Our hotel offered a “jungle walk” on the grounds behind the hotel. Rick and I tried twice to take it but it was cancelled because of the heavy rain we’d had the day before. I couldn’t understand why they would cancel because of rain. That is, I didn’t understand until I finally took the walk. Then I understood just fine.

Somehow I had envisioned a somewhat flat walk on a decent trail around the base of the hill/mountain behind the hotel. I should have known that in Panama nothing is flat. It’s either up the side of a mountain or flights of stairs.

Walks were offered at 10:00 a.m. or 3:00 p.m. Claire and I decided to try for the 3:00 p.m. walk after our walk on the beach. Weather permitting, of course, and in Panama at this time of year we soon learned that the sky can open up and pour rain at just about any time of day, but mostly in the afternoon. We got lucky because when we showed up pool side to meet our guide he told us we would go ahead and do the walk even though the sky looked a bit threatening. We told him our main goal was to see a sloth in its native habitat and hoped that would be possible. We doused ourselves with insect repellent, grabbed a couple of water bottles and off we went.

My first clue should have been the machete our guide was carrying. Hmmm ... is he going to have to chop our way through the jungle?

The trail started up (of course) over rain-slick rotting vegetation. Now I see why the trail could become treacherous from being too slippery. At least it had dried out enough from yesterday’s downpour to make hiking easier but you still had to watch where you were walking. The mosquitoes were thick once we entered the jungle. It was very hot and very humid. Within minutes of walking I was drenched with sweat. My clothes were sticking to me and my hair was plastered to my head. I could feel the heat in my face and knew that it had turned bright red from the heat and exertion. Claire and I both looked at each other and decided it was a good thing no one else could see us just then. Yikes. At one point our guide offered me more bug spray and I said I didn’t think I needed it, that they were leaving me alone. He and Claire both started laughing and swatted away a mosquito that had just landed on my cheek. I put more on after that.

Before we had gone very far our guide stopped and was looking into the dense vegetation on the side of the trail. Sloth! he said and started swinging his machete, making a trail through the tangle of plants. Claire and I looked at each other, shrugged, and followed him. I was starting to feel like I was in some kind of Indiana Jones movie. He continued to chop at the plants, but no sloth. A few minutes later, close to the same spot, we found this: fast asleep, high up in the tree—a sloth at last. Can you find it?

Our guide shook the tree until we thought it would pull itself out by the roots and still the sloth slept on, oblivious to his shaking perch. There was no waking this guy up from his nap. If you have trouble seeing it in the photo above, I’ve highlighted it in the next photo. You can see it isn’t even hanging on to the tree with one arm, which is flung outward. You can see the nails on its front leg and also on the back leg that is wrapped around the branch. That was one dead-to-the-world sloth.

It rained a little bit but it didn’t matter because we were already wet from sweat. I had to put my camera under my shirt at one point but it was only a drizzle.

A lone pineapple plant!

The trail got very steep at one point and I had to force myself to go on. I have been battling rib and stomach muscle injuries since the winter and had not been getting any type of exercise at all while I tried to get everything to heal. So, I was out of shape and afraid to make anything worse. I could feel every steep step in my gut. Do you realize how much you depend on your stomach muscles to climb?

Further up the trail and close to the top of the mountain our guide found another sloth. This time he was able to get it to move by smacking the trees with his machete, and as the sloth changed trees we had a great view of it. This series of photos shows pretty much how slow it was moving as each frame is a move.

It finally found a spot where it could settle back in and continue its nap!

Cute! I had always heard sloths were dirty and smelly animals but this particular sloth looked very clean. Just look at the length of all that hair! They are a lot bigger than I expected too. This one when all stretched out was probably as long as I am tall.

We saw a few more along the trail, but just as gray looking balls hanging in trees. All the sloths were saw were of the two-toed variety, our as our guide called them “white-faced.” He told us the three-toed sloths have a dark face and can be very aggressive when disturbed. I wondered how aggressive could a sloth really get?

Claire was out in front at one point and saw a small, brown animal run across the trail—twice! I didn’t see it and neither did our guide but he said he was pretty sure what it was. We didn’t recognize what he was trying to tell us it was though. Mystery animal. We saw lots of vultures sitting in trees and ant hills full of fire ants. We didn’t see any snakes or scorpions or any other kind of creepy crawly things. A group of monkeys with babies on their backs were a welcome sight. Can you see the baby hanging on?

