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Hi, this is Betsy at LivingInPanama.org. I was on the Puerto Armuelles Yahoo group the other day and found some great aerial photos of our town in Panama, Puerto Armuelles. The gentleman who took the photos graciously gave me permission to make a video using them, which you are seeing right now. The photos were taken from a two-person trike, like this one right here.
This is Norm. He's the person who took these photos, and he came down from Arizona to give a flying lesson to Paul. You can see Paul, or a little bit of Paul, sitting in front of Norm as they're taking off. You know Paul. He lives in David, or it could be in Boquete. I can't quite remember. I only see him when he's down here in Puerto Armuelles. He comes down here from time to time to fly his various aircraft at the airstrip.
Here they are going up in the air, gliding along the coastline right around Puerto Armuelles. What is unusual, you wouldn't think so in a country like Panama with so many coastlines, but it is really quite unusual to have a town right on the coast here in Panama.
Here you can see part of the town, the hills of Punta Burica in the background there. Here's a really nice bird's eye view of Puerto Armuelles. Here's the old Chiquita Banana pier. You can see it right there. It just comes right out of the downtown area. This is downtown.
There's Carmen neighborhood and beyond it San Vicente and, of course, the hills of Punta Burica there in the background. He must have turned north, because this is the neighborhood of Rio Mar in the northeastern part of town. You can see the ball field that Chiquita West uses.
You should know, in Panama, including Puerto Armuelles, they take baseball very seriously. There are actually quite a few baseball stadiums here in Puerto.
Here we are heading back over downtown Puerto Armuelles. This is the downtown area in the foreground and the bigger buildings. This is the waterfront park, and there's another park right across the street from it, and over here is the playground, which they just recently renovated, so it's looking pretty nice. You can see again that this is the banana pier, Carmen and San Vicente in the background, and there's the airfield here and other neighborhoods, like right here is Las Palmas, and that's where I am right now in my house making this recording.
Here they came in for a closer view along the waterfront. That's the waterfront park I was telling you about. Here's a little place that we often go have laquatos, sort of smoothies. This is the bus station right there, and if you continue along, you can go to a sports bar called Tisa Mar, which is, as the name implies, a very nice place to watch sporting events on TV. It also has great views on either side here. Sometimes from this area you can see the volcano, Baru, the one that's between Volcan and Boquete from here.
Now they're coming back toward the airstrip, and this is the neighborhood of Carmen. If you were on the ground, you would see that there are colorful row houses up on stilts. It's right along the ocean on this side, and on the other side of it is the great, big open space that people use for myriad of uses right along the airstrip.
Here you are approaching the airfield, and we see the old Chiquita Banana warehouses here. These are the hills, not on Punta Burica, but right outside of Puerto right beyond there. I believe this is the warehouse that a friend of ours, Rex, makes sports boats out of.
Here's the first approach of the runway for a visual check. A visual check is a very important thing as you're coming in to this runway because one never knows, there could be horses or bicyclists. Lots of people exercise here or a soccer game or baseball game, and there's even a 9-hole golf course that's played in the area around and including the airfield. You can see an old banana pier downtown. It's just out of site there.
Now they're going down into the final approach on the trike, and now we have touchdown. Here the firemen, bombeiros, from the firehouse right here are coming. There are a number of firehouses. This is the one right next to the air strip. They came out to check out this pretty cool deal. Both my husband, Ren, and I really want to go up on, so we're going to try contact Paul to make sure that can happen.
If you want to learn how to fly a trike, give Norm a shout at iflytrikes.com. If you want to find out about living in Panama, Puerto Armuelles, or real estate listings here, please visit us at LivingInPanama.org. Thanks for watching.
To find out more about Puerto Armuelles, start here.
