Inspired

Eternal Spring

Last weekend found us lounging on this patio with friends who winter in Playa Coronado, just outside of Panama City.  The temperatures are HOT here, so a pool and outside living area (with fans) are appreciated. 

 

On Monday we flew north to David which is just a half hour (by car) from the Costa Rican border and then drove an hour up into the highlands through beautiful, winding roads, ending up at the end of the road in the small village of Guadalupe.  This village is in a steep and hilly agricultural area that’s been reclaimed from the jungle and I think almost anything would grow here.  Everyone…and I mean everyone…around here grows flowers. 

The gardens are overflowing with flowers and most homes have a sign out front saying “Se Venden Plantas” Plants for Sale, as well as having a beautiful, riotous hodgepodge of flowers in their own gardens.  There are floral hedges by the roads, flowers hanging in baskets, flowers in pots, flowers growing on vines and flowers in trees with aerial roots. 

It’s all very informal and natural.  I’m sure you could cut off a piece of a geranium here, throw it out, and come back in a few weeks to find it rooted and blooming!  Even the fence posts, which are limbs cut from trees and stuck in the ground, are sprouting and growing into living fences.  This area has a beautiful climate and in fact the next valley over is called “the Garden Valley” or “The Valley of Eternal Spring” and has expats settling there in droves.

The Angel Trumpet is highly poisonous and grows everywhere here.  This one is hanging over the fence at our lodge. 

And these two very business like geese, patrol the property where we’re staying and let me tell you, you don’t want to cross them!  They really do mean business. 

We’re right on the edge of the jungle where many puma (and snakes??) are living and there’s nothing like a squawking goose to alert you to night intruders!

 

The local dresses are long and colourful.  The woman on the left had a shawl wrapped around her shoulders with an infant wrapped up and asleep in her arms.

And I haven’t even mentioned the birds yet…there are many, many species here and the lodge draws “birders” from all over the world.  Most are in search of the famous but illusive Quetzal bird of Central America.  Needless to say, we haven’t seen one yet! (but we have seen at least 5 or 6 varieties of hummingbirds while sitting on our deck).

If you made it this far, thank for your patience with my “holiday slideshow”!  We’re doing a lot of relaxing here but also venturing out to explore the area on foot which is quite an accomplishment if you look at the hills in the second photo!  Today after a massage, I went out for a walk and ended up eating fresh strawberries and cream at a local fruit stand! 

Hmmm, I think I’ll be signing up for the early morning birding hike tomorrow, which is another vertical climb!

Selfie

 

Last week’s challenge at Lens-Us-Together was to take a photograph of ourselves…that part  was fairly easy, although without a timer you’re relying on the “outstretched arm shot” that somehow never flatters.  What’s up with that anyway…is it the angle?  The difficult part for most, was actually posting it for the rest of the group to see…no more anonymity!

I’ve been posting photographs of myself for a few years now because I’ve always felt it somehow makes it easier to relate to other bloggers if I know who they are…they become real to me and it feels more personal.  It wasn’t easy though and at first I did the “camera in front of my face” shot and then the “cropping it to show just a portion of my face” shot, but finally thought “what the heck” and decided to just put it out there.

So here I am, untouched except for a filter to take out some of the sunburn on my skin (in my hotel room in Panama City) getting ready to go out for a day of exploring.  My nose is sunburned and my hair is frazzled from 5 weeks of the sun beating down on it.  My wrinkles are getting more numerous by the day, my roots are starting to “show” and  my freckles have “popped out” big time but…hey, I’m smiling!  I’m happy.  I’m a happy, happy camper!  I’m taking life as it comes.  I’m learning to live in the present moment and the present moment is pretty darn good….and that’s good enough for me.

(We arrived yesterday, into the mountains of northern Panama, very close to the Costa Rican border.  The weather is perfect here…not too hot and not too cold…the birds are colourful and numerous and the flowers are…well, just what you’d expect in a jungle...stunning.  For the benefit of family and friends, I’ll post more photo’s in a day or two!)

