To Sir With Love

No school today! Our profesora Tamara needed off today so we had an entire day to play. Sitting outside in the sunshine I did my homework and listened to the birds chirp. We are off on another adventure to visit Finca Lerida.

This a half hour drive from Boquete up in the hills. The place was started in 1911 by a Norwegian,  Tollef B. Monniche, an engineer who designed the emergency dams of the Panama Canal. He bought this land and planted coffee. It became renowned for its coffee and the biodiversity of the land. Monniche became an expert on birds. Today there is a coffee farm with tours, an elite hotel, restaurant and hiking trails.

We drove up to the hotel area and got out of the car to find a tomato tree.

A nature guide was nearby and explained that these are hard tomatoes related to a tomato plant. They are used for smoothies and marmalade. Also used for the delicious soup I enjoyed at lunch.

Around the corner we saw the guide again with another couple. They had sighted a "Magnificent Hummingbird" posing on a branch. We got to look through the sighting scope and got some photos.

We also saw a Green Violet-ear Hummingbird.

So many coffee plants

We walked around the hotel grounds and saw a colorful collection of bird houses. We made our way to the restaurant seeing lots of birds and hummingbirds along the way. The flowers and shrubs are gorgeous - begonias, roses, irises, lillies, geraniums and pointsettias.

The restaurant is set on a hillside and we were on the covered porch overlooking a valley. So many birds darting in and out of the trees. We met a couple coming in from a birding tour and they were lucky enough to see several quetzals. We had a nice lunch and saw some birds brave enough to come near the porch for food.

Flame-colored Tanager (Red Male and Yellow Female)

It started to get cloudy and then began to rain. We finished eating, got in the car, and headed back to Boquete. We stopped at Fresas Mary so I could get some sweet strawberries with whipped cream.

Tonight we had a date for dinner with a new friend. Barbara has lived in Boquete for eight years and owns a local bakery. She is an American and has been very helpful to us. We met at her beautiful home in town and had fresh squeezed orange juice. Jeff and I loved petting her labradoodle as we are missing Sirius so much. We went to a restaurant in town called Colibiri which means hummingbird. It is a modern place with a nice menu.  I opted for a salad with roast chicken on top in a mustard sauce. Very healthy and delicious.

Back at home now and catching up on the day's news.