We’ve been in Boquete nearly a week and must be settling in since we were visited by our old friend. Yes that’s right, today started with a power outage. We think it started around 3am and everything was still dead when we got up in the morning. This house has an electric stove so no getting around it for a hot breakfast. No worries, cereal and un-toasted bagels were in order.
We had two small adventures on the docket this morning so we headed into town for another playground evaluation and the Tuesday Market. Honestly both were not what we’d hoped. The playground had about the same equipment as the one close to our house but it was in an open space and close to the river which was interesting. But the kids weren’t that excited by it as it’s geared toward younger kids.
The next stop was the Boquete Market. Tiffany had seen a number of references to this weekly market online taking about the fresh produce, prepared foods, local handcrafts etc so expectations were high. We got there late – it runs from 9-1 and we arrived at 11:30 and there were vendors selling produce, crafts and prepared foods, but there weren’t as many as expected and it somehow had more of a feel of a chamber of commerce community sale than a bustling Central American market. We looked around for about 10 minutes and left without buying anything. We’ll try to go earlier next week and see if it’s better.
Across the street was a collection of shops selling souvenirs and crafts. Here the kids found some things they liked, each bought some pendants for a necklace. Brian priced some authentic Panama Hats (known here just as Hats) but didn’t buy and Tiffany saw some things she might go back to pick up before we leave.
This afternoon was more Language Arts and Math at our Road School. We started reading and discussing Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll as a class. Neither the kids nor the teachers have read the book and we all enjoyed the first Chapter.
Since we didn’t get and fruits and vegetables at the market, Tiffany ran out to try some other shops close to the house. She hit Victoria’s frutas y vegetales where she was helped by a very nice man who probably wasn’t Victoria. They had good produce and good prices and will likely get a return trip. She stopped at another market and wasn’t impressed and also managed to grab a photo of Fresas Gormet or in English Strawberry Gormet. This place is near our house and pretty much everything on the menu included strawberries. For those who’ve been to northern Michigan it reminds us of The Cherry Hut in Beulah where most of the menu features Michigan cherries. At Fresas Gormet, you can also get fresh berries to take home for the best price we’ve found.
Victoria’s 
No name – not returning 
Strawberries in everything
After dinner we did some family TV time. After we finished season two of Lego Masters we decided to stay with the reality competition genre so we’re giving Master Chef Jr a try. Our kids can relate – the competitors ages are from 8-13. We’re in good shape if we like Season 1, there are six more already out and Season 8 slated for this year.
5 Adventures Together 