Panama – Garden Of Eden (updated 11/08/16)

Well hello from Panama (Bocas Del Toro to be exact).

We made it here with no trouble.  We also checked with Joop in Aruba and are glad to say that the hurricane did not do much (if any) damage to the dog resort.

Mike finally feels like he is retired now.  Garden of Eden is the place where we heard about workaway back in Oct 2014 while we were guests here.

A little about the Garden Of Eden.  It is a very small island (1.8 acres), there are 4 guest rooms, 1 main house, and 2 staff rooms, a small pool, a game room(pool table, chess, etc), and a cabana with hammocks.  Our room is simple but nice.  2 queen beds, 2 bureaus, a place to hang clothes, and a full bathroom.

Everything is green here.  There are solar panels and propane driven generators.  There is a rain catchment system to collect the rain water.  Sometimes you have to take quick showers and wait to do your clothes till the next rain storm.  But since this is a rain forest, that usually isn’t too long and we don’t smell too bad.

Speaking of rain, it has rained for 2 1/2 days and Zeus(one of the 2 dogs here) was having a little trouble getting up today.

  just a lazy day in paradise

But the dogs do have a job here.  They are here for security to warn us if anyone is coming onto the island.  They look mean but are so sweet. Ok, so maybe the little miniature doberman (Mavis – aka Zippy) doesn’t look so mean.

Dave and Sue manage the place.  They have a tree house about one mile from here.  It is really nice and so different from what we know.  They have 3 more dogs there.  The dogs are again for security and to keep the white faced moneys and bats out of the house.  Yes, you read it right.  There are moneys and other creatures all around.  After all it is a rain forest.

Speaking of critters getting into the house, etc, here are a few we have seen…

Hundreds of geckos and small frogs.   There are red, orange, yellow, and blue ones. Kinda like a bag of M & M’s. They aren’t much larger than an M & M either.  Most would fix on a dime.  The pic of the one on the bamboo has a tiny baby tadpole on its back.

So there are vine snakes (harmless).  There are about the width of a pencil and can be quite long.

There are many birds, including humming birds.

This scorpion was found in our room.  In reality is was only the size of a dime.  It is the only one we have seen.

I didn’t take a picture of the beetles and roaches, yuck!  But hey it is the jungle and my beetle phobia is getting quite a work out.

Enough about creepy, crawly things.

The place is being sold and the “new” owners were here for a week.  It was fun listening to all the things they plan on doing.  Should be a lot of work, but Dave and Sue are up for it. LOL

So we start our days around 7:00 or 7:30 a.m..  If there are guests, we prepare breakfast and tend to their needs, wash up after breakfast, sweep the patios, clean up the guest rooms, etc.  Then we are off till 5:00 p.m.  At 5:00 we start getting ready for dinner and do a little bartending.  We have a GREAT chief here (Miguel).  We serve the dinner to the guests and clean up the dishes afterwards.

If there are no guests, we get up around 7:00 and get our own breakfast, sweep the patios, make sure the rooms are still clean, and do maintenance work till 12:00 or 12:30.  The rest of the day is ours and Miguel doesn’t usually cook for us if no guests are here.  We MISS his cooking on these days.  We have Saturdays off.

Some examples of the maintenance work…

Yesterday we bleached and washed one of the guest room patios to prepare it for varnishing.  Today we removed all the old bathroom fixtures and spackled the walls.  Since this is the tropics we figure the spackle should dry in about a month or so (hahaha).

On our free time, we lay in the hammocks, watch netflix, read a book, go for a swim in the bay or pool, take a nap (Mikes favorite), or Kayak 1 1/2 miles over to Red Frog Beach and back.  It is a nice beach with some restaurant and bars.  Very rustic kinda place but not so out of the way that they haven’t heard of the minions.  LOL

Anyway, we are here for a little over 2 more weeks, then off to Jamaica.  It is very nice here but getting off the island to see any place else is difficult.  We are hoping to take a chocolate tour complete with cooking class and lunch sometime soon.

As I type I have to stop every once in a while to get the geckos off my screen.  Apparently they like the light. They are SOOO cut.

That’s it for now.  Remember, try to slow down and enjoy life.  Even if it is just for a few hours.

