A National Day of Mourning

Day 218 = Monday (Lunes) - Playa Coronado


Courtesy of La Prensa
Jorge Illueca, who was the president of Panama for a few months in 1984, died last week on Thursday, 3 May 2012. President Ricardo Martinelli declared Monday, 7 May 2012 as a day of national mourning throughout Panama it will be prohibited to hold dances or play lively music. The Mayoral Decree number 1960 of 4 May 2012 starts at 12:01 am on Monday, 7 May 2012, and remains in effect until midnight. The sale and consumption of liquor in pubs, bars, wine bars, discos, barbecues, supermarkets, shops and distributors of alcoholic beverages, shall likewise be prohibited during the day of mourning. The decree says it will fall to the National and Municipal Police, Municipal Inspectors, and the Night Courts to ensure compliance with the provisions outlined, under penalty of fines ranging from $100 to $1,000 dollars. (Panama America)

Jorge Illueca was a prominent Panamanian politician who served in various posts during the military dictatorship regimes of both Omar Torrijos and Manuel Noriega. He served as Ambassador of Panama to the United Nations from 1976 to 1981. Illueca  was president of the UN General Assembly from 1983 to 1984. He has served as a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague from 1974-1990 and as a member of the United Nations International Law Commission from 1982-1986, 1987-1991; and 1997-2001. Illueca briefly served as the president of Panama for a few months, from 13 February until 11 October 1984, after Ricardo de la Espriella resigned under pressure from the military goons, due to threats made against his family because he wasn't playing the role of the perfect puppet. Illueca stepped up to replace him from his Vice President's position. To his credit, he pretty much got out of politics shortly after Omar Torrijos died and Manuel Noriega took over.   

You don't see this everyday

Day 217 Sunday (Domingo) - Playa Coronado

CINCO DE MAYO

Day 216 Saturday (Sabado) - Playa Coronado

And of course we also invited our good friend Margarita

Courtesy of the Panama News
Have you heard of Cinco de Mayo as it is celebrated in the Mexican-American communities of the United States? It's a very important day for grocers who sell avocados up there, what with all of that guacamole. To those celebrating their Mexican heritage, it's the anniversary of the smashing defeat handed to the European pretender to a purported Mexican throne, Maximilian Habsburg, by the forces of President Benito Juárez.

In Panama we have Plaza Cinco de Mayo and a firefighters' parade on May 5 for an unrelated reason. On May 5, 1914, near the site of the present-day Hospital Santa Fe, Panama's bomberos (firefighters) were battling a blaze in a row of wooden buildings, and didn't know that in one of them there was an illegal fireworks factory. The blast took the lives of 11 young bomberos.

The emblem of the Cuerpo de Bomberos de Panama contains the words disciplina, honor, and abnegacion --- all of these being English cognizants for those unilingual readers who haven't figured it out --- and these are the values celebrated at Plaza Cinco de Mayo, where Panama City's Avenida Central turns into a pedestrian mall.

Stay focused

Day 215 Friday (Viernes) - Playa Coronado

"All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them"

                                                                                                                                                         Walt Disney

Squirrel watching

Able to rest

Day 214 Thursday (Jueves) - Playa Coronado

Just a lazy Thursday today, not much going on so it will be nice to relax a bit with no obligations on the table.

We did get rain yesterday here in the beach area, but it did not last long so maybe today we will get hit some more.

We are going to be making our way into the city soon for a few months to enjoy and explore it more thoroughly, so today we will start organizing our personals that we will be bringing with us, since we did not bring much with us from the states, that will not take very long but must be done.

Panama City has much to offer so we are going to experience it on a more long term basis instead of our usual few days stays and report our daily findings from there.

We will take the city by storm

What is a Rain Forest anyways?

Day 213 Wednesday (Miercoles) - Playa Coronado

According to Wikipedia

Tropical rainforests are characterized in two words: warm and wet. Mean monthly temperatures exceed 18 °C(64 °F) during all months of the year.^[4]Average annual rainfall is no less than 168 cm (66 in) and can exceed 1,000 cm (390 in) although it typically lies between 175 cm (69 in) and 200 cm (79 in).^[5].

Around 40% to 75% of all biotic species are indigenous to the rainforests.^[1] It has been estimated that there may be many millions of species of plants, insects and microorganisms still undiscovered in tropical rainforests. Tropical rainforests have been called the "jewels of the Earth" and the "world's largestpharmacy", because over one quarter of natural medicines have been discovered there.^[2] Rainforests are also responsible for 28% of the world's oxygenturnover, sometimes misnamed oxygen production,^[3] processing it through photosynthesis from carbon dioxide and consuming it through respiration.

The undergrowth in a rainforest is restricted in many areas by the poor penetration of sunlight to ground level. This makes it easy to walk through undisturbed, mature rainforest. If the leaf canopy is destroyed or thinned, the ground beneath is soon colonized by a dense, tangled growth of vines, shrubs and smalltrees, called a jungle

So with all the above being said, living here in the Pacific Beach area of Coronado, we have not seen much rain at all yet this wet season, which basically started mid-March, our mountain and city friends are getting their fair share, but we are still pretty dry.

How appropriate

Day 212 Tuesday (Martes) - Playa Coronado

For those of you reading my mango mishap on my blog this past week, we found this street sign dead on.