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Published: January 18th 2007
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Trail to Paradise
Are those are horses? Here we are, once again! This is the first time we have actually travelled on a bus for an hour and a half to use the internet! Since we last wrote we have travelled up to Santa Fe. It is a cute little town in the center of Panama and mountainous. There is excellent hiking here and many rivers that are very clean. The little town itself has no road signs and no real organization, but it is fun watching the wandering cows graze in the market.
Before coming to Santa Fe we made a quick stop at Las Olas (the waves) to celebrate our anniversary. It was an all inclusive 3 day stay. John surprised me with a nice bottle of champagne delivered to our room. Apparently it was suppose to be delivered while we were at dinner, but, here we are with the communication barrier again. It sure makes for some fun stories! Anyways, beach there was beautiful and our room was nice, but, believe it or not, we were ready to hit the road again for some more conversation challenges and new places.
We left there and came straight to Santa Fe. I know our Spanish
Ahh the Rio
Fresh and clean is getting better because we are feeling a bit less intimidated. We actually were not quite sure where we were going, but we knew it was at least to a town called Santiago. We decided we were going to check e-mail at the Santiago bus terminal to determine our direction. When we got to Santiago we read the guide book and it said the last bus to Santa Fe left in about 20 minutes, so we had to catch a taxi to the other bus station and catch the bus. (Come to find out, they have added several later buses and did not need to be in such a hurry). Needless to say, we didn´t check our e-mail for fear we wouldn´t make the last bus. We were actually hoping for an e-mail from Kate (from Costa Rica and Boca Brava adventures) to see where she was hanging her hat for the last few days of her stay.
We had the bus drop us off at Hotel Santa Fe. As we were checking out the rooms to determine which one we wanted, John walked by one with an open door, looked inside, and there was Kate. We couldn´t believe
Fun in the sun
Happiness is a great place to spend with new amigos! it! We wandered around town the next day as Kate took a horseback ride and found a new hostal that isn´t in any of the guide books yet called Hostal Qhia. After looking at the rooms there, we quickly decided to move. It is an excellent place to stay and the views are spectacular. Now, instead of the howler monkeys waking us up, there are fighting roosters that start about 4 a.m. every morning. Apparently they don´t realize that the coffee isn't ready until 7:00.
The first day we were at the hostal we took a 4 hour hike to a waterfall that is very poorly marked. Our hostess (Stephanie) provided us with a very good map and we managed to find it. Some of the other guests attempted as well, but weren´t successful. The water is running very strongly. Normally during the dry season you can swim under the falls, but the water was coming down so hard that the falls were barely visable due to the mist. Our shoes were unrecognizable due to the mud that was now up to almost mid-shin. The mud was very slippery and made for an interesting journey. I thought the vultures
Slide Down What????
Hey J watch that last drop it's a doozy. One of many slides to brave. were watching us very anxiously waiting for us to get stuck. We saw a couple of Toucans in the trees and a crazy phone booth way at the top of hill in the middle of no-where. (Some of the other guests who did make it this far were scratching their heads about this as well).
Kate was coming to the end of her visit and talked us into a horseback ride. I decided to put on my new handmade necklace and earrings from the night before to offset the fact that I don´t know how to ride. I figured that if I can´t ride well, I might as well look good trying! It was a very fun day. The guide took us up to the top of Alto de Piedra where we parked our horses (is that what you do with them?) and started on foot to another waterfall. It was beautiful. We stopped for a few minutes and had a snack. Oranges grow like crazy here, so you can just pick them and eat them. Our guide had thrown a couple in his bag for us to have. We tossed about writing a new movie called "Un hombre
Deb
Just can't keep her out of the water.
and tres therapist de massage". It is amazing how many massage therapist we have run into. The group consisted of me, Kate, Erin, and John. All the chicas are massage therapists. We thought is was quite humerous. JJ got a stubborn horse named Junior and was very fun as John´s frustration was very animated. When we got back to the horses, I searched for the keys, but think I lost them somewhere in the mud...tee hee.
We went to check out the local cemetary. They are very interesting as they don´t bury a lot of their graves. I found it rather intriquing and had to go check it out. There is also an orchid farm here that is rather well-known. We went to see it, but there were very few orchids blooming. The festival of orchids is in August and we think it is probably very spectacular.
We met an awesome couple from the US that own a house and property here and they took us to a very clean river that we spent 4 hours climbing up and returning down. It had moss covered natural waterslides, jacuzzis and great trees surrounding it. We also stopped at some fantastic swimming holes. The water was so refreshing. We have decided that this is like Colorado with a tan. There is plenty of hiking and so many things to see.
Well, that about takes us to our bus ride back down to Santiago. Here we sit, thinking about you all again and missing you. Hope you are all doing well and always love to hear from you! Smiles and thoughts from Santa Fe! Chow!
P.S. We forgot our other memory card so we only have pics from yesterdays hike. We will add more later so check back in a week. 😞
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Jen
non-member comment
Boo-hoo!
All that buildup of JJ and his horse but no pictures? Maybe on the next update :)