Our last country...

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After a very confusing border crossing (we even had to help some Costa Rican nuns and a Dutch surfer, and we got help from an Iranian-American who lives in Costa Rica!) and a nine hour bus ride, we are now in Panama!

We were on a through bus from San Jose CR to David, Panama, but still had to walk a quarter mile along the muddy, rutted Pan-American Highway between to Costa Rican border check point and the Panamanian check point. The Panamanians had a number of hoops for us to jump through: passports, entry card, proof of onward travel, luggage inspection, tourist card....these were all in different places and no one told you where to go next...in the middle of it, we were trying to get our bags inspected, but couldn't because we hadn't gotten our passports stamped, which couldn't be stamped because we needed a tourist card! A man took our bags back to bus without being inspected and asked us to give him $2.00 for the service! We gladly did.... Another man walked up to us and told us he would put a sticker on our tourist cards for $2.00....we finally got back into the bus (the surfer hadn't gotten a tourist card...but had to buy a return bus ticket he didn't need) but were stopped a few minutes down the road to have our passports checked again....

We took a second bus from David to Boquete, a beautiful little mountain town that has become popular with gringos buying land and homes. It was raining very hard (thunderstorms) when we got here in the dark, and rained hard again this morning. Today we moved hotels and took a walk up the hill to look down on the town. Tomorrow we will take a local bus up near the base of the Baru Volcano and hike a part of the Cendaro de Quetzales, a trail where you can sometimes the endangered Quetzal bird.

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Photos

The town of Boquete
We walked a kilometer and a half out of town to the tourist bureau, which had no maps or hiking info....but the walk was nice and the view was great!

On the bus from David to Boquete
These brothers fell asleep as the rain poured down..when they woke up I gave some of Haddy's glasses, and they giggled the rest of the way..!

Hotel Panamonte
We stayed here the first night. It was built in the 1930's (I think) by Europeans, and has beautiful grounds.

In town
There are branches of the river and little streams everywhere. People have amazing gardens. There are coleus of dozens of colors and variations! This picture was taken by stream that runs behind a beautiful new home.

Comments

[patricia]

the end!!!
I'm going to miss these stories. Where to next if this is the end? There still is South America to see???Patricia

[haddy]

cool glasses
too bad you didn't take a pricture of the brothers with the glasses on