It's Raining in Boquete Panama

 We have been in Boquete since Saturday afternoon.  We finished at our language school in Panama City at 12:30 on Friday. Then we took a cab to the bus station and right away got on a bus for Santiago, in the Veraguas province. After at least a 3 hour bus ride, we arrived in Santiago which seemed like a bustling town. We spent the night at a silly hotel (La Hacienda).  It was right on the InterAmerican Highway, so not close to downtown, which was sort of disappointing, as we might have enjoyed seeing a bit of the town. We were tired, however, and the hotel was pretty nice. They supposedly had Mexican food in the restaurant, so we ordered chile rellenos. They were midwestern housewife green peppers stuffed with hamburger. I sent mine back and they brought me one stuffed with cheese. Edible, but not a chile relleno!  Good coffee in the morning, then a cab to the bus station to catch the bus to David.  Different bus station than the one we arrived at the night before. We got out of the cab and hustled on to a smallish bus for a 3 hour trip to David.  When we got there, right away we found the buses to Boquete - old refurbished school buses from the US.  Another hour and we arrived in Boquete mid afternoon.  We saw a sign on the side of the road for our hotel, so asked the bus driver to stop and let us out there. We only had to walk about a block.

Boquete is REALLY nice. We were surprised at how nice it is.  It is not overrun with gringos - it appears they all live up on the hillsides somewhere and sort of keep to themselves.  I need to take some photos of the downtown tomorrow morning - just realized I don't have any.  Our hotel has beautiful grounds and a toucan who would not let me take his picture this morning. 

Yesterday we did a great tour up over the mountain on dirt/gravel roads to the Bocas del Toro province and a cacao farm run by Ngobe indians. It was amazing.  Maybe another post about that later.

Today, we left Boquete about 11:00 am and took a cab up the hill aways to a trail head to hike up to a waterfall. It was about a 2-3 mile hike up to the waterfall - took us a couple hours.  It was an amazing misty cloudy day - probably typical cloud forest. It was just astoundingly beautiful.  We had directions and a hand drawn map of where we were going. We thought we had come to the wrong place as the trail sort of ended in a pile of logs and rocks, but we kept going, picking our way over the rocks, and then all of a sudden saw the waterfall.  I just tried uploading my photos to Picasa, but the internet connection is too slow. 

Here is one.  The photo doesn't do it justice. The waterfall was barely visible through the mist.

All day we could hear the illusive quetzal but never saw one. 

When we were done with the hike we decided to walk the 9 kilometers back down the hill to Boquete. It also was wonderful. The road went past small farms and coffee plantations.  It was a great hike - saw way more than we would have in a cab. 

Then we went to Bistro Boquete for dinner and cervezas.  It started raining while we were in the restaurant. Walked back to the hotel in light rain, and now sitting on our balcony playing with computers.  Rained harder while sitting here. Now the frogs are singing. In the morning there are a zillion birds chirping and singing and flying around the yard here. Red ones, blue ones, yellow ones and hummingbirds.  Hard to get photos.

Anyway, more posts later about the rest of the trip. Tomorrow afternoon we do a coffee tasting tour, going to three small plantations.  Then Wednesday we go to Pedasi, down on the Azuero Peninusula, for 4 days.  It will be a long bus riding day.