Boquete, Panama

Yay! We finally entered the land of hats, canals and dodgy bandits stopping the Pan-American into Colombia. This is our last Central American country, with the big and daunting South America just a boat ride away!

Welcome to Panama!

 The border crossing was…interesting. I had to swap between my SA and Oz passport, which was too much for some of the officials, who just threw their arms in the air, gasped and walked away. Eventually they just stamped my passport out of frustration. Strange.

We took a combi to a small town called Boquete ($5) and arrived at night in the rain. It’s colder here as we are in the mountains, and it has a distinct European feel. A sweet man recommended Pension Marilos ($16 a double), which was fantastic and clean. Now for some grub – we saw a little pizzeria up the road and the lady was so excited to meet her first South Africans she took photos of us. It was an amazing pizza too!

The morning was stunning. The rain had stopped and we could see the pine covered mountains surrounding us. This is a great place to relax. Apparently Yugoslav farmers settled here back in the day, followed by Swiss. It’s tranquil and sweet here, so we decided to take a walk to the many waterfalls. We walked for about 4 hours, found the waterfall and the entrance to the Quetzales Trail, which was ridiculously expensive ($90) but also closed (apparently).

Lovely stream running through the forests.

These little caterpillars were everywhere!

One of the waterfalls in the background.

 We met a really awesome guy, Ryan, from the States who is researching languages. We walked together and hitched a ride back to town where we sat under a bridge by the river and had a few beers. The water was cold but refreshing, and we had just a fantastically relaxing day.

The next day Rob and I went to find the Quetzales trail, but got a wee lost and ended up at a gate where we paid $3 each to enter the farm with a waterfall. It was gorgeous, tall trees, ferns and moss everywhere. We stayed there for a few hours and chilled all day. Travelling makes you exhausted, so this was a lovely break before heading to the bustling Panama City.

Getting jungly in the northern part of Boquete, on our way to the waterfall.

The waterfalls trickling down the cliff. A lovely spot for lunch!