From time to time our guide would use his machete on plants and vines that had started to encroach into the trail. It doesn’t take long for the jungle to start reclaiming its territory.

There were several nice view points along the way overlooking our hotel far below and one to the distant skyline of Panama City. I have no idea why I didn’t take a photo of the view, but after going through my photos I didn’t find any. I think I just got tired of switching between the telephoto and my normal lens.

We also saw several morpho butterflies along the trail. Sorry, no photos as they were there one minute and gone the next. Kind of like being visited by a medium-sized blue bird—they are huge. Absolutely gorgeous! You almost felt as if you had been blessed after they flew by.

We heard a noise kind of similar to a frog croaking and our guide stopped us to have a listen to what he said was a toucan! Such a strange sound! We never did get a look at it before it flew off. Too bad. I’d loved to have seen one.

There were some strange and very large trees along the way like these orange-barked ones. Our guide called them “stomach trees.” When he thumped on the tree with his fist you could hear that it was hollow. The natives used them for making dugout canoes. They had a strange root structure too, like gnarly fingers gripping the ground.

The walk took almost two hours and I can tell you we were ready to hit the showers! We cleaned up our mud-spattered shoes and legs at an outside faucet before entering the hotel grounds, tipped our guide for being such a great sloth-wrangler, and headed to our rooms. I can tell you that air conditioning and a cool shower have never felt so good! Hiking in the tropics is not a glamorous thing. Would I do it again? You bet!

Here are Sweetie and Charlie, resident parrots at the Hostal Casa San Francisco where we ate two delicious meals.

We leave Granada now for Panama. I made these notes on my iPad regarding the things I will remember about Granada.

The morse code of the bells in the church tower that we never could figure out.

The clip-clop of the horses’ hooves from the horse-drawn carriage and carts.

The smell of wood smoke.

The occasional startling firework being set off around the square.

People hawking their wares: cashews, tours, ceramics, hand-embroidered aprons, various forms of artwork.

My little old lady with her food cart.

And last but not least, the noisy birds in the square in the evenings and mornings. (I am attaching a video here that was taken from our balcony so you can experience them for yourself!)

 

 

 

The beautiful Catedral anchors the busy and boisterous Parque Central, or town square. It was a pleasure to look out at its sunny yellow façade from our hotel balcony. Here it is as seen from different angles.

Horse-drawn carriages lined the street in front of the park and right underneath our balcony. We tried to pick the best cared for horses when we took our carriage ride around the city as some were not as healthy looking.

They shared the streets with buses and cars pretty seamlessly.

The square was filled with vendors selling food, souvenirs and handicrafts. Every morning they were set up from scratch and taken down at day’s end.

My favorite, of course, was the elderly woman with her food stand. We are still not quite sure what it was she was selling and we were really tempted to try it, but it contained a lot of salad or some kind of raw slaw and that’s a classic no-no when visiting a third-world country. No street food! Plus we did watch her pick things up from the ground a few times and then serve food. Whatever it was, she served it in a neat banana leaf packet. Lots of white rice, some salad on top and lord knows what else. Many people ate it for breakfast. Here she is dressing the salad/slaw.

Every bowl had to be ‘just so’  in a certain position, her banana leaves stacked by the big bowl of rice (she also used a banana leaf to stir the rice), along with all of her other ingredients. We mostly watched her setting up her food stall, but one day we managed to be on our balcony when she was leaving for the day. Unlike the morning where she presided over the setting up, in the afternoon she strolled off clasping the hand of what appeared to be her small granddaughter, leaving the taking down of the stall to the same crew that brought all her things to her in the morning. Here is the cart being loaded up at the end of the day.

It was such a wonderful peek into the daily lives of real people. It’s one of my favorite things about the entire trip.

Here is our hotel as viewed from the square. Our balcony is the one partially obscured by the tree.

