We tried the Serpentarium again – still closed. Spent more time at the library. Ate lunch at Casa de Lourdes. Beautiful restaurant. Food was okay. The price is probably more for the atmosphere than the food, in my opinion.

Came home, had cookies, and watched cartoons together. Jen did laundry and cleaned – she’s such a hard worker. I played ball with the girls and pretended with them.

We had dinner that night at cute restaurant with straw roof called El Rancho, I think.

It was a very windy night – felt like we were going to blow away. But the birds still sang beautifully the next morning. Also, I should mention there are a lot of bugs in the El Valle house – mostly just large ants that walk on the floor. We probably killed 30 or so throughout the week. We wouldn’t bother if they were small, but these are good sized ants.

Jen made some chocolate puddding we got at the store – not the same as what we’re used to. But then again, we also used honey instead of sugar…

All pictures below are at the Casa de Lourdes restaurant / hotel.

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Orchid

Then we went to an orchid garden, run by a very nice Japanese man and his father. I actually got to speak a bit of Japanese to them, which was fun – but difficult, after having been focusing so much on Spanish lately. They had some beautiful flowers there, but not very many of the plants had blossoms this time of year.

Painted rock

Then we visited the Painted rock of El Valle. There are petroglyphs on a giant rock, and no one really knows what they mean or how old they are, but they’re pretty neat looking. once we got there, we heard there was a trail to a waterfall. So we went to see the waterfall – again forgetting our swimsuits because we didn’t know it was there, so we didn’t swim. :) But we let the girls wade in the water a bit.

We spent some time at the library after that, to use the Internet. Then got some cupcakes and donuts at the bakery.

Geese at Rincon valley

For dinner that night, we went to the Rincon Valley restaurant, which was delicious, and had a romantic atmosphere, along with a pretty garden and animals such as bunnies, geese, and fish. Emily’s hamburger had a particularly great flavor. Jen and I both had fish dishes, and Marie had a mini-pizza.

Frog at our house

On our return home, it was dark, but in our headlights, we saw an armadillo crossing the road! We’d never seen one of those before. And then as we were entering our house, Marie pointed at the door and said there was a frog! We looked, and sure enough, a frog was waiting there for us right on our porch! So we turned on the lights to get a better look at him, and I even got to snap a photo. This was much easier to see than the last frog we hunted out!

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Light drizzle at Los Capitanes hotel / restaurant

This year, we spent Valentine’s Day in the picturesque town of El Valle de Anton. We all slept in that morning, relaxing and enjoying being in this beautiful place. The water pressure in the toilet and sinks that morning was unusually low. So was the shower, but it was all we had, so we got in. About the time Jen had soaped up her hair, the water completely stopped! I was able to get a couple jugs of water from the kitchen sink for her to rinse with, before the water stopped there as well.

I went outside and talked to the groundskeeper who looked concerned and went up the hill to check something out. He came back a few minutes later and said that a tree had fallen on the water line and smashed it! Fortunately, he was able to get it all fixed in under an hour and we had water again. It made for a exciting morning.

Emily and Marie next to a square tree

Jen made a great breakfast for us of strawberry muffins, French toast and fruit. While she was showering the girls, I went to the library to work and blog for about an hour. When I came back, we went on a hike to see the “square trees”. El Valle has some unique trees with a square-shaped trunk (rather than round). This was a lovely hike, about 45 minutes around the loop, and the weather was perfect. We saw SO many ant highways along the way, going across the trail, carrying leaves and flowers. The paths they traveled were well worn – it’s amazing how hard they work, and how many ants there are.

Brandon and the girls by the El Valle Museum

After the square trees, we went to the El Valle museum, which was small, but pretty interesting. There was a wedding going on in the church next door – how romantic – a wedding on Valentine’s Day in El Valle. We met the groom outside about five minutes before he was going to get married. :) He was pretty nervous. He’s from Florida.

Casa de Lourdes restaurant / hotel

Then we drove around looking for a particular restaurant, called “Casa de Lourdes”, and ended up getting lost and seeing so many beautiful homes. The residences here are quaint and paradisaical.  We finally found the restaurant, which was purported to be one of the best in Panama – and it was gorgeous! Unfortunately, it was all booked up because of the wedding that day. But we may make a reservation for another day.

Emily at Los Capitanes restaurant

We ended up eating a very late lunch/early dinner at another nice restaurant / hotel called Los Capitanes, which had pretty gardens for the girls to play in after they finished eating. There were a couple parrots and several huge iguanas (3-4 feet long) in cages that we looked at afterward. The restaurant had only 3 main dishes on the menu, and 5-6 appetizers, but the food was good and well priced. Much less than you’d pay for similar dishes at home.