Blessings of the moment to each of you!

(still) Heading South…

The night before we left Mexico we had a great Valentines party hosted by the owners of our hotel complete with Mariachi band and the timing was absolutely perfect…it was a great way for us to say farewell to the country.  Monday morning we were in the air and on our way to Panama. 

Panama City has been quite a surprise.  It’s not at all what I though it would be like although I’m not sure what I was expecting…if anything I thought it would be more like Mexico or Guatemala, but it’s not…not at all!

Me in Pan-hatten!

It’s a modern and becoming-more-prosperous-by-the-hour kind of city. We’ve been told that although the world recession has slowed the country’s incredible economic growth somewhat, it is still growing.  Retirees from North America and Europe are moving here to take advantage of the low cost of living and great tax enticements offered by the government.  Medical tourism is also booming since John Hopkins University entered into a joint project with Punta Pacifica Hospital in Panama City.  Surgery can be done here for an average of 50 to 70 percent less than what’s charged in the US.

In the city itself there are skyscrapers popping up everywhere (including a Trump Tower) and in contrast, there’s the beautiful old area called Casco Viejo with it’s traditional colonial Spanish architecture, which has been declared a World Heritage Site.  This area is under restoration and currently being redeveloped into high end apartments, restaurants and hotels.  The canal is in the process of being expanded to bring twice as much traffic through and that alone brings a lot of wealth to the country. It was only returned to Panama by the US in 1999.

We’ve been having fun since we arrived…and not just in the city.  Yesterday we traveled by dug out canoe up the Chagres river to an Embera village to learn about their history and culture.

They shared a meal with us and tattooed Bob’s arm…a temporary one done with the dye of the Jagua fruit.

We learned all about the beautiful woven baskets that the women make; they bleach the shredded palm leaves, dye them with natural vegetable dyes and then bury those that they want to be black, in the river mud…but only on a full moon.  It can take up to three months to make one of the smaller, finer baskets.

It was a great day, traveling up the river and and then hiking up to a waterfall in the jungle.

 

And of course there was the Canal…we couldn’t miss that! 

Today we had lunch at a beautiful resort on Gaton Lake which is actually a part of the Panama Canal and saw lots of wildlife…crocodiles, monkeys and even a sloth who was just “hanging around”.

 

(Pierce Bronson danced on this deck (where we lunched) in the movie The Tailor of Panama!

Tomorrow we rest and then we’re off to visit friends who winter at a beach resort about an hour west of Panama city.  The fun continues!

Blessings to you dear friends…thanks for joining me on my travels!

Sweetness

This weeks theme at Lens-Us-Together was “sweetness”.  The photograph above was taken today at the stall of a candy vendor at a street market in Las Barras.  The cellophane bags of candy were full of colourful sweetness.

I’m writing this while listening to a ten man mariachi band play on the beach below me.  There’s a Valentine’s party nearby and the fireworks are just beginning.  It’s a beautiful warm evening and yes, just perfect for the “romantico” celebrations of love…but there’s so much more to love than this…

…each and every day…is LOVE DAY! 

One of the best ways to open our hearts and allow the flow of love into our lives is to have an animal companion.  I’m missing Molly’s sweet love while I’m away but I know she’s well looked after.  We’re very fortunate in that Molly has another set of loving “parents” who share her love while we’re away traveling.  Even when we’re at home she visits for frequent “sleep-overs”!  It works for everyone, especially Molly!

I send sweet blessings to all my dear bloggie friends, whether I “know” you or not and if I don’t…please say hello, I’d love to meet you!

Clouds, Rain, Wind…Sunshine, Bliss…and Clouds Again

Last week we had the storm to end all storms…

…or at least it seemed that way at the time!  I was told by a local that we had more rain in a day than they have through the summer rainy season. 

We had incredible winds – up to 70 miles an hour.  I wondered if the glass in our windows was going to blow in!

A circus tent blew down, a man was killed and a tiger escaped.  Really!

