Gavilla Beach Day – Panama Day 5

View from the Bohio

Today was an event that has become a tradition of our annual trips to Panama – a family trip to the beach.  One of my wife’s cousins has an old school bus that we annually fill up with cousins, food, drink, and great attitudes and head for a Pacific beach.  Today we were held up a little because my wife’s nephew had to stop by and create the sales agreement for the land we are buying.  He promised my wife that he would be at the house by 8am.  By 9:30am, still with no nephew, the cousins had assembled and the school bus was being loaded.  The wife was repeat calling the nephew and getting more and more stressed because he wasn’t answering his cell phone.  My wife pontificated that she hated it when people don’t answer their cell phones.  I started laughing (not helping the stress levels) because both of my kids get extremely frustrating with their mother (my wife) for the exact same thing.  The nephew finally pulled up and got everything he needed from us to fill out the needed forms.  I love these rides to the beach because the noise level and one liners flying between this close knit group is so much fun to be a part of.  We were headed for Gavilla Beach, about an hour and a half from my wife’s home town, David.  This is a sheltered inlet with really calm waves.  I prefer a place called Las Lajas which has some huge waves and great body surfing, something I love to do.  A couple of years ago a friend who was visiting Panama with us hurt his neck there and since then my wife steers me away from there.  I think it has something to do with me refusing to acknowledge my age when it comes to body surfing.  Gavilla beach is reached via some extremely treacherous dirt roads.  Last year the bus got stuck and an uncle and I had to bounce outside on the rear bumper to get the bus up one of the hills.   The roads were not any better but apparently the driver was because we arrived with no problem. We rented a Bohio (a side-less grass hut) on the beach, just steps from the water and settled down for a great day.  All the Panamanians were claiming the water was extremely cold.  I told them if they wanted to see cold then they should come to York Beach, Maine.  The water was cold by Panamanian standards but was still delightful, just a little cooler than bath water.  My wife and I took a long walk together and found a really strange rock road leading up from the coast.  It was obviously old and ended just off the beach with no real purpose or destination.  I think it was some old smuggler’s road used to get illicit goods up from the sheltered but remote beach.  It made a nice story anyways.  I was definitely the whitest guy on the beach, at least until the sun burn set in.  There was an incredible thong bikini a short distance away that I spent most of the day trying to avoid staring at due to the proximity of the wife.  I estimate my success rate at 35-46%.  Another great day spent with some truly special people.  Tomorrow we start slogging through the bureaucracy for closing the land deal.  I’m guessing they’re a whole lot less special.

My Wife and I Swimming with a Young Cousin

Cousin Filled Bohio

My Wife and I Enjoying the Beach

Watching the Sun Set on a Great Day