Beaches: Chapter Two

I pedaled and sweated my way back up the hills towards Pedras'.  Along the way I passed a few of the more expensive hostels, seemingly empty this week.  It is very, very quiet here right now.  The proprietor of the local Ex-pat bar told me that the town was packed last weekend as folks celebrated Liberation Day.  Not so this weekend.

I guess they never saw the movie, huh?

At the fork in the road, I headed back down again, questioning my logic as I did so.  A long kilometer along the right-hand fork brought me to what I had been hearing about and seeing billboards for: one of the new gated communities for retirees.  Andromeda was the name of this one, still very much under construction, with or without the irony of the name.  Further down the road (and the hill) were more fluttering banners and colour coordinated signs describing the new communities that were being forged.  At the bottom of the hill, where I thought there would be a beach, was a completed little enclave of finely crafted homes, with gated security and onsite managment 24 hours per day.  I know  this because that is what the welcoming sign said.  

What's a gated community without a gate?

It made me faint just watching these guys work!

There was a beach, actually, sort of a rocky affair and not the beach I was looking for as it turns out.

What I failed to realize is that I had already been to both beaches.  But, had I not taken the wrong fork, I would have missed this other aspect of the town.  I have learned a bit more today as well.  I have to make a correction to an earlier post.  There is now an operational commercial airport to the West of town.  There are also three scheduled flights per week from Panama City.  

Developement is running apace.  My local Ex-pat connection does not think it will change the town all that much.  He says the town will be busier, of course, but that most of the folks moving here, and those vacationing here, are either living outside of town or staying at the exclusive beach-front resorts that are springing up from here to the South.  Time will tell on this one.  I am glad I had the chance to see it as it is now.

I pedaled back to town and headed for Fonda Madame FeFe's, the place to go for Platillos Typico.  It was the local working guys, a few of the neighbors and myself.  $2.50 for the real deal lunch plate and it was really good.  Some kind of spicy pea soup, carne' stew and rice.  Rewards for pedaling in the heat.  I felt validated when I heard a few of the neighbors carping about how hot it was.  

Madame FeFe's place.  Her daughter runs it now.

Time to refuel!!