Finally.... the beach!

Early last evening we tore ourselves away from our favorite little town of El Valle and made the relatively short drive to the town of Santa Clara. We chose it because the write-ups about it in Jenn's Panama book described it as a beach town "full of white sand beaches where during the week you are likely to have the whole place to yourself, save for a few fishing boats lingering off the coast". Score!

We had called ahead to the place we wanted to stay and when I spoke to the lady about the reservation she asked for my name for confirmation. I was expecting to give her my full given name, passport number and/or credit card information, etc. I got as far as saying "Kathryn..." and she goes "Great. See you Wednesday." Period. I loved the town already. We pulled in through the gate last night and it immediatly looked like a little walled paradise, with an open-air deck/restaurant, a pool, palm trees, cats and dogs roaming the grounds, parrots and other exotic birds all around the place... sweet. The place is actually run by a couple of American expats who have lived here for 14 years but the rest of the staff is Panamanian. One of those girls showed us to our room, then handed us our key and wished us a good night. I was surprised and asked if I should pay her or go see the owner. She said something like "Oh, no hurry. You can either pay us tonight or in the morning or when you check out. Whatever you want.". We had such a good vibe from the place that we immediately decided to extend our stay to two nights!

At some point overnight, Jenn's fever broke so she woke up for the first time feeling bouncy and healthy and full of energy (not that you would have really known the difference as she kept going full force even while at the worst parts of it). We slept until after 8:30... the latest we have slept on any day of our trip so far! Ironic that I have been getting up earlier while on vacation than I do on a regular basis at home. Either way, we made it out to the patio for breakfast, intending to leave right away for the beach. But this place somehow has such a chill vibe that is infectious, we ended up idling away the morning on the patio, chatting it up with Danny, a New-Yorker-turned-Floridian who has been coming to this place for over 10 years and has become "family" with the owners, so much so that he built his own apartment on the grounds. Either way, he's a total hoot and we ended up just sitting around and shooting the breeze until well after 11. Also, sidenote, we were being highly entertained by the parrots on the porch who have a wide vocabulary and speak in both Spanish and English.

After our loooong and leisurely breakfast, he offered to show us his favorite "hidden beach". It doesn't even really have a name and we didn't find anything written about it. It was one of those amazing little finds that we never would have discovered on our own. We owe him BIG-time as it turned out to be one of the coolest, most charming, most memorable little beaches I've ever been to. The road alone that you take to get to it is something in and of itself. It is full of brightly colored little one-room houses that look like they could fall over if you just looked at them the wrong way. People were spilling out of them all over the place and it felt kind of like we were driving through someone's backyard. And then suddenly things opened up and we pulled up to a nearly vacant, totally natural beach, save for a ramshackle little building that serves as the pub/restaurant which is accompanied by a tin-roof outbuilding with a few tables smattered about under it. Hammocks were everwhere and, as promised, we had the WHOLE place to ourselves. Heaven.

Danny hung out with us for a while, swapping stories under the shade of the tiny little pub's tin roof while overlooking the ocean. Aaaaaah. At one point, Jenn and Danny were in the water and I was way up on the beach under a tree, a good 100-150 feet away (the picture with the leaves hanging at the top). As there was NO ONE else anywhere in even the remotest of vicinities, I could hear their conversation almost as if I was right next to them. Amazing. The rest of the afternoon, we spent alternating between swimming (the ocean is like bathwater), hanging around in hammocks, lounging on beach chairs, reading and just soaking it all in. We plan to return tomorrow. Oh yeah.

Also, randomly, as we were driving out the little road, there was a band of kids in the middle of the street playing drums and marching down the road. They didn't flinch when we pulled up behind them, didn't make an attempt to get out of our way or make a path for us to pull around. Just kept playing, oblivious and unconcerned.

This evening consisted of coming back here and getting dinner and... well, that's it. Hands down, no question the MOST relaxing day of the trip to date.

P.S. I miss Monica the Monkey.