The State of Nyarit, (where we are) had snow for the first time ever…EVER.

Central Mexico (Mexico City, San Miguel Allende, Guanajato) which are desert areas and rarely have rain in the winter, have had flooding that resulted in many deaths.

Yes, it's been wild.

But eventually the rain stopped and the sun came out to dry everything out. This is the little town that we walk to every day for shopping and occasionally, for lunch and it’s looking very lush right now.  Usually at this time of year, everything is covered in a thick layer of dust. 

 

When the sun came out we travelled to Punta Raza for the day, a deserted beach just a few miles south of us.

This lovely lady and her husband made lunch for a group of us in their outdoor kitchen.  We ate a beautiful meal under the shade of a palapa, overlooking the ocean.

You can even stay here...in this circular tower room.  Your peace is ensured, as they have no electricity…none at all.

 

There are artistic touches everywhere…this mosaic of broken plates and tiles is located beneath the bar at the outdoor kitchen

and this one is outside the bathroom.

This beautiful bench is an invitation to sit and enjoy the views or stop and rest on the climb up from the beach.

There is no phone or internet or power of any kind here.  It’s truly a little piece of heaven.  And in fact, that’s exactly what it’s called.

Sadly, it may not stay this way for long, as a large corporation has bought almost all of the land behind the beach with the intention of building a resort.  It’s now fenced off with a full time guard in attendance.

We’re back to clouds with more rain forecast for later this week.  It doesn’t bother us though as it’s still warmer than home and we know that when we hit Panama next week…with it’s very high temperatures and it's equally high humidity…we’ll be longing for a cooler day or two (or three or four or five!).

And that was the story of my week.

Blessings to all of you my friends,

Love – Lens-us-Together

The heart was drawn by my husband on a deserted beach at Punta Raza, Nayarit, Mexico, February 05, 2010.  The theme this week at Lens-Us-Together is, appropriately…love.

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”

Jalal ad-Din Rumi

This quote needs no explanation, but there is so much truth…so very much truth…to it, that it has always been especially meaningful to me.  I had it framed and hung by my bathroom mirror for several years so that I would see it and read it each and every day.

Blessings of self-love to all of you, dear friends.

Catching Up

taken January 31, 2010 

It’s hard to believe that we’ve moved through January already and ready or not, February is upon us.  January was an intense month for many and from what I’ve heard from friends who know about ‘energy’ and how it effects us in seemingly unseen ways, it was about clearing out the old to make way for the new as well as awakening the global heart.  And it certainly did that, as the outpouring of love and caring for the suffering in Haiti was unprecedented.  The world stepped up to the plate and responded with great compassion.

I’ve decided that the less I do, the more tired I get…seriously.  I’m sleeping more than I have in months and other than walking to town and back almost daily (a half hour each way with lunch/coffee/cold drink and shopping thrown in at our destination) I don’t do anything even remotely strenuous…unless you consider walking up to the 3rd floor of the hotel six or seven times a day strenuous, but I think that might be stretching it.

Maybe when we’re on high speed for a long time and then stop…suddenly stop…there’s a lot of catching up to do.  If that’s the case, I’m happy to report that I’m catching up a lot.  I do the occasional page in my art journal, I read, I chat, and I lie in the shade.  I don’t even spend much time on the internet as page hopping is difficult with the intermittent wireless.

The plus side of this is that I’m meditating/breathing daily.  I followed Jan at Awake is Good throughout January for her 28 day meditation challenge.  It was a very down to earth and supportive experience and helpful with keeping the momentum rolling.

and on a completely different note…

this short video was sent to me today…I found it interesting and thought you might too.  It’s of Jim Carrey talking candidly about his spiritual awakening to an audience of GATE  filmmakers (Global Alliance for Transformational Entertainment).

(I'm having difficulty posting links and editing so I apologize if this post is a little rough around the edges.  I'm also having trouble leaving comments on your blogs too as I get dropped off the internet frequently...but I do visit!)

Thanks for visiting dear friends,

Warm and happy blessings to each of you.