Boquete

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Well we made it to Boquete and found a room right away at hostel Palacios right in the center of town. We were on the bus there with a girl we had met already in Boca Brava and when we arrived met a guy from Saskatchewan and had an instant bond. So the four of us (Sara and Eric) spent the next few days hanging out together. We cruised the streets and checked out the fair, which I was expecting to be something like a farmers market only with flowers for the so called ¨Festival of Flowers¨ but instead it was more like a carnival/amusement park with HUGE bars built with multiple stories on stilts and rides and food and booze and then there was the odd garden throughout. The grounds were fairly empty during the day but the music started up in the evening and doesn´t stop until the wee hours in the morning. We were told Wednesday night was ladies night at the fair and there was going to be male strippers so we held out until Wednesday night to go. The next day we read about a cute little garden called Exploradora that was to be something like Alice in Wonderland and we set out to find it. We walked for over an hour ENTIRELY up hill at an angle I didn´t think they could build roads on. When we finally got there I had little energy to explore but it was small and weird. It was a creepy run down version of tin can people and spray painted faces on trees in someones property. Needless to say we were in need for a nap when we got back and got ready for the hot springs! A group of us made a date for 4:00 to take a cab 20 minutes out to the hot spring trail and hiked into the 4 very small pools of water in rocks called Los Pozos de Caldera. We drank some beers and slapped some bugs and then at dark had to hike out 6 of us with the 2 head lamps that Ross and I remembered to bring (Thank you Carla!). Then we all hit the sack early. Our last day we got up early to walk to the local coffee plantation for a tour/lecture on the coffee industry in Panama which was surprisingly fascinating and I really enjoyed it! We layed low for the rest of the day and tried to teach ourselves Spanish with a dictionary and a pen and paper. Around 3:00 the drinking began and we had a hostel full of people playing cards and ready to head out for some naked men at the fair. Unfortunately (only for me I guess) we did not arrive early enough (the line ups were horendous) and we missed the strippers but we did have a hell of a time in the bar there trying to move amoungst the thousands of people. The drinks sold there are by the bottle so you purchase the 26 oz. and 4 plastic cups and a 2L of pop and off you go! We had a fun and late night! The hang over day was spent on the bus as we decided to head over to the Caribbean coast and see Bocas Del Toro.

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