Adventure junkie in the making

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The past few days have been absolutely amazing. Every day in Panama has taken my breath away; I am completely enchanted with this place and can definitely answer the question "What is the best place you have ever traveled to?" with complete certainty now. I absolutely LOVE this country!!!!

I will try to backtrack and fill in the gaps since I have for once made it to the Internet cafe before 10:30 pm. (I think I have finally got this picture uploading thing down too, so I updated the Costa Rica entry with more pictures, FYI)

On New Year's Day I took off with Manu, the Indian Canadian dude, to Bocas del Toro in Panama. I had originally planned on staying in Puerto Viejo longer but with the motorbike tour we did, I saw everything I had planned on seeing in one afternoon, and on top of it all it was pouring rain that morning so I figured that any hope of lounging on the beach all day was lost, so why not head off to Panama earlier. Manu, this Swiss guy, and I were the ONLY people at the border crossing....a miracle (of course it helped that it was early in the morning on a holiday).... and it was such a cool border crossing too, I must say. You walk across this old rickety wooden rail bridge that spans the river separating Costa Rica from Panama, and it was so serene. Manu and I jumped in this minibus to Changuinola and met this great English gal named Nicki, who had been traveling solo and diving from Mexico all the way down to Panama. We hit it off royally and decided to room together in Bocas. The ferry ride was fantastic....like a jungle cruise for 20 minutes and then all of a sudden this river just opens up onto the sea and there is turquoise water all around you.

Well, once again the trouble of New Year's and no reservations smacked us in the forehead. After wandering with our heavy packs for 45 minutes in the hot midday sun, I took off on foot while Nicki watched our bags. After something like an hour and a half of getting "No hay cuartos" I returned to our little outpost on the side of the road. Nicki had talked to some local guy who tried to let us stay at his house but his mother didn't want to let foreigners stay there, so he kept walking around to all his friends' houses until he found someone who took us in. Great people, these Panamanians. We stayed with this young couple and their baby girl for the night, and they were so hospitable with their meager resources that it made you crazy.

Unfortunately the next morning I awoke with bedbug bites all over my knees (interesting...what's the big attraction with just my knees I wonder) and it was raining like crazy. But Nicki was bound and determined to dive that day so she took off and found this guy at a hotel who would take the two of us out. I snorkeled while they dove in this area called The Garden. It was pretty shallow in parts, 7 to 15 feet, so I could dive down and really check out all the corals and spectacular fish, spotted morays, and giant starfish in this amazingly emerald green water. The sun graced us with its presence while we were out there, and all the colors changed; it was absolutely spectacular.

Nicki had decided to catch the noon ferry back to the mainland since she had booked a whitewater rafting tour in Boquete for the 3rd and the housing situation was still tight in Bocas, so I made an executive decision to tag along. The bus ride from Almirante to David was stunning...I never imagined what joy all the bus rides would be! But you come up from the Caribbean, through the mountains and at every turn or break in the lush foliage there are waterfalls, you keep climbing and you are in the clouds and everything is misty and mystical, then you start descending slowly and suddenly there is a break in the greenery and you have this clear shot of the Pacific coast and tons of little islands out there. It was just outstanding.

Anyhow, we got into Boquete around 6 and got a room right on the main square in town and then headed over to the rafting agency to book and pay for the trip. Back at our hotel I started chatting with this guy Darr in the lounge area who travels Panama & South America 6 months a year and knew all the places to be and go. He showed us out to dinner and he & I got the best 25 cent ice cream in the world before shooting the breeze with other travelers in the lounge area and sampling Nicaragua's finest Flor de Caña rum.

Next day was the whitewater rafting trip, which was class 3 and 4 rapids on the Chiriqui Viejo river. The guide put me in the front of the raft, which was outstanding because I got the brunt of the rapids. I was a little nervous about it all but it was absolutely incredible, like the best water rollercoaster you can imagine. I wish I had gotten some pictures of it; I didn't know they would have waterproof boxes in the rafts to keep your cameras in, otherwise I would have brought it to capture the beauty of the area, the monkeys, iguanas, waterfalls, birds....I can't imagine a better setting for whitewater rafting. I am definitely doing some more rafting on this trip; there are some great places in Honduras that are much more in my budget range, so I am already looking forward to that.

