined to wander amidst the coffee and banana plants to commune with the insects. I did that because my day worker, who showed up for two days in a row, didn't make it for the third. A Fourth of July opening is getting less a doable option every day. Oh well. Somebody's having a picnic on that day so I'll go mingle. Can't hurt.

I'm getting real close to the bottom of the pile in the back, where I found that I have a 12 1/2 meter (40 feet or so) felled tree. That's a tree. On Friday I've been promised some help trying to move it to the side of the house where it will eventually help support a new roof type thingy covering the walkway between the two buildings. The saving grace of all the yard work (besides making everything look pretty and saving the coffee plants) is that I'll be able to use a bunch of the uncovered lumber. If I can move the stuff.

Criminey, the wind has just changed to the opposite direction and the lighting and thunder has picked up dramatically. This crap's loud in the mountains. I can get the global warmening folks's mind frame sometimes, wherein the modern hippy-dippy culture has inculcated the idea of the old butterfly flapping its wings somewhere and the result of which on the other side of the world something goes down. They forget though that the butterfly would be smashed to pieces out in a storm like this. Mother nature is no retiring wallflower. Not to mention the ants. Did I ever mention I hate ants?

Wow, that was interesting. The noise from the rain died down and I heard some yelling going on outside. The 'new' road they installed with its drainage problems became a drainage problem again.

Continue reading "After The Rain" »

Posted by petefredbob at 04:56 PM | Permalink

You guys are so lucky, I was going to treat you to another off the cuff political diatribe but instead, I have a cool link.

On Tuesday there is the annual Best of Panama Special Reserve Coffee Auction, right here in Boquete. Buyers from around the world bid on the local homegrown from these parts, and there should be (according to an email I just got) a link on the above linked site for everyone to watch on Tuesday May 29th 7:30 AM Pacific, 9:30 AM local Boquete time.

For the time being there is also at this very moment a link to launch a movie if you ever wanted to see the Boquete and the Baru Volcano areas. It's quite simply an amazing video for the fact that it was made in 2005 and seems like it came out of the fifties or sixties and you have a substitute teacher for social studies. Pure cheese, but with happy native Indians and sustainable growth stuff thrown in so you know it's new. (You can also listen in Japanese.)

Continue reading "Coffee Time" »

Posted by petefredbob at 07:05 PM | Permalink

If one was subject to serial amnesia one could still tell they were working outside in the yard the previous day by the swollen bug bites. And the blisters.

It was an overcast day and I wasn't going to get into it, but I found myself in the back with machete in hand. The leather gloves were still damp from the day before which dulled my appetite for an attack into the jungle. As I mentioned previously, once you start chopping things reveal themselves. You chop, rest, and observe; then make a new plan. What you had been standing on you find wasn't really the ground, but stuff that had grown over something else, and you dig in and find new ground.

Continue reading "More Yard Work" »

Posted by petefredbob at 10:50 AM | Permalink

I'm tired now having spent the morning and early afternoon attempting to un-fuck my coffee plants. On Saturday I spent 80% of my time throwing large pieces of timber and rocks down the hill and 20% pulling strangling vines off of the plants along with other assorted hand weeding. Today was reversed.

The day laborer never showed up which means I still don't have my machete. Everybody knows who he is, but everybody forgets his name and nobody knows where he lives. After about two hours I went next door to bitch at the folks who recommended him, and about thirty minutes after that- at least I had a machete. Spanish Catholic guilt and a dose of bitching can be a good thing. I'm not giving it back until he shows up.




Found my first red cherries today, ain't they cute? When I first started venturing out in the back jungle I counted around 6 plants. As I've chopped, pulled, dug and ripped vines away I discovered that there are around twenty plants right out the back door. I've still got more uncovering to do.

I also wandered across the landlady's property to further define the route for the French drain and found another twenty or so. I would say these things grow like weeds around here were it not for me having to kill a bunch of real weeds just to uncover the plants. A few will have to be nursed back to health or dug up.

I just want to say a few things about 'cleaning the yard' in Panama. For one, it sucks. For two, it's, um, Panama, where things grow almost as fast as you can chop them down. Because of that most people don't bother bagging or otherwise throwing the detritus away, it just becomes part of the ground in fast order. As I chop and toss and dig more and more stuff comes to surface that just wasn't there a minute ago. It's an archeological adventure in a box!

Update: I couldn't resist slicing one open to see the beans. It takes a whole lot more stuff to make a latte out of these things but the town is lousy with people having coffee plantations and the equipment to process it. One of the bartenders at Amigos says his Dad would get a kick out of doing some small batches for me when the plants start kicking.

Posted by petefredbob at 06:41 PM | Permalink

I'm back from San Jose and am taking a day of shades shut and indiscriminate surfing and sleeping. Traveling takes its toll when you eschew fancy hotels for the 'extra' beds of your friends. On the drive up we encountered sufficient rain in the mountains that I was stressfully anticipating the windshield wipers to malfunction, as they did on each of the previous two days. They held up though, and we didn't drive off a cliff as a result.

