Vive Panama`!

So its been a quick, but wonderful week in Panama. Starting in Bocas Del Toro which is a group of islands on the caribbean side of Panama just south of Costa Rica. Think brilliant blue green water straight from a commercial and dozens of hardly developed islands covered in jungle. unfortunately i dont think we enjoyed it quite as much as we could have since we had been at the beach on both sides of Central America for 3 weeks at that point. its definitely a place i could come back to--wait! i mean that literally, i probably CAN come back next year when we live in Costa Rica--in fact if anyone wants to come visit, then maybe we can go together! hee hee-

then it was a lonnnggg day on the bus up and up into the mountains of Boquete. this little town made me seriously heartsick for oregon. everywhere you look there are abundantly lush and verdantly green mountains, coffee plantations, and a fast rushing clear river. the fog often would slowly curl over the mountains in that sweet mystical way that fog works.

we totally lucked out and found a a guesthouse that only had two rooms! the owner didnt even live there! we had our own balcony right on the river, a kitchen (which is key for us cheap types), and a living room! hiking there was sweet too although we didnt see the elusive Quetal bird.

it was a 2 hour hike just to the entrance of the trail and on the way back we were a little bit tired so it was great when an old panamanien man stopped in his pick up truck to give us a lift back. he was GREAT!! i guess he lives on a coffee farm up the way. it was kind of funny because we noticed that he wasnt going the same way that we knew of how to get back to town. for some reason its a little harder for me to understand Panamenian Spanish more than the other countries and plus he was real old mumbly type so we couldnt quite figure out why he was taking us out of the way so far. he was obviously not a serial killer though and since it had started one of those famous central american tropical downpours we didnt mind. soon it was obvious that he had simply taken the scenic route--which was SO stunning and definitely something we wouldnt have otherwise been able to experience, plus he was playing a classical music cd all the while which just fit perfectly with it all!

next we went to a little town that resides entirely in the crater of an extinct volcano. we hiked around some waterfalls and even some some cool petroglyphs, but other than that it was a little anticlimatic.... then off to panama city!