Panama-Chiriqui

Angel´s Grandmother was an incredibly feisty and wonderful old woman. She is 90 years old, had 12 children with 5 different men, and still chops her own firewood (much to the chagrin of her grandson!). She moved like a dancer, and talked circles around everyone present. The only unnerving thing was that she was very obviously inspecting me as a future mother of great grandchildren (the concept of why Angel would bring a WOMAN from the States to visit his family unless she was about to fill this important roll seemed to escape most of the female members of his family). She made me take off my glasses and turn this way and that, I guess I passed though. Angel and I stopped to visit her on the way to do a wetland scouting session in Chiriqui.






Chiriqui was by far my favorite part of Panama. It was so beautiful. And I got to see quite a bit of it during our scouting attempt. There were a number of beautiful little lakes (without my plant, of course!) At the end of one of the days, our wanderings took us to the base of Panama´s only volcano. We decided we might as well explore, since the day was getting late enough to make collecting my plant impossible, even if we had found it. So, we started to climb. It turns out we took the short cut through the jungle (I swear, we were just following the signs!) It just about killed us, that 20 minute climb practically straight up the mountain, but the view was incredible.