The car did make one last trip to a mechanic in San Jose before it officially went on the block, as two bolts had gone missing: one from an exhaust header, and one from a bracket connecting three different linkages concerning the fuel injection system (Note: it's mechanical, not electronic, and one of the connections assists the transmission in deciding when to shift. I found this out the day after my arrival when the car decided it really liked second gear more than any of the other ones.)

My special suggestion for crossing the Panamanian/Costa Rican border: don't do it after dark. My girlfriend had the same trouble a few months ago that I ran into last night. After dark they start enforcing the crossing requirements. Technically you're supposed to have a round trip ticket 'and' cash or other equivalent totaling at least $500. Last night I had neither.

During the day Americans and Costa Ricans are typically waived through, as Panama has figured out that neither one will be a drag on the economy. We come to buy and spend. I figure the reasoning is that anyone trying to cross after dark is trying to hide something so the extra scrutiny helps to expose that. I managed to bullshit my way through last night but my girlfriend (on that previous crossing) had to wait overnight at the border for the bus terminal to open and buy a return ticket.

So really, now, I'm here for good, or until they throw me out, and the labor starts tomorrow on my personal Panama Canal. I'm hoping I can avoid the dengue or malaria that accompanied building the original. Of course the day laborer I hired to work while I was gone didn't show up, so I get to fire him and take back the machete. It's all good.

Posted by petefredbob at 10:14 AM | Permalink

About nine months ago they started to build on the property abutting the back wall of my building in Costa Rica. Six days a week the hammering, nailing and indispensable jocular screaming back and forth among the construction workers began promptly at seven. It was one of the things I knew I wouldn't miss by a long shot when I moved.

Apropos the photos from the other day there has been over a week of road construction outside my front door, also beginning promptly at seven. I woke up again this morning with the house shaking from the steamroller. I'd had two days of peace, and as long as they don't break the new pipe they laid in while tamping down the road I should be back to being woken up by my landlord yelling at her employees by tomorrow.

On a predictive note I've been assured that today is the day my car will be returned to me. It's bad, as they say, to count your chickens and all that, but I have a feeling in my bones that it's true. Having been laid up at the mechanic's since January 31st it will be good to see her again. I hope the lawyer got the paperwork done for customs, as legally I only have ninety days to use the car in Panama, and that time is mere days away.

The bomberos, or fire department, will be here today to inspect the new electrical connections and meter. If approved I'll have a hot-damn 240 volts of electrical power coming into the place. That, and having the car back to scout supplies means next week I'll be whipping out my handy measuring tape and begin laying out the bar space downstairs.

Speaking of which I re-did my Prosper loan request. HERE is the listing if you want to get in on the fun. You may be asked to sign up in order to view it, I'm not sure at the moment. Remember, you don't have to fund the whole thing; you can just throw a couple of bucks at it. You will only lose-just kidding, I mean, are only charged the money if enough people fund it to reach the whole amount.

Think of it as living vicariously or as a down payment on a future bar tab.

Posted by petefredbob at 07:03 AM | Permalink

There are lots of interesting stories about how efficient government work crews are. You know, 15 guys on the job and only one of them digging the hole or whatever it is they are supposed to be doing. But in Central America it's even more fun.


[Panamanian Road Crew At Work]


We've had a work crew and trucks and other heavy machinery 'improving' the road in front of our place for the past week or so. Central America is not most geologically stable place as you might imagine, and I'd lived for twenty years or so on and off in Southern California, so when the steamroller rumbles by first thing in the morning "roadwork" is not my first thought.

[Do They Still Call Them Streamrollers?]

My landlady grew up here in this little town and knows everybody from the mayor to the Indian guy swinging the machete to cut the grass. For the past week or so the first voice I heard (after I was woken up by the house shaking) was hers yelling at the road crew- by their first names no less. The main problem is that as they put a new layer on the road the rain runoff would be funneled right into the front door of her bar and supermarket.

[Landlady Not Happy]

She ultimately got an agreement from the town to build some sort of drainage contraption, the likes of we'll just have to wait and see. But in the meantime work progressed, until yesterday when the water main broke.

[Not The Fountain Of Youth]

The first pickup truck pulled up with piping in the back of the bed of about two inches in diameter, which wasn't going to work on a ten-inch pipe. But, by the end of the day all was well, and we also found out how the city was going to fix my landlady's drainage problem, shuffle it to the other side of the street by means of a large concrete pipe going under the road. Two birds-one stone as they say.

[Simple Solution]

But as my eagle-eyed girlfriend noted, they used old pipe to fix the leak. This morning the results are in:

[Notice How The White And The Gray Pipe Don't Seem To Be Communicating?]



[Notice The Two Workers Evaluating The Situation?]

Posted by petefredbob at 08:40 AM | Permalink

I think I've written about the 'bichos' or critters in my life, most ominously, in my estimation, the scorpions. I saw a TV commercial the other day for Raid or some other 'bug' killer, and it showed a Mom and baby in a peaceful home setting, until a scorpion decided to show up. Of course the magic spray corrected the problem. I didn't have a peaceful sleep that night.

