I have three puppies looking for a good home ~ $25 each. All have been wormed and seen by the vets, are in great health ~ the only consideration is that they are going to be a bit on the HUGE side. Mother is a US bred Lab mixed with brindle Boxer (Laboxers!) weighing in around 90lbs, Father is a Rottweiler. Let me know ~ they are officially weaned, gentle, and accustomed to playing with monkeys. 6482-XXXX
A few days later a local ex-pat posted that she had puppies for sale. A few minutes later we were exchanging messages then phone calls. Hayu needed a playmate. The owner, Michelle, offered to bring one to town of the three remaining available from a litter of seven or eight. I preferred to check out all the puppies and make my choice. A few days later Michelle was coming to town, to have a tooth pulled from one of her workers. A couple of friends and I decided that it was a good day for a long boat ride so we headed out behind Bocas Paradise, a hotel and restaurant and met Michelle on the dock. Her boat was loaded down with five 35 pounds of dog food and a great deal of other supplies. The worker was anxious to get home and get on with not working so he was left in her faster boat and Michelle came with us.
The four of us proceeded to her farm in Lomo Partida. Lomo Partida is out there on the edges, an appropriate place for a woman whose interests vary from permaculture to string theory, who has traveled through Tanzania and decided it was her destiny to create a permaculture farm on the outskirts of an already exotic location and is as likely to have a monkey on her head as not. Michelle came to Panama seven years ago and created an organic farm on the other end of this archipelago the only gringo in a land rich with wildlife and inhabited nearly exclusively by mestizos, a mixture of Spanish and Indian. Our first way point was a dip between two hills referred to as "Split Hill". About ten miles into the trip we wandered around mangroves. Michelle indicated that all routes lead safely through the mangroves in easily navigable waters. Ngobe Indians fished from their little dugouts or were were on their way to parts unknown. From a whole lot of nothing but sea, mangroves and jungle a gringo village appeared. Large yachts were moored, a big Hatteras, "There's Scott's boat. It's for sale only $200,000." Strange, I thought Scott had poured a great deal more into restoring the vessel. Something more akin to a small ship than a yacht enormous, "That's Mike's boat". Michelle adamantly corrected that it was not Mike's but his wife's.
View Trip to Puppy Land in a larger map
We moored at the end of a dock upon which sat a lovely that roofed guest room constructed of Cana Fistula wood, walls that rose above the eves but far short of the roof to allow the cool breeze into the the room. The space between the top of the walls and the roof was strung with fishing line to keep out bats, an appropriate precaution in an area inhabited by vampire bats. "This is wonderful! Who built it?" "I did." Whoa, my hats off to you. Next the hat was off to a monkey, not as a gesture of respect, but because the monkey wished it so. A capuchin monkey rules the place. On to see the puppies. An ascending boardwalk provided a serpentine path up the hill punctuated by kodak moment spots with benches. Each bench was employed by our hostess as an invitation to rest from climbing and have a cigarette. We arrived at a series of small cabins used as guest quarters and rental units and met momma and the puppies. Seven bundles of fluffiness and a monkey. Monkey on my head, on the roof, up a tree, on my head, mounting a puppy, swinging off a branch, on my head, wrestling a puppy, a non stop simian sideshow. 
I invited myself to see Michelle's "shack" in the jungle. We entered through an open dining room with half walls and a ceiling and a table adequate for many guests. The rooms flowed into one another with little ceremony, devoid of ceilings, better for the open-ness and breeze. The house was simply a masterpiece of unconventional, open living that reflected Michelle's spirit, constructed of wood from a wild tobacco tree. At the rear of the house was a small bedroom, with a curtain for a door, overlooking the slope to the edge of the sea, the sea stretching to the mainland and rising to the mountains. 
We returned to the puppies, coming and going, under the boardwalk, Now three, now four, six, four, three and, of course a monkey in the middle of it all. It was getting time to go. One puppy was a bit weary of the monkey and the little dog named Jezebel came out from beneath the board walk and sent the monkey on his way. Michelle had chosen wisely. I paid my $25 and taking the puppy in my arms started the descent toward the dock while the monkey climbed my back, swung from my free hand and climbed on my head while Nikelda took pictures of my abuse and Stephen laughed at the whole process. Down at the dock the monkey boarded the boat, gave everything an inspection and decided that it was in ship shape and hopped off the boat. We sailed off and encountered more Ngobe in cayucos. I wanted to buy a couple of the small boats for putzing around near my house so Nikelda asked two women in a cayuco if it was for sale. They looked at us as though we were from another dimension. They looked at each other. They looked at us again. The looked at each other. Now it appeared as though they were thinking about it. How often does some guy come by in a boat and offer one money for a little dugout canoe? Probably a once in a lifetime event down here. Nikelda asked again. There was a long pause and they indicated that the boat was not for sale. I returned to town, dropped off my passengers and took the puppy to her new house.
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