Panama is one of those places that makes vegetarianism fun AND AFFORDABLE! Produce down here is done how it should be done: Cheap and Organic (Mostly). I don´t know and doubt there are any true organic certification boards here but alot of the stuff here grows with little human intervention thus I know alot of this stuff is organic. There are banana,plantain, coconut, papaya, and mango trees everywhere. I can say I´ve noticed that there are alot less of these trees since I was last here mainly because of the increase of building and road construction here but there are still alot around. especially when you go into the residential areas. I went to one person´s house who had 2 huge mango trees both with trunks with more than 2 feet diameters. There were mangos all over the yard.

Because of the high accessibility to produce most of it is extremely cheap in comparison to U.S. prices. Bananas and plantain are usually 10 cents a lb.; coconuts for 25 cents each; mangos 25 cents for 4 ; pineapples for $1.00 each; and the lists goes on. Then there´s all the new stuff I´m learning about and old stuff that I don´t get to eat too often because of inaccessibility in the states or just extremely high costs.

I´m also takign this opportunity to learn how to prepare some panamanian dishes that I didn´t know how to prepare before. There are dishes that are traditionally vegetarian and a few that can be altered a little bit. There is the coconut rice and guandu peas dish that is common amongst WEst Indians, then fried mash green plantain called patacones, a myriad of ways to prepare yucca and plantain, a dessert called yucca pon (used to love it as a kid), a porridge made with okra and cornmeal called coocoo, etc.

Oh then there is a vegetarian restaurant here called Mireya that I went too. The owners´have two locations but I´ve only been to one in El Dorado. That place have to be the least expensive veggie joint I´ve ever been too. THe food is good, cheap and vegan (besides the honey). I got a big plate of food for less than $5.00. That is unheard of in the states. In the states one is virtually punished for choosing not to eat meat. That isn´t the case down here.

All this talk about food... I think I´m hungry.

...continuarè luego...

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"the real pyramids were built with such precision that you can't slide a piece of paper between two 4,000 lb stones, and have shafts perfectly aligned so that you can see a tiny aperture through dozens of these mammoth blocks