Far less lethal, yet annoying none the less, are these things:

They are LOUD like dive-bombers when they fly around in the house, and they just knock into things and fall to the ground. This was a fine example at about an inch 'wide.' When they fly they appear much larger and if you happen to look up and see one careening toward you, you get to do the 'tard dance of avoidance. Thus they must be killed.

On another critter killing note: a rat or similar critter has expired inside my front wall and a less than sweet smell has been wafting from there. The guy who sold me the rat poison said that 'that' wouldn't happen, as the poison makes him thirsty and he'll leave the house looking for water. I'm sticking to the sticky paper next time so I can let the neighbor's kitty play with him for a bit.

Posted by petefredbob at 07:14 PM | Permalink

A couple of weeks ago I was hanging at Amigos doing the laptop thing and overheard a conversation with the Panamanian representative of Red Bull (that err… energy drink thing). Turns out he was excited about bringing the Company's Formula One racing car to the streets of Panama City.

I naturally interrupted and pressed for details. Bottom line is that Red Bull is closing off Calle 50 for an hour or so on the first of May so that they can make a bunch of noise running the Renault Red Bull car up and down the block for grins and giggles. I'm getting grins and giggles just thinking about it. According to the website (the link should bring you to the right page, but you know how to click if it doesn't) the event should happen around three o'clock.

I’m going to try and make it and bring the big camera, but the capital is six hours away by car or bus and I've got business in Costa Rica around that time. If you're planning to be in Panama on May 1st and are a racing nut, or just like loud noisy spectacles, send us an email for further info and I'll forward it to the right guys. If you want to write it up or take pictures I may be able to arrange VIP access.

In the meantime click here for the French version of God Save The Queen (or 'My Country 'Tis of Thee' depending on your grade school education), sung by a Renault Formula One racecar. It's inspiring.

I almost forgot, when the rep told me I could/should write about the event he said the company was very touchy about the use of the logo. I did a quick search and found an appropriate one. You can click on it to bring you to the same place as the other two links above. Note to Red Bull: This is how that new fangled internet thing works.

Posted by petefredbob at 10:06 AM | Permalink

Sorry about the lack of posting of late as I really wanted to go for a 'diary' feel for this latest gig, but I sit here with four itching-swollen bug bites, two on each arm, stopping to scratch between commas. Translated it means that the past few days have been nonstop work moving to the new house and making it livable, with me falling into bed at the end of the day.

Yesterday I had a list of more things to do inside, but somehow I wound up outside all day digging on the canal. It's finished now, in the sense that I'm not going to re-route it and the water runs freely all the way across the property. I also burned stuff in the back yard. Yes, I have gone native.

When I had first arrived in Costa Rica I marveled at the fires. I'm too young to remember this kind of thing happening much in the US, but in the days before leaf blowers and big plastic bags and not having to haul your trash to the dump, on reflection I'm sure it was the same. Looking out across the valley on any given day I could see a dozen or so plumes of smoke, attended and unattended. I'd even seen them 'cut the grass' on the side of the freeway by setting fire to it.



The fire pretty much lasted all day, smoldering during rain showers, and finally with a dose of gasoline to reinvigorate it, on into the night.

As we burned more stuff I got a sense of how much 'more' we are going to need to burn, especially now that we're having rains and the fire is slow.

Good news- I have coffee plants!

I don't know enough about picking but I know that one of the locals made deliveries to Amigos last week of fresh batch of home grown, which I bought and it wasn't bad at all. To my eyes these look ripe for the taking but I'll have to ask around. If I can make it all work we'll have some really special Irish coffee.

Today I return for a final time to the old house and uninstall the suicide shower. I don't really need it but the vieja is insisting. We left far too many things in Costa Rica for her satisfaction and she's determined nobody gets to use our leftovers. The new place has a more 'robust' suicide shower, which means I don't get little drops of cold water on me even when it's supposed to be 'hot' water, and, wonder of wonders, the ground wire is just dangling there ungrounded.

Posted by petefredbob at 07:54 AM | Permalink

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.

Posted by petefredbob at 03:04 PM | Permalink

Finished the first window screen installation today except for the molding work, as the local woodstuff provider is closed for the day. Claudete says they will be open tomorrow, Saturday, but I kind of doubt it. This was one of the 'easy' screens being only a rough square frame that swings in and up to latch for access to the window. The double windows will require an under-over sliding thingamabob that will be more fun. (Fun Facts From Microsoft Word: 'thingamabob' is apparently a word. Who knew?)

I just checked on the yard canal and after two days of rain it's quite full of the old H the 2 and the O. It looks like I'm going to have to finish digging the trench all the way through the back yard to help it drain before we expect to get any word from the water analysis folks. I'm still itching though from my previous bout with the bugs, plus it's overcast, plus the electricians are using the back porch for their breaks and it would just be rude to interrupt, plus I just don't feel like it today.