The only drawback to our room on the square were the noisy birds the guidebook calls “jackdaws.”  These birds nested in the trees in the square and woke up very early in the morning, squawking and generally making a great deal of noise. It was impossible to sleep through! Every night as the sun was setting it was the same thing all over again as they settled in for the night. Kind of endearing though in an strange way.

Everything in Granada is colorful (the subject of yet another blog post.) If you look closely you will see that the car in the background is the same color as the table and chairs.

I loved the bicycle in the fountain in this shot. This color of green is very popular as the photo of the table above was taken on the opposite of the park from this one.

 

Next entry: Granada, Nicaragua: From the Bell Tower

New Green. Nothing really comes close color-wise in my opinion Crayola should have it as one of their colors.

I call these tree caterpillars. I don’t know what kind of trees they are, possibly elms, but they are messy when they drop and they look exactly like caterpillars.

When the forsythia party is over there is nothing left but yellow confetti.

The other day the blue jays decided to come en masse to the feeding area. I think at one time I counted around 14. See how many you can find in this photo and don’t forget to look in the bushes and the tree. They are beautiful birds!

We had a few “firsts” this weekend. The first time the yard was mowed and the first hummingbird to arrive! I think this little guy is early since it’s been so cold so far this year. Yet, there he sat on the clothesline announcing his arrival and waiting patiently for his feeder to be hung out. Do you think the same birds return year after year? How else would he know where the feeder should be?

Before the yard mowing I managed to snap the wild violets growing in one area of the front yard. I love violets and I love that they grow in my yard!

And with the yard mowing came a delightful find! Morels!!!! And growing in a spot we never thought to look for them, right alongside the edging to the back yard. Remember my “Morel of the Story” post a few years back? If not, I think you should take the time to follow the link and read it! We haven’t seen morels since that year so we were really excited.

While Rick was mowing the front yard I heard the mowing stop and went to see what the problem was. Rick was off the tractor and walking toward me with more morels! These were growing right in the grass in the front yard!

We froze some them and a few went into our risotto. Delicious!

I know they look ugly but they are as yummy as they are ugly!

For the next few days my mind will be whirling with all I have to do to get ready to leave on Thursday for our trip to Nicaragua and Panama! I am not ready!!!

Spring is taking its sweet time this year. Everything is lagging behind thanks to our cooler than normal rainy weather. The trees are just afraid to leaf out! Some progress is being made however.

The daffodils were pretty as usual but are fading a bit now.

The forsythia is really lovely this year. You may remember that last year we had our large front hedge of forsythia taken out. I miss it, but Rick says he doesn’t. Now we just have three pretty bushes scattered throughout the yards.

I cut some branches and brought them inside to light up my day. Sam likes them too!

I wish the lilac would hurry up and bloom! It’s looked like this for two weeks now. If it waits until we are gone on our trip late next week I’ll be really disappointed! This shot was taken with the forsythia bush behind.

The periwinkle is blooming nicely in the front yard.

A row of hostas have broken ground and are growing daily.

We’ve had plenty of birds visiting the feeder. Normally we don’t have purple finches but right now we have several pairs. I think they are prettier than the house finch. You can tell the difference by their coloring which is more a rosy pink than the red of the house finch, the streaking and their slightly different body shape and size.

Lots of these cute little chipping sparrows too. Doesn’t he look like he’s wearing a toupee on his head?

Of course we have lots of bright yellow gold finches. I love these little birds!

The white-throated sparrows don’t come to the feeder but they do come to the front where I spread seed on the ground for the squirrels and chippies. They have a distinctive yellow streak by their eye, and a lovely easy to identify song.

At times there are so many different bird songs riding on the air that it’s hard to hear yourself think! I am not complaining though! I love them all.

And here is Alex just because I think he’s so darned cute. He was laying on the front porch while Rick washed Mia yesterday and found this tiny little stick that he’s holding between his paws.

More rain expected today but at least this week we’re supposed to have temperatures in the 70’s. That just might lure the trees into really popping those leaves!

Bird Addendum added late afternoon: My first rose-breasted grosbeak arrived this morning! I hope to get a better photo of him if he sticks around long enough. They usually just pass through. I think it looks like it has a bleeding heart on its chest. Beautiful birds, but then again, grosbeaks are one of my all-time favorite bird families.

And a house finch for comparison to Mr. Purple Finch.