Annalisa en Panamá

Last month when my offspring were visiting, we spent a bunch of time looking for sloths.  Unfortunately, it's hard to find them; often when we were told there were sloths in the tree canopy above us, they looked basically like a dark ball lumped in the tree; sometimes we got lucky and they looked like a furry ball lumped in the tree.  And once, three of us got super lucky and got to see a single sloth, way up high, slowly scratching itself. So imagine how delighted I was when my friend Kimberly told me that the Panama Nature Center had just opened up a sloth sanctuary on the edge of the Ciudad del Saber, and that -- better yet -- they were having an open house.  Seeing sloths, and  seeing my friend Kimberly: that's a winner!  Many sloths moving slowly and cuddling with one another, right in front of us. Here's a 16-second video that Kimberly took of a sloth chewing.  If you speak Spanish, you can hear the tour guide describing how they develop and the diff...

Forecast:  91°/74°, sunny Humidity :  77% Sunrise  6:33 am.,  Sunset  6:29 p.m.   Before I traveled to Penonomé, my host-to-be, José, cheerfully told me I'd love the change in weather: it's much more "fresca" (fresh, cool) than in Panama city.  The pastor of my church in Panama city heard where I was bound and shuddered, "oh, Penonomé: it's really hot there!"  So who was right? I think neither, really: Panama city is hot, and Penonomé is hot, and they're both really about equally oppressive midday.  There are a few more breezes here, but the temperatures are not all that different. The Penonomé forecast Tuesday:   29-to-34 degrees Celcius is 84-to-93 Fahrenheit. Much of the city of Penonomé itself seems to be stretched along either side of the Carretera Americana (Route 1).  From a restaurant the other night, I had a lovely view into the hills and mountains.  I asked José if people live off in that direction, and he said n...