Posted by petefredbob at 12:49 PM | Permalink

The "electricians" are humming right along and have the new inside breaker panel installed as well as a new entry box on the outside. The new conduit running upstairs for the oven is ready to have wire pulled and the holes hammered into the masonry to accommodate all of this have been patched. Once all has been completed, the bomberos-or fire department, will come to inspect, then the electric company will run the extra wire from the pole to give us 240 volts.

It's been raining in the afternoon the last couple of days, which has pushed me to work inside instead of in the yard. That is a good thing, as I need to get the living quarters ready for us to move into on Tuesday, but bad as all the little bug bites from my previous yard work have started to itch like crazy. There are all manner of 'bichos' flying and crawling around the immediate outback, and a quite a few of them apparently have a taste for human blood. In the once bitten-twice shy category, fifty or so bites are making it easy to avoid going back into the woods.

In other critter news the little lady found a scorpion in the bedroom yesterday. Before I could get there he, or she, skittered into a crack in the concrete. A bottle of Pino (Pine-Sol substitute) was available which we splashed into the hole, I stuck a letter opener inside and rooted around a bit, then we stuffed a wad of toilet paper into it to seal it up. I had very strange dreams last night.

Posted by petefredbob at 12:46 PM | Permalink

The Internet can be a strange animal in Panama. Boquete is a small and out of the way place and things reach here less quickly than they do more urbanized parts of the country. The local phone company's monopoly contract ends this year but until then we have only two options for connectivity. Aside from the 'wired' option there is a company that for a fee will install an antenna on the roof, which thereafter for $150 a month will get you a blazing 512 kbps. The same speed ADSL service is $47 from the phone company.

We went with the phone company, being less flushed with money than pride. Immediately after the technician left I plugged the modem into the wireless router, as he refused to soil his hands with it, and the subsequent connection to the ISP was denied. A couple of phone calls later we were up and running again. Since then it's a daily or twice daily operation to call the office and get them to restore our failed connection.

Yesterday another technician came out to supposedly give us a new modem, but as we booted the system and all came online immediately he just stayed and chatted a while. As he was screwing around he loaded a speed page to see what we were getting and we were stuck around 217. He then loaded the phone company page and found we were set for 255 down and 125 up. He called the company to get us the right service and got nowhere. He left, we made a few calls and finally decided to walk up the hill to the local office and see what was up.

The nice customer service lady pointed to the phone number scrawled at the bottom of the installation contract. We explained to her our previous attempts and she finally agreed to get on the phone herself. Thirty minutes of small talk and waiting for various live people on the other end of the line later, everyone was all smiles and we took our leave. Back at the ranch we tested and were hovering around 415, which will need to be good enough for government work. I haven't tested the laptop yet.

Posted by petefredbob at 12:45 PM | Permalink

Easter week, known in these parts as Semana Santa, is probably the biggest holiday outside of Christmas, otherwise known as Navidad (Natal in Brazil). Last night, Thursday, the bar next door shut down and probably won't open again until Monday. You may have read in the news recently that Hugo Chavez shut the bars in his Catholic country down beginning at the end of last week. It strikes me as weird, an indigenous South American champion doing the bidding of the Vatican. But that's our boy Hugo. Karl Rove must be involved.

Yesterday I made all the windows on the second floor shut (more or less) correctly and gave them all latches to make them stay that way. The one problem window on the side needed to be turned inside out as years of bad construction and hinging and blowing in the wind had put it quite out of square. In this case my luck would have it that the hole in the wall more closely matched the reversed shape. There was much dangling of limbs. I've yet to devise a device to keep them open and discourage them from swinging and banging into things with the wind.

I also built my first screen frame, which for complicated reasons ultimately won't fit the window I made it for, but works perfectly for its opposite number across the room. All would seem to be going swimmingly, except for the aforementioned Semana Santa; in which not only are the bars closed for the long weekend anchoring the event, but most other businesses tend to be shuttered as well. Maybe I'll get some writing or research in this weekend.

Posted by petefredbob at 12:42 PM | Permalink

I learned the finer points of operating a Weedeater today, and as I kick back covered with detritus picking pieces of biological debris out of my pockets, I feel like a job well done. I reclaimed about a twenty by thirty portion of my back yard, though reclaim might be stretching it a bit. We'll just say I got down a level to the first layer of crap that people have been throwing out there for decades. Tomorrow is another day.

The water guys also finally showed up today and they seemed optimistic about the quality of the water. We found fish. Little ones about 2 and a 1/2 inches long swimming in our little canal. Added to the little crabs I found yesterday we can at least have a diverse aquarium going on, and the water is oxygenated and relatively clean. It could also mean we have an underground lake very close by, and if we find it, we gots plenty o' water.

The downside is that if we don't find it our seepage rate was only about 2 gallons an hour at our test hole (which consisted of sticking a plastic water bottle with its bottom cut off into the side of the hill). With a larger and deeper cistern it's good enough to get off the city grid, not good enough to bottle and sell. I'm betting on the lake, why not dream?