After dinner, we drove around the streets some more looking at the homes and enjoying the neighborhood, then stopped at a pastry/dessert shop and had some brownies & ice cream with hot fudge ($1.50). Marie had a piece of strawberry cheesecake, which she didn’t like as much as she thought she would. I didn’t like it much either, but I loved the brownies & ice cream. It was a fun day. We’re still in awe of this place as we drive around – it’s just so beautiful!

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Penonome LDS branch

We got to the city right about noon, but had to ask directions in order to find the church. When we got there, about 12:15, we realized that church was actually from 9am-noon, and that we had missed it! I guess the times on the website were incorrect, and there was no phone number. The members were so friendly, though, and introduced us around, showed us pictures, and more. We stayed and talked with them for probably another 30 minutes before heading back out to our car.

El Valle is a pretty small town, so there’s no ward there, but there are about five members in El Valle, we found out, who come to the Penonome branch every week. We were disappointed that we missed church, but glad that we could meet the members, and also have a beautiful drive.

So we drove back another two hours, had some lunch at home, and then went for another drive around El Valle looking at the little streets, and exploring. It was a nice relaxing day.

That evening, as it was getting dark and we heard the frogs croaking, we went outside to see if we could see one. There was one croaking very loud right by our kitchen window. We looked through the bushes and everything, but couldn’t see him. But we were determined to see frogs! We walked down by the stream, led by the light of my iPhone (since we didn’t have a real flashlight). Thank heaven for iPhones! Sometimes the croaks were so load and so close, but we just couldn’t see a frog.

Finally, after walking to a larger part of the stream, I spotted one! Right on a rock! He was pretty small, maybe 1-2 inches long, and probably green or brown. Color was hard to tell because we didn’t have much light – remember, it’s pitch black at night. But he was cute. We watched as he hopped away into the water.

The sky was a little bit clearer tonight than past nights, and we could see lots of stars. Orion had so many more stars around it than I’m used to seeing. It was beautiful!

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Jen made a great breakfast that morning of eggs & ham, blueberry muffins, toast, and juice. Then we took showers and went to the fruit market. They have some great fruit here – great quality and great prices. The pinneapple smells heavenly. We bought quite a bit of fruit and browsed through the market and other little shops they had there. We dropped it off at our house, then went back out to see the El Macho waterfall.

Jen and Marie by El Macho

It cost about $7 total for all of us to hike to the waterfall. It was a very short, but beautiful hike and the waterfal was majestic. It’s dry season so it’s not as full as it is during other times of the year, but we were able to hike right up to it. There were some people swimming right below it, and Emily was sad that we didn’t bring her swimming suit. But was happy when her foot would slip on the rocks so she could get her feet wet. lol.

After El Macho, we went on a Canopy Adventure – a zip-line tour through the rainforest. They don’t normally allow kids under 6 to go, but I asked if they could ride with us, and they said yes. We decided to do the shorter 20 minute version rather than the full hour, in case the girls were really scared of flying so high and fast above the ground. And it was also much cheaper (though still expensive – $12.50/person vs $50/person).

Emily zip-lining

They strapped us each in our own harnesses, and we took another little hike. They had Marie go first, and the guide took her across. (I guess they didn’t mean we would ride with our kids. Oh well). We worried that Marie might be terrified, especially being separated from her family and with a stranger, but she loved it! Jen was next, then me, then Emily.

It was really exhilirating! Being so high up in the trees, and seeing the rainforest all around me, with a 50 foot (or more) drop below, was very exciting. You also get to feel a bit like Tarzan because of the speed of the ride, which you get to control by pulling on the line behind you.

I was disappointed, however, in that our “20 minute” adventure, consisted of only about 15 seconds of riding on the zip-line – just one time is all we got. I guess the 20 minutes was for all the strapping and hiking. All of us loved it and wanted to do it again, but we were running out of time and money, so decided we’d try the longer tour again another day. This is really one of the funnest physical activities we’ve done on this trip.

We had lunch at a pizza place called Pinnochio’s, which was great. Jen’s Hawaiian pizza was the best I’ve ever had – fabulous flavor with fresh pinneapple. My lasagna was okay – too much cheese and not enough sauce, but it was still good.

After lunch, we spent some time on the Internet at the library. The girls played games, Jen checked her e-mail, and I worked and updated my blog.

Jen and her fruit

We came back home and relaxed for a bit. The girls swung in the hammock, then Jen did. The girls were having so much fun running around outside pretending they were on a space ship. I decided to join in, and we started playing together. I just followed along and Emily came up with most of the ideas – everything from killing aliens who were hiding in caves, to eating space man food like pizza and hot dogs. It was fun.

Then we watched some really old cartoons they had on DVD here, Jen made dinner (grilled ham & cheese sandwiches, with fresh fruit), and we went to bed.

