travel

This is not the peak tourist season, and Friday isn't the main market day in El Valle. But I had some business to do in town and who needs a special excuse or a particular time to visit this upland valley, formed in the crater of an ancient volcano that hasn't blown its top in recorded history.

After getting off the bus from Las Uvas, I first spent about half an hour in front of a computer screen at Don Pepe´s, checking my email and watching the mist come down from the hills.

Once that was done I took a stroll through the market, mostly to do some people-watching. We did have tourists in town on this morning, some of them speaking Spanish, some English and some German.

The tourists mostly paid attention to that part of the public market where arts and crafts are sold (below), but I was in search of lunch possibilities among the fruit and vegetable offerings (above). Yum! --- it was lychee season.

On Sundays you get the best flower selection at the market, but they had a few nice orchids for sale on this morning.

Along the road to El Valle the Evangelicals have won quite a few converts, but Panama's a mainly Catholic country and El Valle's pretty little Catholic church is at the center of much of this community's life. This is a town noted for its flower gardens, among which the church holds its own.

Life along the quiet, tree-lined streets of El Valle has been an attraction for Panamanians for decades, but in recent years the word has spread far and wide and a number of foreign retirees have come to town. That has resulted in higher real estate prices and all sorts of new economic activity, but at the moment nobody's threatening to turn this country lane into a burger strip.

There is some very cool landscaping and architecture in El Valle, in both modern and traditional Spanish genres.

If it can turn concrete these colors, what will the warm mineral water that bubbles to the surface do for your skin?

Hmmmmm --- I remember the symbols from the periodic table in my high school chemistry book, but my mind doesn't associate them with any particular miracle cures.

Nor do I specifically know the benefits that mud from the warm springs confers upon faces to which it is applied. But as someone who from time to time does battle with eczema and whose skin won't tolerate synthetic fabrics or certain soaps, I DO know how it feels to wallow around in the warm, mineral-laden springs. AAAAAAAHH!

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Panama Information, Hotels of Panama - Executive Hotel
Panama Information, Real Estate in Las Cumbres - Villa Concordia
Panama Information - Online guide to information about Panama - www.panama-information.executivehotel-panama.com
Panama Tourism - Online info for the Tourist Panama - www.travel-to-panama.com
Panama Pictures - Collection of pictures of Panama - www.panama-pictures.com