Broke it to the old landlord this morning that we were moving out and he took it relatively well. The electricians are already at work putting in the new breaker box, and tomorrow we'll get a new front door. Tomorrow we start off at the Do It Center to buy wood and screening and hinges and the like to attempt to 'bug proof' the upstairs living quarters. I prefer my bugs on the outside, thank you very much.

The odor from the fumigation two days ago has dissipated enough to make the place livable, so we can pretty much move in as soon as I get the screens installed and the windows squared up. After that it's back to the great outdoors and hauling gigantic pieces of wood off of the back forty and see if we can make them into a bar top.

Posted by petefredbob at 05:43 PM | Permalink

Sunday April first, and we're in a transition period. I'm writing this with my first cup of coffee at the old place but I'll post it from the new newly 'wired' place. Internet came to Petesville yesterday around 4 PM. As soon as they remove the rest of the huge wasp nest outside the second story window and fumigate the joint we'll start moving our things in. Probably tomorrow.

At the same time we'll get our first water test for the big problem/road to riches spring just a few yards away from the house, cost: $100. If we find it's not deadly other tests will follow, along with a geological survey about where exactly the water is coming from and what chance there is for it to be polluted in the future by runoff and other stuff. Today will likely see me with a machete or other such implement chopping flowers, weeds and tall grass from around the test area. They say there are no snakes in the grass but I've not had time to do my wildlife background check on the Panamanian highlands so I'll be keeping my eyes peeled all the same.

Our first contact after getting online yesterday was a Skype call from our friend John in Costa Rica. It's not that I have been ignorant of or haven't seen it before but the space age is here my friends. It was my first call with video, and it was free. I'll be hooking up the camera to the PC soon for it to be a two-way street and all that. My only advice would be to note: attend to what's in the background of the camera, and remember, if you're naked or otherwise disheveled, everyone can see you.

Posted by petefredbob at 01:10 PM | Permalink

Tired tonight. The water problem in the back isn't a broken pipe; it's a spring. Some creative solution is called for, including seeing if we can use the spring for our own water supply and going off the city grid or even going so far as to see if we could bottle it. That would be sweet, and I'll get a percentage if I can chase it down. Either way it's something that has to be isolated and dealt with before anything goes forward as far as construction is concerned.

The worst case solution would be digging a ditch and lining it with cement, which would be an incredible time waster, not to mention back breaker. If it's not one thing, it's another. Maybe we'll get lucky this time and be able to make a buck off of Mother Nature. I envision: Boquete Springs, Water from the Highlands of Panama, or some such drivel. One can dream.

Posted by petefredbob at 12:52 PM | Permalink

Been collecting entries for a couple-few days now and I don’t know when I'll be able to get around to posting. It's Friday morning and I just came back from a meeting with the electrician to add power and lay out the circuits. I'm eminently not ready but you take what you can get.

The lawyer for the landlord was there also we and went over what was legally necessary to operate under the existing permits, or patentes. We'll have to connect the buildings with some kind of structure to make the two buildings into one. This fits pretty well with what I had in mind anyway for a covered walkway directly to the back outdoor area.

Did a few sketches for the bar layout. The first ones were for fitting in the ideal workspace, then massaging the components. Now I have to figure out how to substitute those 'ideal' components for the equipment I already have.

Any tips or helpful hints from old-hand bartenders at this point would be welcome. Do's and don'ts, things to avoid at all costs, that sort of thing. At the moment from right to left I have the waitress station next to which is space for soiled glasses and trash. Next up is the 3-part bar sink followed by space for drying glasses. Then ice, cutting board with under counter trash receptacle, then the mixing station. The cash register next to that and then more space for glasses without stems and things I haven't figured out yet. Glasses with stems will be hanging from overhead.

Tips for the ideal setup of the mixing station would be most helpful.

Posted by petefredbob at 03:20 PM | Permalink

Did some dirt kicking today around the new place. Lots of work to be done but it feels good. The better half did some gardening and we filled a few trash bags with weeds. There's a hornet nest that has to go tomorrow, or as soon as I get some of that poison in a can that squirts reeeaaalll faaarrr. I hate those things.

I've come to accept in these parts that things aren’t square or finished construction wise, and I've made a mental list of moldings and other kinds of cover-ups that I'm going to need. I’m not going whole hog as it were, and I'm going to use a lot of bamboo to keep that rustic look, but there are certain things a man can't stand like crooked doors and windows. There will be sanding and painting and grout.

More outdoors work tomorrow as I hunt down an annoying water leak out back that's cramping my style. Can't have the mosquitoes giving the customers malaria now can we? That would be going a little too native for business. Names for the business have been coming and going as well. Today I considered going all 'Prince' on the place and just using a neon martini glass over the door. Could work. Hard to put up on a web page though.

Posted by petefredbob at 03:19 PM | Permalink

"That's quite an outfit you've got on there. Is that your 'good scout' uniform?" The guy was sitting next to Don, who runs the BBQ Pork/Japanese Curry concession off the main square. Tan on tan and a tan hat with drawstring held tight under his chin by a colorful bead, and a bordering here and there of native motifs in black and red and yellow.

