Scouting Panama - Day 14 - Volcan and Las Tablas
Aloha! Our trip to Volcan today was fascinating - it is on the opposite side of Volcan Baru (the major volcano, though inactive) from Boquete, and a much quieter and smaller farming community. It took us about 2.5 hours to drive there, we had lunch and talked with an ex-pat who lives there. In climate, it is much like Boquete, but a bit drier. In development and infrastructure, it is also smaller, and just building new roads, adding water security and electrical infrastructure.
We visited a rental townhouse (which are few and far between) and for $600 per month, they had probably 1600 square feet, three official bedrooms, an exercise room, a home office, a USA/Canadian-style kitchen, and views of the mountains - whew, what a difference from Boquete's prices! On the way back to Boquete, we stopped at a mall in David (say, Dah-veed) that had a couple of appliance stores, so we checked out the prices for fridges, washer-driers, and snazzy TVs, and they were all less than we would have expected in the USA - perhaps because the cargo stops here!
I told you a couple of days ago that I would tell you more about Las Tablas, so here are a couple of stories we about the town.
Do you remember that I told you about Captain Henry Morgan's sacking and burning of Panama City/Casca Viejo in January 1671? The former Black Beard was no nicer a guy when he had the blessing of the British government, and during the sacking, he hauled away over 100,000 pounds of treasure, and a goodly chunk of that was gained from torturing residents of the city to give up the goods and the secret hiding places. One famous piece that the pirates did not get, was the Golden Altar of Casco Viejo, which the Jesuit priests had cut into two pieces, painted black, and sunk in the harbor to keep it from being stolen (and you can still see a version in the church, but this version is gold-plated). Apparently, Captain Morgan was a bit perturbed, and bound and determined to torture and kill until someone revealed the secret - but no one did. Captain Morgan left, vowing to return.
A lot of the remaining residents of the Panama City/Casco Viejo area counter-vowed that they would leave and not be there when Captain Morgan made his return trip, so they took boats and went up the coast a bit, and then into the bay that creates the Azuero peninsula. They didn't want to be within easy sight of the ocean, so they tucked into a cover within the bay, dismantled the ships and remaining furniture that they had salvaged from Panama City, and started building a new town. From the salvaged furniture, comes the name Las Tablas (the tables). So, the town dates back to 1671.
And, for the record, Captain Morgan never returned.
In Las Tablas, Santa Librada is venerated in a church dedicated to her, and the story goes that she was promised in an arranged marriage that she did not want. So, she prayed and prayed for God to find a way out of it, and God blessed her with a big, fluffy, and un-cuttable beard, which nixed the marriage in no time. After the risk of marriage passed, her beard went away. Her father, frustrated and angry, promised her to another, and again, the beard appeared, the marriage was canceled, and the beard disappeared. This continued as Librada approved of none of the suiters her father arranged until at last, her father declared that she was obviously only going to be satisfied by Jesus as a suiter, so he had her crucified (note the cross and the nail holes in the picture). That made Librada a martyred virgin, and she was declared a saint - though she was de-sanctified in 1969 as a great story, but fictitious). She has a church in Las Tablas, and a festival every year, from which today's photo is a local poster. This is a photo from the statue in the church dedicated to her, but all decked out for the festival.
De-sanctified or not, Santa Librada has been declared the patron saint of feminists, queers, trans, and gender-fluid people. In fact, there is a rock group named Santa Librada that champions "no labels, no restrictions" and has quite a following!
There are similar stories throughout Europe, so Las Tablas's Librada might have been a borrowed story, or a nice cross between fact and fiction, or a story that happened to more than one Catholic woman over time - it is certainly true to the people of Las Tablas!
A more recent Las Tablas story today was that a couple in our group that had been thinking of coming from Calgary to Panama during the winters decided to rent a 3 bedroom house that Gwen (owner of the duplex we saw in Las Tablas) found them in the past two days, and they are going back to sign the papers and then to Calgary to put everything up for sale; their son the lawyer will make complete the sales while the couple moves down to live in Las Tablas. The couple's wife is from the Dominican Republic, and they were thinking of several places to winter, but the visit to Las Tablas cinched it for them - they will be back in early February with a few suitcases to live in Panama. Surprise!
Until tomorrow, buenas noches, and a peaceful night to everyone. Our tour's last day is tomorrow, and then we move on Friday to a small hotel in the Boquete town center to stay for 11 more days while we investigate the surrounding area.
Mary Bea y Miguel