_____________________________________

Update 10/20/16

A very interesting (yet really creepy) thing happened to me a few days ago while I was washing dishes.  A large scorpion (would fit on 3/4 of a dollar bill) fell from the ceiling 2 feet from me onto the food waste bucket. HOLY SH*&!!!

We told Miguel, the cook and he said, “oh you are lucky it didn’t land on you.  That is a big one” and off he went.  We thought he was going to get something to kill it with, but NO.  He just went on about his business.  He just left us there with this thing.  Mike grabbed the lid, flipped it over and the scorpion fell into the bucket.  We feed these food scrapes to the fish on the dock a few times a day.  Right now the “little” creature is at the bottom of the sea.  YUCK!

As I was relaxing in a hammock a few nights ago, I looked up to see a brown bat hanging about 20 feet up.  They are not too big and won’t hurt you.

The night of the full, I decided to go out on the dock and look at the moon as it reflected off the water.  On my way there (rain forest remember), I met the bush rat.  It walked across the path about 3 feet in front of me.  It stopped, I froze and shined my flashlight on it and saw 2 bright red eyes looking at me from what appeared to be a rat the size of a small cat.  After 10 seconds he went his way and I went mine.  Amazing what you can get used to.  It really didn’t bother me that much.  FYI, the bush rat eats coconuts, not people.

Those of you who know me, know I have a real issue with hard shelled bugs.  Some have asked how I am handling it.  Well, I just say to myself  “that is just a moth” and move on.  I sometimes live in my own little “bug free” world.  LOL

Now I know what you are thinking…  WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING THERE?  But it really isn’t as bad as it sounds. It is not like there are creepy things bothering you all day and night (though they are out there watching).  It is really quite beautiful and green with many flowers and exotic plants.  Insects and “other” critters just come with the territory.

On a nicer note, I took a few pictures of some of the frogs I see everyday.  Some days I see 20 or so just going from our bungalow to the common area.  I even saw a red one (most are orange or yellow).  Note: the picture quality is not so good.  I mostly use my phone to take pictures since it is so humid.  I am afraid that taking my camera out of the dry bag too often will mess with it.)

Work…

We have done all the maintenance on the three guests bungalow (staining decks, painting walls, new hardware in the bathrooms, removal of some ceiling fans).  Things like that.  It wasn’t all that easy. The paint cans were not marked (and there were many shades of each color to choose from), the hardware was rusted, the ceilings are really high, and the decks had to be scrubbed first to remove any mold.  But we feel we really helped to make the rooms nicer and that made it worth it.  BTW… do you know how long it takes paint to dry in the rain forest.  A darn long time.

We have also hung some lights in the game room and common areas.  They add some ambiance to the areas.

I painted over 4 huge spiders in the bathroom next to the game room.  It is not what you think.  No real spiders were harmed during the painting.  Someone had decided it was a good idea to paint large black spiders (4 in total) on the bathroom wall.  They scared the hell out of me and many others, every time you go in there.  So today as we were hanging new hardware, I painted over them.  No more will I enter that bathroom and nearly start the peeing process a little too early because I thought there were huge spiders in there.

Leisure time…

Anyway, we do try to get off the island once a week (or as Sue calls it, the Rock).  Yesterday I had to bring my NEW laptop to the computer tech here.  So we got in the boat and drove over to his office, a 32 foot catamaran.  Yup that is his office.  Not a bad deal!

Mike and I went to Red Frog beach again.  I had the best chicken taco I have ever had.  It was just a little hut on the beach and only sells drinks and 3 kinds of tacos (chicken, fish, and shrimp), but boy were they delicious.

We have 10 more days here.  We hope to spend one of them going into town to get Mike a few shirts.   He sweats just getting out of bed and boy his shirts could now hang upright without a hanger (and that’s after they have been washed).  We also want to spend another day going to the chocolate farm.

Other than that we go in the ocean, swim in the pool, watch Netflix, inspect the hammocks to ensure they can truly hold people.

Oh look, there is Mike now busy inspecting the hammock with his friend Mavis at his side…

That man is always working!!!

That’s it for now.  Remember, sometimes when you hear noises in the night, just think of it as a moth and pull the covers over your head.  Makes life a little easier that way.

__________________________________________________

Update 11/08/16

Our last 10 days in Panama …

I don’t think I ever showed pics of our room here.  Here it is…

Miguel was working on his “costume” for carnival.  It was very cool.

  old boat in the rain forest