On his collar was a gold 'dove of peace' pin that I remembered from my more spiritual, if not-quite religious days past, normally the sign of a good Christian. It seemed like a good opening line. "That's a hell of a thing to say to someone you've just met," he replied. I was momentarily at a lack of words.

Don had a big shit-eating grin on his face; I can't imagine what he was reading on mine. "Is that a 'girl scout' uniform? My goodness." A quick retraction/explanation was in order.

Amigos, off the main square in Boquete, is a key meeting place for gringos to swap tales and start rumors. I missed the weekly Tuesday gringo gabfest this week as the speaker was going to be talking about the benefits of 'massage,' as his business happens to be massage. As I'm acutely aware of the benefits of massage (of various quality and legality), and the fact that according to an email off the list-serve we now have "quantum energy healing sessions' available to 'heal the planet' (guided by the previous week's speaker, Heather Rose), I figured I would be better served by ensconcing myself at a table downtown and opening my ears.

My new landlord knows all the cops. After a busy day yesterday I needed to fork over another two hundred dollars to her to cover various deposits (rent, internet, phone, electricity, etc.) and I woke up quite late from a nap. Claudete called to see if she was still at the bar, she was. We dressed and wandered over there, did our business and as I stepped out the door to dispose of a cigarette I encountered one of the local gendarmes yakking on his cell phone. I nodded a greeting and retreated back inside. A few minutes later he came into the bar, we were introduced and started yakking up a storm. Don't ask me what exactly it was that we were talking about.

The gist of it all is that we, for better or for worse, are now officially linked/associated with one of the polarizing figures in town. The part that counts is that we shouldn't have many, if any, direct problems with the police.

We'll get the keys to the new place today, do a little cleanup and prep work, and maybe start to move some of our stuff on Saturday. I found out last night that our address is on Cemetery Road, which is kind of cool, and if we're still around on Halloween we'll have a 'Cocktails With The Dead Party' with a visit to our 'not so restful' neighbors to spook things up a bit.

Posted by petefredbob at 03:18 PM | Permalink

Busy day today even though I'm spending most of it at Amigos. Lease, phone, internet, gossip with gringos etc.

More tomorrow.

Oh yeah, paid on the car- five days to break-in.

Posted by petefredbob at 02:45 PM | Permalink

I got around to a couple of photos. Forgive me if you're looking for the picture postcard version of Boquete 'cause this ain't it, and that's why you have Google. The big camera has stayed in its bag and we'll get around to some of those eventually. These are more on a personal level.

First up the famous suicide shower:


You can see what an expert electrical job I did. That sucker is coming out when I leave so I don't have the guilty conscience of thinking I may have electrocuted a thrifty Central American family. Were I to be here more than another week or so I'd redo it, for now I'm just careful not to splash around much.

I don't know why but I just get a kick out of the fact that I'm living in a shack with a tin roof.


We're in the main room here looking toward the front of the house. Notice the sunlight trying to creep in through the little spaces between the top of the wall and the corrugated. Below that you'll see that modern convenience 'electricity' intruding into the rustic charm. For the roof panels we run the gamut from zinc coating (bottom of photo) which is ready to give up the ghost, to full on rust, to a paint job in blue which is showing signs of surrender to inevitable oxidation. Surprisingly, I've noticed not one leak throughout the entire structure.

On to Boquete. Here we see the clouds rolling in toward the end of the day over downtown.


We're looking north up the hill, the top of which is obscured at the moment. The trees at the left line the east side of the town square, the town's main road running along the west.

After a couple of days you'll notice the wind more than anything else. Toward sundown it picks up from the north, and hurls tiny little raindrops at your face. Right now we're at the cusp of the dry/wet seasons so more often than not I find myself walking uphill into the wind and rain to post.

To me one of the oddest things about Boquete is that the businesses for the most part haven't figured out that they need a windbreak of some sort for al fresco customers. I tend to smoke like a chimney whilst operating my computational contraption, so outside I am.

The fine and worthwhile La Montaña y el Valle The Coffee Estate Inn (where I stayed on my initial evening some weeks back) includes windbreaks alongside their outstanding cottages. These are a must in my book.

Bringing us to the new joint.


This quirky little place will house the most high falutin' bar this side of Hato de Volcan. It's back to Bartending School for me as I relearn the fine points of Whiskey Sours, Martinis and Manhattans, and Margaritas without that icky green mix.

The inside bottom floor has space for an intimate four or five tables plus the bar (I may do a booth or two), out back is a covered patio (which, of course, needs new covering) which can take six or so more. To the right side of the building (north) is lots of space to expand after the rainy season has passed. This is where the windbreaks will need to be. I'll be residing on the second story.

This is the turn off from the main road that heads into downtown Boquete.


My sign will be just below the one you see on the right hand side of the photo. I'll be needing to run an electric line of about 50 meters or so for illumination after dark, and it's going to be tricky as I'll have to run it under the road in front of my place and over a small bridge. This will take some balls and a bit of nighttime digging over the course of a few days to pull off. No one ever accused me of being right in the head.

