Rainbow Valley

Volcan Baru and its pot of gold.
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We boarded the bus to David, not fantastically well prepared. We knew we had to get two buses to reach where we were heading, we hadn’t managed breakfast and had no snacks. Clambering over the other passengers, trying to make it to a seat near a window, I muttered to Matt asking how long the journey was, he shrugged and told me 45 minutes. Not too bad. I could last that. Four hours of blaring Panamanian techno-hiphop-pop-whateveritis music later, I was ready to vomit. The buses in Panama are quite simply sardine tins, driving too fast around terrifying roads on not good enough wheels. People, chickens, mattresses, machetes, bags of corn and everything else you can imagine pile in and on them. This trip did teach me one thing. If I am ever stuck in Panama and short of a job I can always get work as a radio DJ. They need them.

Life amidst the mountains.
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It was close to evening when we pulled into Boquete. I thought that my head was still ringing from the music on the bus as we walked towards the river. We quickly checked in to a recommended little hostel next to the bridge, a very neat place, called Boquete Hostel. Our room had a charming balcony overlooking the gushing river and the fair grounds opposite. Standing on that balcony Matt and I took in the sights of the Flower and Coffee Festival that was raging in said fair grounds. The music was the same thumping noise from the bus, and it was ten times as loud. We laughed, shrugged, pulled out the earplugs and then clambered down the stepladder to go and discover what the fuss was all about. Not all that much to be honest. Lots of pretty flowers, lots of delicious coffee, but mainly it appeared to be an excuse for Panamanians from far and wide to gather and drink. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

It's not rain!! It's MIST!!

Boat ride to Isla Iguana.
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The next morning we sipped our frothy latté’s sitting in the sun by a bubbling stream, and contemplated the change in surroundings. It certainly wasn’t the claustrophobically humid air we were getting used to. The breeze was fresh and light, the sun was warm but not scorching, and a gentle “mist” (don’t make the mistake of calling it rain or you’ll stand the risk of insulting a Boquetian) blew through now and again. The town was more of something I would expect to find tucked away in the Alps somewhere than in Central America. Constant rainbows filled the valley and the forests were a confusion of tropical palms and coniferous pines. Coffee farms covered the surrounding mountain slopes and European and American retirees were pouring in to enjoy the spring like weather and good exchange rate.

Horse and Trap.
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After inheriting a handy Daihatsu from a friendly rental company, traveling Panama suddenly became a lot more possible. There were so many rivers to be forded, beaches to be driven on and dirt tracks and tiny roads that needed to be investigated, most of them leading to a substantial nothing. We spent an almost comfortable week cruising the Panamanian roads, roads that left a lot to be desired. With this little Japanese attempt at a 4wheeler, we discovered everything from a skull in a tree, somewhere in the middle of the countryside. An unfinished mansion tucked into the forest edge. And the national sport of extreme farming in the mountains surrounding Volcan Baru, where cabbages grew abstinently on almost vertical slopes, defying what I would consider to be the necessarily physics agriculture, let alone the prospective reaper.

Cow. Dead.
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A few horrendous meals and a couple of suspect police stops later we found ourselves, $20 of bribe money lighter, hungry for some decent food, and in Panama City. A place that we had no initial intention of driving to, but the thought of making the 8 hour bus journey back down from David, pressed us on in silence.

-Kate Coats