I guess they don’t call this area rainforest for nothing. Every afternoon we have had hard thunderstorms that carry on into the night. Despite that, we still manage to get in a little tourist activity starting in the mornings. I began the day sipping tea on the patio with Chef, the house dog. PJ has had shopping on her mind since seeing some South American shawls and sweaters while walking around the small downtown area of Boquete.

The first stop was the artisans market just over the main bridge from the city center. As we exited the car, the rain began to come down. Not hard but enough to break out the umbrellas. A Peruvian lady working one of the nicer stalls gave us a in depth lesson on telling real alpaca wool from stuff artificially labeled to have come from the Andean animals. The truth is, there is hardly any real alpaca wool to be found in Boquete. That didn’t stop us from buying a bunch of other chotskes and such.

We walked into the center from there and shopped a few more stores along the main avenue. PJ found a poncho that tickled her fancy, a scarf and a hand full of other fun items. My mind is always drawn to the local food vendors. We found a small buffet cafeteria where they make you up a plate to your liking from the variety of local dishes behind the glass counter top. We watched the rainy world outside as we sampled their home style cooking.

Next was Romero’s, the main grocery store, to stock up the cabina for the week. It takes us awhile to shop a new grocer when arriving somewhere new. The variety, quality and previously unknown food items have to figured out while navigating the layout of the store and trying to discern the logic behind where some things are set up. Back up the hill to Casa Valhalla for an evening in.