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Pretty rainbow in El Valle

Wow, wow, wow. That’s what I have to say about El Valle de Anton. It is absolutely breathtaking. Take the lushness and flowers of Kauai, mix it with the manicured gardens of Kyoto, and the drastic peaks and valleys of the Rockies, and you have El Valle. It’s a lot cooler than Panama city, with temperatures generally between 65-75 (from what we’ve felt anyway). El Valle is a paradise.

Many of the streets are lined with beautiful bougainvillea, and moss grows on everything. Even the wooden fence posts have little branches with leaves growing out of the top of them (we saw this in the city as well).

There are many beautiful homes here, including what would be considered multi-million dollar estates if they were in the US – more for the large plots of land and well cared for gardens than for the size of the homes.

This is a small town, but with sufficient necessities. There are a couple grocery stores, several restaurants, a library, police and fire station, several hotels, and more. Every street we’ve driven down has caused our jaws to drop.

El valle rental house (outside view)

Our biggest shocker was the actual house we rented. For $100/night, I was not expecting something this nice. It is completely private, and is a good 5-7 minute walk (or 2 minute drive) even to the nearest residence. The town is about a five minute drive away. Everything that’s in between is lush gardens and greenery. There are lots of fruit trees on the premises, and a cute little bridge over a stream.

If you turn out the lights at night, it is completely pitch black, even outside. And the only sounds you can here are frogs and insects and birds. Our first morning we were awakened by a bird singing the most pleasant bird song I’ve heard. If I can record it tomorrow, I will. It is gorgeous here!

El Valle house living room

The home itself is small, maybe 1000 sq ft, with 2 bedrooms, a small bathroom, a good sized kitchen/dining and living room, and a laundry room. There’s another shed on the property where the workers store their tools.

So far we’ve eaten at three different restaurants in El Valle. They all look really small and simple, but the food has been fantastic, and the service extremely friendly. The waitresses talk with you quite a bit, and treat you like family. Once, Emily was wiggling around in her chair and fell out. The waitress picked her right up and carried her around, trying to make her feel better, for several minutes. I’ve never seen that kind of service at home!

Our first morning in El Valle, we went to El Nispero zoo. It’s a small zoo – takes about 1-2 hours to go through, and has animals from all over, not just from Panama. One animal I’d never seen before was the tapir. They’re a lot bigger than I had thought they would be. Unfortunately, the frog exhibit was closed, but we got a picture of the golden frog, which is only found in El Valle and is one of the most poisonous frogs in the world, although rarely found in the wild anymore.

Shaking hands with a monkey

The highlight of the zoo was definitely the monkeys. There was one monkey who stuck his hand and his tail out of the cage so we could pet it. The girls loved that. He was a very friendly monkey. The zoo had a huge variety of birds, and oddly enough, chickens (hundreds of them). My favorite were the brightly colored macaws (sp) and parrots.

After the zoo we went to the grocery store and got some things for breakfast and lunch for the week. Then we had lunch and rested a while back at the house. The girls watched “Care Bears” on DVD, which was here at the house, and I copied the pictures we’d taken to my computer and started these blog entries.

Just a view on the property (you can see our red roof peaking out)

After our rest, we went exploring around the property. There are so many little trails and places to walk. There was a light drizzle that afternoon and evening, off and on, which felt great and cooled us down. We were looking for animals, and saw a big lizard in a tree, and an interesting bug, but nothing else of consequence. It was really “siesta” time for the animals, so we’re going to try to get up and go on a morning walk tomorrow.

Dinner at a restaurant in El Valle

Dinner that night was fabulous. We had more sea bass, but with different sauces. Well, Emily had a hamburger, and Marie had a hot dog. :) My dish came with some grilled bananas which were excellent. The orange juice here is so fresh and sweet – the best I’ve ever had. Jen did find a good-sized bug in her orange juice after she’d drank about half of it, so she didn’t finish the rest… well, she did have a little bit more – it was so good, after all!

We saw several light-colored lizards crawling on the walls at the restaurant that night, especially near the florescent lights. When we got home, we even saw one in our kitchen. Very cute!

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Now we’re in El Valle which I think is five times as beautiful as Taboga (but without the ocean since it’s in the crater of an extinct volcano). We’re staying at a 2 bedroom house that is completely private and surrounded by beautiful gardens, flowers and trees. The birds are chirping, and it’s extremely lovely. A paradise.

However, I haven’t had Internet access for several days (and still don’t) and am beginning to feel withdrawal pains. :) I’m here at a small Internet cafe now that closes at 6pm and it’s already 6:08, so I need to get out of here. I just spent the last 30 minutes rushing through answering important e-mails and catching up, etc. – still lots more to do – later.  But I just wanted to keep you posted. I’ll try to get some pictures up soon.

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