This is the sign for the bar of my neighbor and landlady. She has a thing for tigers.


As a matter of fact there are about half a dozen more painted tigers adorning her place inside and out, and a couple of skins on the walls:


Her name for the place is Recuerdos, which means memories or remembrances in a nostalgic sense. I suggested a change to Los Tigres or something along those lines. She was not seeing it.

The place is pretty cool in a Hollywood movie-Mexican cantina kind of way. You'll find all sorts of interesting characters haunting the joint and you can find a fight if you want one; though the bartenders will discourage you. At night it's dark inside and a bottle of beer is 50 cents. I don't recommend asking for mixed drinks. The 'café' noted on the sign means there is a Nescafé automatic coffee machine, not food. And for the record: she is armed.

This guy chewed our ear off for about fifteen minutes one day so I figured I'd make him semi-famous.


I don't remember his name (it was difficult for gringo ears) but he was all excited about the time he won big at the casino in David. I'm pretty sure the money is gone.

Posted by petefredbob at 12:53 PM | Permalink

Got an agreement in principle today with my new prospective landlord. I'll write up a list of 'needs' tonight and we'll meet again tomorrow and hash out details. I wrote a bunch of crap this morning that even I am too embarrassed to publish, so this is it before the rain sets in at Amigos.

Posted by petefredbob at 04:43 PM | Permalink

Spent the morning discussing the pros and cons of the next location. The place is two stories, the second story accessible only from an outside staircase, which would be the living space. It has an area in front for outside tables and it close to one of the branches of the river. It's just off the main road into town and has a sign on the corner.

Landscaping and a windbreak would be in the cards and I would have a free hand to do what I want. We have to check internet availability and install 220 volts, but that shouldn't be a problem.

The cons include: The Panamanian woman who owns the joint also has a bar and mini-supermarket next door. The bar doesn't do well for a number of obvious reasons (to me anyway) and she wants help. It's actually a great location and space, but my girlfriend had to be dragged there at night because there is barely enough light to navigate to the place.

We'll have a sit-down tonight and see what's what.

Posted by petefredbob at 03:48 PM | Permalink

Found another wifi hotspot at a joint called Amigos right off the main square. I'd have been a regular customer from day one if they'd have had a sign. At the moment I'm outside in a light drizzle as the new anti-smoking laws are little understood and differently applied. Amigos is a bar and grill, which means it can allow smoking at the area around the bar if it wants, and, after seeing a woman puffing away I lit up and asked for an ashtray. He rolled his eyes and said 'house rules' were no smoking inside. I pointed out the woman; the waiter got the ashtray.

I figured I wouldn't be an asshole and refrained from smoking another for 25 minutes when I felt the need to ask the waiter what the normal wait for a hamburger was. He didn't take the hint so I lit up another. The burger was pretty good for Boquete.

But after going home for the computer to take advantage of the free wifi I'd probably better not continue to offend, so in the rain I am.

Good news bad news segment: The place I'm in has been turned down before by the city for commercial use for a number of reasons. But I have another place where I don't have to file for a business license or do anything but put it together and go. It has its own problems, but no more than the place I'm in now. The rain is really cramping my style at the moment so I'm packing it in. More tomorrow.

Posted by petefredbob at 06:59 PM | Permalink

Gringofest was interesting. In a break from nuts and bolts discussions of real estate and building techniques and whatnot we got to explore our chakras and learn that Deepak Chopra is a quantum physicist. I recognized a couple of people, got sucked into buying tickets to this weekend's local players' production of 'Boeing Boeing' for five bucks a pop and picked up From Russia With Love in paperback for a buck. There was a guided journey, which I missed, as I instead cracked open the Bond novel and had a smoke out on the lawn instead.

Our lovely redheaded speaker relocated from the "vortex" of Ojai, California to the more gentle vibes in Boquete and from the question and answer session seems to have rounded up a couple of 'clients' at the meeting. Good show. Um, there is a reason we're here (in Boquete, no less) and we're creating our own universe and all that. I chickened out at the last minute to ask her "what do we do if the forces of darkness are arrayed against us?"

The mujer is in a mood after her latest meeting with the alcalde. She's not talking yet so I'll have to wait and see what went down.

Posted by petefredbob at 11:17 AM | Permalink

It's been an interesting couple of days. Yesterday I heard and then saw a couple of guys right outside my front window, which inspired me to run and get some clothes on. It seems the landlord misread the cutoff date on the electric bill. After some good-natured Central American mis-directions, I finally found the electric company not five hundred meters from my house and paid the past due bill plus a reconnect charge. They assured me service would be restored the same day.

I waited until six before calling to find out that 8PM was to be the designated plug in time, so we went out to get some grub. Lunch had been cooking on our little two-burner electric hotplate contraption, and the pot of beans was left on it. We returned around 8:30 to a funny smell.

