"The Land of the Eternal Rainbow"

...or, we might say “quick, take a picture the sun is out!”

We have spent the past four days in Boquete in the Chiriquí Province of Panamá. We are near Panamá’s highest point – Volcan Barú (3474 km; 14,500 ft) and in a pocket that has very cool weather. It’s a small, quaint town with a simple town center including a central park and a few shops and various activity centers.

We traveled west to experience a different climate and to see another side of Panamá. The town certainly offers a lot in adventure tourism, but our purpose was to relax in the mountains and take in the scenery and some of the sights of the area.

After a seven-hour drive along the Pan-American Highway on Sunday, we reached the Mamallena Boquete and settled into our mountain “home.” We expected the drive to include some beautiful vistas such as we’ve seen in Costa Rica and Belize, but actually involved passing through several towns and then quite a long stretch of open land with some very brown dry grass and mountains far in the distance. At this point, the highway also reduced to a simple two-lane, two-direction long stretch (for several hours!). It was still a good way to get a glimpse of different areas in Panamá.

Highlights of our time in Boquete:

Mi Jardín es Su Jardín

This is a beautiful garden on the private residence of a man who believes in sharing the beauty of Boquete at no cost. Anthony read an article about the owner in a local paper and he is 99 years old and still comes into town daily for coffee and mingling.

The gardens cannot be described adequately in words, so here is what we saw (also, the pictures of flowers throughout the post are from the gardens):

The weather is best described as ephemeral (at least for these past 4 days!). One moment it is cold and windy, the next hot and sunny, and yet the next rainy. At the garden we both ended up sunburnt because the day started grey and cold and we expected to wear long sleeves all day. We learned that lesson quickly!

The walk to the gardens took us north through the town center and past the famous Café Ruiz, described as having the best coffee in Panamá. Not being coffee drinkers, we wonder if we are missing out, but then the smell of the coffee quickly reminds us we are not J

Cascada San Ramón and Vistas of Volcan Barú

Tuesday morning we woke early to get out before cloud cover set in over the mountains so we could take a hike to Cascada Escondido near the start of El Sendero de Los Quetzales (this hiking trail is closed due to the heavy rains that have been falling throughout the country flooding various areas and causing all sorts of other travel problems throughout Panamá, as well as contaminating the water supply explaining why there is such a shortage of bottled water everywhere!). We drove a loop outside of town and came to the Cascada (waterfall) San Ramón and snapped some photos. Despite our early departure, the rain was already upon us, but we thought it may clear up as it had on Monday. We reached the entry to the sendero for the other cascada and it was still raining. Neither of us felt compelled to walk for an hour and a half in the rain, so we decided to continue the loop and drive out to the start of the sendero Barú (trail to hike the volcano) to see the views - to hike to the top of the volcano would require a good 6-7 hours and far more warm clothing than we have.

The rain continued off and on, so we took some photos of what we could see of the volcano and then returned to town for the afternoon, thinking if it cleared we’d go back for the hike. On the road to the volcano we encountered strawberry fields and saw many local people along the road, women in their traditional dress giving us a glimpse of local life in Panamá’s montañas.

Speaking of strawberries, they are abundant up here! They sell overflowing cups of them for $1 and have shops selling chocolate-covered strawberries and various strawberry treats. The famous is the strawberry batida – a local milkshake. It’s not like a milkshake made with ice cream, though, and seems a bit more of a liquid-y smoothie.

The rain and wind never did stop on Tuesday, so we just relaxed with our books and other travelers for the afternoon.

The Petroglyphs (Las Piedras Pinturas) in Caldera

After a fitful night of powerful wind and rain, we awoke to another cloudy day so we headed out of town to Caldera. 25 km away is a town that boasts hot springs and petroglyphs. We took the walk out to see las piedras pinturas (the painted rocks) that are on a local man’s property in the village of Caldera just a few kilometers before the hot springs. Just a few kilometers outside of Boquete Town and we were once again enveloped by the hot sun and blue skies!

The walk took us through a large pasture where we had to dodge giant cow patties and search for the orange sign that falls along the path toward the rocks. The views of the mountains and palm trees and big full trees are gorgeous and we also stumbled upon some sections of volcanic rock that were not the ones we were looking for. We managed to navigate with the hand-drawn map provided at the hostal and discovered the carvings. They have been outlined by someone with chalk (at least seemed to be since it is doubtful ancient Indian civilizations colored them in!). It’s interesting that only one rock has the carvings in this area. However, there have been several similar carvings discovered in other parts of the country and archaeologists believe they tell stories. We haven’t found anything directly describing these carvings, but they were interesting to see.

Anthony finished his book and luckily discovered a used bookstore in a community not far from David, so we visited The Bookmark to find him a replacement. It was great to be surrounded by so many good books – we spent over an hour browsing and fortunately Anthony found something he liked, and we hope will get us to the next place with a book exchange or shop! We’ve enjoyed the used and exchange book shops in all our travels through Central America and always find something new and interesting along the way!

Feria de Las Flores y del Cafe

Thursday January 13, 2011 brought the opening day of Boquete’s annual fair of flowers and coffee. It reminded us of expos in Belize with rooms for vendors to sell anything from jewelry to electronic equipment (the one thing lacking was the cell phone deals and credit sales!). The fairgrounds are landscaped with the beautiful, vibrant flowers that grow so well in this soil and had several vendors offering a variety of foods and treats. There were some agriculture exhibits and a few places showing real estate availability and growth. At night, the party started around 7:30pm with a party in the park and the requisite ginormous speakers, which we are used to from our days in Belize (unfortunately, said speakers are right across from our room!!).

Boquete truly is a land of the eternal rainbow (as described by the title of a book about the area) as we have seen one every day. They fill the sky arching over the town and the Río Caldera that runs to the east. It has been a restful place to visit (well except for the windy nights and the strange 15 minutes of loud music blaring from nearby speakers at midnight Thursday morning!) and we are glad we got to see another side of Panamá.

Where to Next??

We’ve returned to Panamá City, but will visit another major location before leaving the country. It’s the UNESCO site where Henry Morgan gained access to Panamá.

We enjoyed the responses to our previous posts. We have to credit both Mica & John and Chris, since he added that clarification point and we feel generous!

To everyone, keep those guesses coming. We are going to be traveling to some pretty cool markets and will find quite a fun prize!

Paz y Amor!

Just for giggles...

"This hamburger is amazing. He must have gone to Jared!"