Friday, September 26, 2008

Bengy + Yampi, Guavabana and Chiromoya


It's a trick question... what do Bengy, Yampi, Guavabana and Chiromoya have in common? Probably very little, except they all live in Panama. Actually, Bengy is in jail (for a picture of Bengy look on my September 1 blog). He's a pick-pocket squirrel monkey who has developed some bad habits & is being "retrained" by Sue (an ex-primate trainer who lives here at Las Olas). A new, improved (i.e. less humanized) Bengy will return to Paradise Gardens in a couple of months. Yampi is a root vegetable (similar to a yam) I'm going to cook tomorrow. Chiromoya (similar to Moya I've had in Hawaii) is a white, sweet fruit I'll have for breakfast, and Guavabana was served juiced in Columbia (delicious, but I haven't seen it at fruit stands since I returned from Columbia, ready to try my own juiced version). I couldn't resist including this picture of me being "pinned" by the Panama Rotary Governor. We had a lovely catered lunch at Dr. Newton Osborne's house (he's the Boquete Rotary President & pictured to the right of me & the Gov.). I still can't get over the diversity of people in the club. They are all very interesting and becoming my close friends. On Sunday, I'll drive to Nombre de Dios (you can find it on Google Earth) & spend 4 nights with Pauline (snorkeling, SCUBA-ing & other lazy pleasures). Then it's on to Alaska, California, Oregon & Washington. I'll try to keep up on the blog, but you won't be reading about Panama. I may do one last Panama Blog tomorrow so you can see a picture of my beautiful cedar chest that is arriving tomorrow (thanks to good friends Tom & Terry).

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