Walking home from dropping off my compost

Even though my current AirBnB host doesn't compost, I myself can't bear to add organic material to a landfill [shudder] if I can find alternatives.  So I keep a small sealed container in the fridge with our food scraps, and then when I need a break from math writing, I take myself and my food scraps for a walk . . . a walk from which the food scraps never return. 

If the food scraps are particularly edible (watermelon rinds count, for example), I'll take them to the nearby pond where the turtles and crocodiles feast on them in a frenzy.  Seeing the water boil over with turtles racing for watermelon or stale bread is amazingly awesome entertainment.   

Cuddly crocodiles.  This paired sighting
was unusual; they're usually hanging out one-by-one.

Other times, I'll wander through the neighborhood and deposit the scraps in a particularly forested area.  On a recent half-mile stroll through the neighborhood, I saw a new-to-me bird.  That's when I realized I'd begun to take the sights around me for granted. This post is an attempt correct that: to remind myself -- and to share publicly -- how spectacular a short walk in Panama can be.  All of these pictures are ones during the final three blocks of my compost walk today.

Let us begin with the bird.

The bird was, understandably, a bit wary of me.
I have to figure out what kind of bird this is.
It's not a bald eagle, but it kind of resembles one.
[Update: it's a "Caracara hawk", says my AirBnb host]

From there, I decided to start taking photos of non-bird delightful things.

These bushes, a little reminiscent of rhododendrons, 
have the most amazing hot-pink blossoms.

A hot-pink blossom, up close and personal.

These giant leaves, almost as big as my body,
grow on plants that surround a palm tree.

Orange and yellow blossoms, wispy, overhead.

In this neighborhood (and in many places in Panama),
forest grows so quickly and so densely that there are many
places that border wild space. 
Compost drop-off opportunities abound.

Red berry-like bunches growing off a pine tree. 
I think someone once told me that these are called wedding berries,
because brides will use them in their bouquets.
Don't quote me on that, though.

A blue pole that matches the blue-and-green painted fence.
Beyond the fence is not forest: it's someone's yard.
There are just a lot of plants here!

All the electrical lines are underground in this neighborhood.
Here, a neighbor has painted the electrical box 
next to their home with people dressed in traditional 
Panamanian masks. I've seen a couple of dances with people
wearing these masks; aren't they fun?

This next view shows so much of what Panama looks like on my walks: palm trees are highly visible everywhere, but look again and you'll se many other kinds of trees, including flowering ones in all colors.  The sidewalks are non-existent, or if they do exist people block them with cars and other objects. The land can be very steep: this isn't a dead end, but a "T" intersection, and at the top of that steep steep hill (so steep it looks like a wall) are more houses and the main road.  There are no power lines visible, so near each house there's an electrical hook-up and meter.  Houses in my neighborhood are made of concrete, painted in happy colors, and topped with metal or adobe-shingle roofs.  
Getting close to my AirBnB again; it's just around
the corner to the left from the view in this photo.

And flowers, palm trees, and fences (or walls) are everywhere.

An abandoned concrete bus stop provides shade.
It's a holdover from earlier years when the bus used to come 
through the small streets of this neighborhood;
now the bus travels on the main street a block away,
just over that big hill in the previous picture.


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