May 20,

Up and about – it was 49°!!! We quickly turned on the heater and had our Javas with breakfast of oatmeal, yogurt, and half a melon, which was decent and a nice change. I don’t think I mentioned the other day we made some fresh “squeezed” OJ (we have a juicer) … so mixing it all up! Anyway, I then blogged as I was quite behind. There’s no excuse as those days were inside. This day ended up the same. Ho Hum!

By mid-afternoon, it was warm enough that we went out to the store. On our way back we stopped at the local fruit/veg stand. She sets up every Wednesday it appears and is located just out our building and around the corner! No prices are marked, she just names a price and we pay, which we are probably getting tourist pricing but it works for us. When we returned we made a local dish, L???(we threw away the seasoning packet). It’s like a cross between a dry stew or a wet stir-fry served with rice. Then evening came and we had a snack of peanuts, cheese & crackers with hummus.

     May 21,

We were up and about, finally a bit warmer and ready to get out! We had our Javas and breakfast of eggs with the left overs of the dish we made yesterday. (It was better after we jazzed it up a bit.) After we finished, we waited until it was 64°, around 1230. Then we went out for a big walkabout. We went to Parque de la Salud, which translates as Health Park. This was the park we went to earlier, that required ID. We showed the copies of our passport. The guard jotted down our info and we went in.

It was an amazing oasis! We heard and saw many birds. According to my Merlin Bird App here’s the list: Monk Parakeet, Yellow Chevroned Parakeet, Bluish-Gray Saltator, Southern House Wren, Purple-throated Euphonia, Rufus-collared Sparrow, Pale-breasted & Creamy-bellied Thrushes, White-throated Spadebill, Thrush-like Wren, Great Kiskadee, Sayaca Tanager, Rufous Horneo, Gilded Hummingbird, and lastly a White Woodpecker! It was a crazy symphony of bird calls, chirps, trills, and hoots and a blast! There were many full grown trees and splash here and there of color from flowering trees, or vines. We also saw many butterflies around. The birds were usually only spotted as they flew about, but the Monk Parakeet was the prevalent one. The walking circuit in the park was 1500 m or just shy of a mile. We did a loop and enjoyed it so much we did another ⅔ of a loop. We encountered maybe half a dozen gardeners and maybe double that walking or jogging/running “the loop”. There was a nice waterwork feature in the center of the small park. It was just a lovely park. The birds were camera shy but did get a couple pics of butterflies.

We left and walked to ‘Bacon Burgers’ that Jeff had pinged. Their motto seems to be bacon, bacon, bacon, bacon… Anyway, we had a Bacon Extra- double beef patty & cheddar cheese, extra bacon, ketchup and house mayo on a brioche bun; and Sandwich de Lomito Blue Cheese- beef patty, blue cheese, bacon, arugula, and house mayo on a brioche bun. We shared an order of fries. Both hamburgers were fantastic and worthy! The fries were cool to cold!?! I know “fries” are not in their name, but at least serve them hot! I had a mini coke as part of a combo. We paid 106,000 PYG, or $17.39.

Then we went to a different store, Casa Rica, an upscale, imported “stuffs” store. We found pretzels and “Cheeesse, Gromit”. We also bought a gourmet empanada. We left, walking back to our place along the major construction works going on to the roads. We passed by a local shop and bought another empanada to compare. It was bigger, not as fancy, came with an extra small bun and cost 5,000 PYG less (82 cents). We now went back, and later we heated up the empanadas and compared. They were different and both good, but the cheaper one was more flavorful and the bargain. Anyway, we ended the day watching some YouTube videos. Great day out and about!