Check out the waves at the infamous Santa Catalina

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  Santa Catalina, Panama
Monday, March 10, 2008

Whew! Another day of traveling. We ended up traveling from Boca Brava with a German girl, now living in  Seattle.
So we all landed in Santa Catalina in the early evening. We had the bus drop us off near Punta Brava Lodge. It indeed does have  dramatic sea  views.  It is set  atop a cliff where  you can sit and watch the waves  come crashing in against the  hill.  But that's about all it had going for it. Due to it being late in the day, we did stay here a night. Our German friend thought it was pricey , which it was for $40 a night, and chose to go to a surf camp hostel.  From our room, we could see the ocean and the big waves. However the room was creepy and dirty.

That evening Fred and I say on the grass at the cliff's edge, and enjoyed a bottle of beer and watched the sunset. After riding buses all day, sitting quietly and listening to the waves come rolling in, was delightful

Waves at Santa Catalina

.  We watched the sky change colors as the sun decended lower toward the horizon. It was very romantic. The next morning, we watched several surfers catch their perfect wave and ride it in. Surfing looks like so much fun.

Fred and I took our backs and walked down the road into the town of Santa Catalina. We decided to "upgrade" our dwelling for the next night.  We found La Vida Buena on the main street just a couple blocks from the beach. Lots of tile and mosaics and character. Michele and Michael, from Kodiak, Alaska own it. Michael used to be a fisherman in Alaska and they moved down and bought land 3 years ago. They have built themselves a small house, which will later be rented out, after they build their home high up on their land, with a sea view. There is a 2 story casita, which was being worked on and a single story "Butterfly" casita, which we rented at $55 a night. This was the most expensive place we stayed on our trip, but very, very nice. The butterfly motif was carried on throughout, with a butter fly mirror, pillow cases, door handles, etc. It had a private outside shower in the back of the casita, complete with privacy shower curtain. You could feel the ocean breeze while you were showering and in the heat of the day, it felt marvelous.  I loved it.  Guess an outside shower wouldn't work as well up in Tijeras, but in the tropics, I think it's a great idea.

I enjoyed walking along, the beach, watching the surfers and looking for seashells. Great seashells in this area. In the afternoon, once the area next to our casita became shady, there was a local baseball game. There was a primitive backstop, complete with netting and an umpire, but the ump also took a turn at bat.  There were some good young hitters

Sunset #1 at Punta Boca Brava Lodge

. Michele said a 17 year old from Santa Catalina, has made it to the minor league in Chitre. Panama takes their baseball seriously.

There was a very tall guava tree that created much of the shade to play baseball by, near our casita. While the baseball game was in play, there were young 8-10 year old boys climbing, very high indeed, into the tree to pick the guava pods. They look like a large green bean, then you eat the black guava inside. The boy up in the tree said, "muchacha" and tossed me down a guava. Fred tried it but I didn't take a chance. 

Later that evening, we walked probably 3/4 of a mile to Jammin Pizza, a popular outside pizza place with wood oven pizza. We ran into our German traveling lady friend, who said the surf camp hostel where she stayed, had cockroaches that came to visit her in the night. I guess here, you get what you pay for.

I had a bit of a migraine so didn't have any alcohol, but we enjoyed a vegetarian pizza. I started to feel better, but then within 15 minutes began to feel very sick. Fred walked me home and I had a very difficult time getting home. I didn't quite make it home before I vomited the pizza. Eeeewww!

Felt much better in the morning. So off we go to our next destination. This time we are going to visit the old Spanish portion of Panama, the province of Los Santos.

 

Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures

Sunset#2 at Punta Brava Lodge	Surfer waves at Santa Catalina	View from the porch at Punta Boca Brava	Map of Santa Catalina
La Vida Buena	Open air restaurant/gathering area	The gathering area at La Vida Buena	Mosaic tiled sink at La Vida Buena
Our casita at La Vida Buena	Our room at La Vida Buena	Outside shower at La Buena Vida	Beach at Santa Catalina
Common thatched roof home	Good ol' fashion game of baseball	Two boys in tree gathering guavas	Pineapple growing on the land at La Vida Buena

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