Panama - Boquete

We spent 2 days at Boquete, a town known for its cool climate, coffee, cloud forests and walking trails. We spent our first day enjoying a leisurely breakfast in a converted garage and then walked along a road out of town into the hills. After about an hour the cloud rolled in and the rain pelted, fortunately just as we were passing a bus shelter. So we ate our picnic lunch in the bus shelter and then hailed a passing taxi to take us back to town. We spent the rest of the afternoon lounging in chairs watching the river next to our hostel swell from the rain. The hostel (Suenos del Rio) is so close to the river that at night it is hard to tell if you are listening to rain fall or just the usual rushing of the river. It was a nice place to stay, especially as we had a small kitchen/lounge are to ourselves.



Cloud rolls across the forest

 The hostel owner put us in touch with Feliciano, a local guide who has been guiding in the area for most of his 56 years. He is a very fit and personable man. In order to avoid a washout, we were up at 6 the next morning to be ready by 7 for Feliciano to collect us and take us on a walk into the World Heritage listed national park, La Amisted. We had a really enjoyable walk with him – 3 hours up and 2 hours down – through lush, secondary forest. We saw some flowers and birds, but the season for the elusive quetzals was over. At the top of the walk we could see the Altlantic Ocean in one direction and the Pacific in the other. The path we were on continued all the way to Almirante on the Atlantic side. Feliciano sometimes takes people on a walk all the way. It takes 4 days when he takes tourists, but only 2 when he goes alone!



Sometimes the trail was very narrow



We were not long back in town when down came the rain in great torrents, so although the early start was a bit confronting for “she who loves her bed”, it was worth it to avoid a drenching on the walk and walking on a path turned into a river.

Ivan and Feliciano at the top of our walk