When the electric assassins came we had called over the landlord with the bill in hand, wherein we encountered the bad news. After they left we had a sit-down with him and told him of our situation with the alcalde. As our rental agreement calls for the building's use as a business, if it's not ultimately approved the contract is broken. He agreed immediately go see the mayor.

He came back empty-handed except for an appointment this morning, again at 7:30, the results of which I'm waiting for as I write. However, another turn of events has made me hope for a negative outcome. The other day I stopped at one of the local markets not far from the house and ran into a woman I recognized as my neighbor. Turns out that the market belongs to her, as well as the adjacent bar and a few other outlying buildings.

Boquete is in every sense a small town where everybody knows everybody's history. She asked what I was paying in rent, immediately called my landlord a thief, and proceeded to show me superior location for a hundred dollars less per month. I filed the info, thanked her and came home to fill in the better half. The next day they got together and did the girl thing.

The lowdown is this: Being that the building she wants to rent to me is on the same property as her bar and market, we don't need the mayor's approval or any additional licensing. She's a local, owns an ungodly amount of property, carries a .357 magnum in her truck (she could barely hold the thing and it would likely knock her on her ass if she ever fired it) and has four rottweilers to keep her company. Rumor has it that she shot her ex and got away with it and is very friendly with the local police.

Bottom line is I save a lot of time and money and am virtually immune from any political shenanigans. Of course I get a certifiable landlord, but then that's all part of the fun, is it not? Now I'm off to the Tuesday morning gringo-fest to see what else I can dig up.

Still waiting on news of the car.

Posted by petefredbob at 11:15 AM | Permalink

It's the Sunday after St. Patrick's Day and the little woman is getting ready to head to David to waste some money at the local casino. There's a fair in David as well so the city should be hopping. Not one to get excited about gambling save for two or three times a year, nor do I much like David as a place of exceptional entertainment, I get a free day to indulge in as much or as little as I like.

I ran into a gringo at The Bistro yesterday whilst enjoying a little post lunch dessert who pointed me to a weekly Tuesday meeting of expatriates at one of the local hotels. 'Pete' lives in the capital and comes to Boquete once a year to enjoy the climate and hook up with old friends. Him and his wife and daughter were big on Panama City and Casco Viejo in particular.

The Tuesday meeting apparently consists of a speaker of some sort followed by networking with the 'been there done that' crowd. This week is supposed to be a woman speaking on holistic health stuff or some new-agey thing. It sometimes seems you can never leave the left coast.

The weather is gorgeous and it's heading towards noon so I'm off to some leisurely internet surfing and to upload today's missive at the outdoor café. Tchau.

Posted by petefredbob at 10:57 AM | Permalink

The internet connection went away twice yesterday which kind of broke things up a bit. The scuttlebutt about the alcalde doesn't sound good, and as this is a small town everybody knows everybody else's business. We'll wait it out a bit and see what happens, and see what happens with the car as well. At this point I'm jonesing for a ride to the capital where all the action is.

Other rumor is that our 'second choice building' is owned by a big gringo developer here, and that he's fixin' to tear it down and put up a new one. We've got some time to hang out and we're not wedded to the place. I'd hate to commit to something and have to endure the rainy season if it goes to shit.

Posted by petefredbob at 01:18 PM | Permalink

Friday, and to the commenter who asked for pictures, I'll get there in a couple of days.

Just came from a meeting with my new lawyer and I have new hope. I just may get the car back by the end of next week. There is a festival in David this weekend which means nobody works Monday, which means some work may get done Tuesday.

My meeting was at 11 AM, which is the time the alcalde was supposed to show up at the house. Having been blown off yesterday again, Claudete showed up at his office at 7 AM this morning and waited two hours to give him another ration. She came home around 9:30 only slightly dejected.

It's coming up on noon and figured I'd upload yesterday's trash and check the email. Be right back.

OK, JP emails what do I think I'll name the place? The first toss up was 'Dos Bichitos," or Dos Bichitos y un 'Pato.' The dos bichitos would be me and my better half, the 'pato,' or duck, is an inside joke. But we've ditched the pato and are now thinking Dos Bichitos' Last Chance Café.

The 'focus' if you will is an emphasis on fresh juices and adult beverages plus some comfort food from the US in a bastardized Tiki Bar style. I'm thinking coconut shells for piña coladas and the like.

Back. Lost the connection just after that, and since I've gotten back on (5PM) my server decided to stop responding.

The alcalde never showed and it looks like we're being stonewalled for sure. The big deal is in using this property for a business, which it probably hasn't been used for before. We'll now look at two other places.

Lost the connection again.

Posted by petefredbob at 04:06 PM | Permalink

The day so far: I've given up on the lawyer who is the boyfriend (for one and a half years) of the girl who works at the Internet/computer place and also the tchotchke store and called a real lawyer. I think. I have an appointment for tomorrow with Senora Pinzan at 11 AM.

A local taxi driver friend has taken it upon himself to act as a sort of go-between for the mechanic and me. He called this morning after having talked to Don Roberto once again, and we seem to be getting to the point of negotiations where everything is all a big misunde