Beth and I took a mini-vacation on Sept. 8th, 9th, and 10th. We left Paso Ancho around noon on Sept. 8th and drove to our first destination, Las Olas Resort. Beautiful place near David, Chiriqui. A little over an hour's drive from us. Since this is the low season, the rates were good. But we were not prepared to be two of just a handful of people staying there. It reminded us of the Lookout Hotel in The Shining! We kept waiting for Jack Nicholson to jump out at us.

Las Olas (The Waves) is 18 km of beachfront on the Pacific Ocean. Black sand. It is a large development and they are also building condos there. We had the beach to ourselves. It is weird looking at such a huge expanse of beach and not seeing another single person. The grounds are beautifully planted with exotic flowers. Birds of Paradise, hibiscus and others which I didn't recognize. We had dinner there and breakfast the next morning and then drove on to our next destination, Puerto Armuelles.

Puerto Armuelles seemed to be a poor little town. It used to boom until Chiquita Banana (United Fruit) decided to pull up stakes and leave. Now one of the petroleum companies has built a huge pipeline and refinery near the town.

We drove along the waterfront and found a restaurant (Restaurante y Pizzeria-Don Carlos) for fish and seafood. Fresh and delicious. I had popcorn shrimp and Beth had some kind of fried fish. The owner, Alberto, was very nice. We asked him about a place to stay the night there in P.A. Unfortunately, there are apparently not too many of those.

However, he knew of another place, Hooked On Panama, a few miles down the coast so we drove there. Another beautiful place on the ocean. Their specialty is fishing expeditions. You can find them at hookedonpanama.com. Not many people there either. It is the rainy season here. We had a very gracious host at H.O.P. They served a great dinner at the clubhouse and then fresh fruit, scrambled eggs, toast and jelly for breakfast next morning.

We left there around mid-morning on the 10th and drove to Paso Canoas located on the Costa Rica-Panama border for a bit of shopping. There's a Duty Free Zone there where some prices are much cheaper.

We arrived home around 1:00 P.M. It was good to get back on the mountain. The temperature down near sea level was 95ºF. We were melting! When we got back home, it was a pleasant 75ºF.

See photo album "Mini-Vacation at the Beach" for pics of our journey.

The ocean's a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there!