We called it an early night after dinner with a Dutch couple that was on our rafting trip with us, and Nicki left early that morning. The night before I ran into Ita again, this super cool guy from Israel who is staying at the same hotel, and he was going to make his second attempt at climbing Volcan Baru and I said I would go with. I really wasn't feeling it at 6:30 in the morning but when he knocked and said the weather was great for it, I decided to go for it. It is 27 kilometers round trip, and I don't know what the heck I was thinking that after months of inactivity my body would be able to handle that. Luckily enough, after about 3 hours of hiking, while I thought my heart was going to explode out of my chest, I thought 'Dear Lord, please help me make it! I think I'm going to pass out and die before I make it to the top....' Not even 5 minutes later, I said to Ita, what is that noise? It was a park guy in a jeep who had to make some adjustments to the antennas at the top of the volcano, who ended up taking us all the way up and all the way down AND all the way into town again to Boquete! Sweet. From the top, the highest point in Panama, you can see to both coasts, although the clouds rolled over most of the Pacific coast while we were up there.

By this point, I'm loving Panama so much that when Ita mentions going to Panama City with him and these 2 guys, Tyler and Chad, I didn't hesitate. I definitely want to check out more of this amazing country. The 3 of them were going to do a trip to the Darien together so Ita and I decided we'll hit the Pacific gulf and island of Boca Brava, Panama City, and the Archipelago de San Blas until those guys get down to Panama for their Darien adventure. However, there is this big international fiesta going on in Boquete starting Friday so we thought we'd stay til Saturday to check it out.

Yesterday I made pancakes for "the boys" and then Tyler, Chad, and I went to Caldera to the natural hot springs. It's so amazing that this place is about 15 miles away from Boquete and the climate is completely different...really hot, dry; it reminded me of Malta. Anyway, these hot springs were the perfect place to rid myself of my sore muscles from rafting and hiking and the best part was there is this huge river right alongside the hot springs so you can relax in the hot water, then cool off with a swim in the river, etc. At the first hot spring I stepped a half a meter off the little path and found myself sinking knee deep in mud and my flip flop got stuck down there and actually ripped apart while I was digging it out. If you saw how rocky the paths were through the woods to get to the springs and the 45 minute walk down a rocky dirt road to get to the entrance, you could appreciate my shock better. Then I washed my muddy pants off and laid them and my shirt to dry on one of the giant rocks in the river, only to find that my pants blew away while I was swimming. I was just imagining the locals' faces when I boarded the bus with no pants and no shoes.... but, being the superstars they are, Tyler spotted and retrieved my pants from the river and Chad gave me his shoes to wear the whole day! Tyler and Chad assured me that Colorado boys have more fun and led me on all sorts of craziness cliff diving and rock climbing and free floating the rapids. And when hunger pangs lured us from this little paradise, we caught a pickup taxi where you stand up in back and dry off REALLY fast. 10 minutes into the ride we crossed over this amazingly beautiful river with a waterfall and we asked him to let us out and come back for us in a couple hours. So, back to cliff diving, against-the-current swimming, and rock climbing once again. The whole day was absolutely fantastic.

Spending the day with two good-looking fellas certainly helped me score a ride back to the bus stop with two Panamanian ladies. Once back I cooked dinner for us all (the least I could do for someone who walked over rocks for 8 hours on account of my lost shoes) and a party atmosphere came about the hotel when Darr showed up again with a couple people from Germany and Spain. Unfortunately I crashed early and missed out on the special reserve 7 year Flor de Caña.

I needed a day to recuperate and slept and read until I just couldn't ignore breakfast calling my name any longer. I bought some groceries and Ita cooked omelets and pineapple shakes and the guy from Spain made me a sandwich....after all that food I was so tired that I napped again for a couple hours after finding new flip flops and sunglasses (I lost those on the volcano hike). This was the first day I really looked around the town though, and it is so beautiful....tons of flowers around, the river, and it is set in the middle of the mountains and looks like a Swiss town in the Alps (minus the snow) when you are coming into it. This place is definitely going to take off on the tourist trail soon.

I think that 2 and a half hours online is more than I can take; at least I have caught up on things and will hopefully be blogging a little more efficiently in the future. How great is this Internet cafe though....50 cents per hour and it's fast! The enchantment with Panama never ceases.....

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Photos

Boquete
Beautiful town of the Feria de Flores y del Cafe

The Cordillera
View from the path in Caldera to the hot springs

El rio
This was the great river by the hot springs we cooled off in (Tyler)

Chad taking a mud bath
This was one of the "natural" hot springs --- a.k.a. no stone well around it, but we figured geothermal mud must be good for you

The second river
Here's a shot of the little waterfall and stream we made the cab stop and let us out for