Covid & Sunday Lockdowns
It is Father’s Day here in Panamá and back home in the States. We hope all you fathers out there have a great day!
We are still living in Valle Escondido here in Boquete Panamá and we are currently spending our Sunday under curfew/lockdown, which means we cannot leave the house. This is the fourth or fifth Sunday spent under lockdown and we hope it ends soon, although it is bearable for one day a week. A day in lockdown does make it OK to be lazy for the whole day.
As Nancy mentioned in our last post, late last month we received our first shots of the Pfizer vaccine which means we are due for our second and final shots withing the next week or so. We are waiting for news as to when those shots will be available for us. We hope we hear something soon as we are anxious to get fully vaccinated. Here in Panamá masks and social distancing are still mandatory, although other than that (and Sunday lockdowns), life is normal. We go to the gym several times a week, we go to restaurants, we go on hikes, we go to our medical appointments, and our freedom of movement is mostly unrestricted. We still hope more vaccines will be available here soon. The more people who get vaccinated, better off we all are.
Hiking
Last Thursday we went on a hike up to El Salto, which is a mountainous area very close to Volcán Barú the highest peak in Panamá at 11,398 feet. According to the altimeter ap on my phone at the highest point on our hike we got to almost 6,500 feet after starting at about 5,900 feet. The hike was uphill almost all the way, and I could feel the altitude. The views were spectacular, the scenery was beautiful, and the exercise was great. We left early to beat the rain and we were back before it started. We are getting rain almost every day now as the rainy season picks up momentum. A couple of weeks before we went on a long hike up to an abandoned building that is know locally as El Castillo embrujado de Pepe or The Haunted Castle of Pepe. It is the remains of a huge house next to a coffee farm that was started, but never completed, and it is an interesting site. Of course, the locals say it is haunted. There are many places here that are worth seeing and they can be anywhere. You can turn off one of the main roads around here and start down a rocky narrow road the does not seem to lead anywhere, and it takes you to sights you would never expect to see, and neighborhoods that you would have had no idea were back there. A sturdy vehicle with four-wheel drive is a good thing to have as many of the roads are pretty sketchy and this seems to be a region where the hills and mountains never looked to steep to put a road on.
Life goes on for us here, and every day brings something a bit different. We are hoping we will have good news about our second vaccine shots very soon.
Stay safe and well!
Saludos, Craig