Panama

Panama was not on the original list of countries to visit, but we decided to add it for a few reasons. Number one: we were unable to get to Ecuador due to flooding in northern Peru and wanted another country to explore; two: Panama is a great place for expats to retire, offering up extraordinary benefits if you do, so we wanted to check it out and lastly, we wanted to check out some coffee farms. We knew it would be a bit more expensive, so we tripled checked our budget and booked tickets from Bogota.

Panama City

Panama uses US currency which coincides nicely with US prices, US cuisine, and a lot of Americans. We take advantage of this and use it to ease back in to an American way of life, although we seek out local cuisine and culture as we are very aware this is our last international stop.

Tocumen International Airport is about 30-40 minutes away from the main city and taxi's at the airport charge at least $30. There are two buses leaving from the airport but for one you have to have a bus card (which is not available for purchase at the airport) or you can find one that accepts cash. We met two other travelers and decided to walk together to find the bus that accepts cash. Just outside the airport we found a taxi agreeable to take all four of us for $30. So we jumped in and headed downtown.

Panama City is hot and humid. Probably the most humid place on this whole trip, rivaling Nong Khiaw, Laos. We made sure to book a hostel with a/c in our private room, which was cranking and made for a pleasant retreat from the heat. We spent the first day walking through the Old Quarter, also known as San Felipe, Casco Viejo or Casco Antiguo. It is beautiful and we imagined this must be what Cuba looks like.

Casco Viejo (Old Quarter)

It's loaded with character, colors, history, creative designs and it just feels good to be here. The old city is amidst a huge renovation and the work is spectacular. We could absolutely live here, as in never leave this small section of the city and with $6 ceviche and 2 for 1 ice cold Balboa beer, why would we?

Casco Viejo

From the old quarter we walked through a rougher part of town, on our way to the top of a mountain to get a view of the old and new city and glimpse the start of the Panama Canal. After about 15 minutes, staying on the shadiest side of the street, we reached the small hill, which now looked like Everest. We were drenched in sweat, thirsty and crabby. We decided to head back to our hostel, via air conditioned public transportation, but first got a shot of the main city.

The busses and metro in Panama City are well maintained, super cold, affordable and clean. After about 15 minutes we realized we were on the wrong bus, we didn't actually know which bus we should have been on, but we knew we didn't need to go to the airport, which is where we were headed. We decided to sit back, enjoy the seats, a/c and affordable tour of the city, through back neighborhoods, getting a glimpse of where the "real" people live. We didn't have enough money on the bus/metro card so we walked to a grocery store and found a recharge station, which didn't work. So a local woman tried to recharge her card, but still no luck. We followed her as she explained to staff that it wasn't working and they said there was nothing they could do and she told us where there was another recharge station. This was all done in Spanish, which means we understood about 30% and started walking down the street and into a a home improvement store. With some charades we explained we needed to recharge our bus card and they laughed as we tried to figure out the kiosk. A worker decided to put us out of our misery and did it for us. We jumped back on the bus, just as it started to rain.

Our hostel was right by the Revolution Tower, across a "river" that we rightfully nicknamed shit creek. We are convinced it's one of the cities main sewage drains. It smelled so bad. A city this modern and beautiful should not have smells such as these.

Revolution Tower

There was a fancy mall about a block from our hostel and we decided to go shopping one afternoon. This quickly turned to window shopping after seeing the names of the shops and looking at about two price tags. But we enjoyed the a/c and the food court. Our plan for Panama was to head to the hills for cooler temps and relaxed atmosphere before heading to Bocas del Toro island. First stop, El Valle de Anton.

El Valle de Anton

From the main bus terminal in Panama City, called Albrook, there's a van that goes to El Valle de Anton. This cost about $4.25 per person and takes about 2.5 hours. From the window of this bus we saw the beginning of the Panama Canal as we crossed over The Bridge of the Americas.

It is a bit cooler here, but it's still humid. El Valle de Anton is a quaint town situation in the crater of an extinct volcano. There are several grocery stores and restaurants here as well as a hot spring/day spa and lots of hiking.

Fresh fruits & veggies in El Valle de Anton

As soon as we checked into our hostel we were provided a map of all the things to do in the area, including prices and round trip travel for the most popular hikes. It's rainy season, which means it starts raining every day about 2:00 or 3:00 in the afternoon, so hiking should be done early.

View of town from the top of India Dormida hike

We picked a hike and set out on the second most sweaty hike we've done on this trip (the first being in Nong, Khiaw, Laos).

From town you can see this hike because it looks like a sleeping Indian woman. We hiked up to her head and hiked down her left arm. The cost is $3.00 per person and what you get are beautiful waterfalls along a well maintained trail.

You can drink the tap water here and it's delicious, with no hint of chlorine or lead.

India Dormida hike

Arriving back to civilization from this trail we stumbled upon two gun wielding police, one with his automatic weapon at the ready, wearing a blacked out motorcycle helmet and one suspect. All three were very friendly to us, and we just walked on by. One day of hiking was enough for us, which was good because it rained the entire next day. It gets cool at night in the valle but our room didn't have windows so it got rather warm. It's also buggy up here, so bring your repellent.

Boquete

From El Valle de Anton we headed further north to an ex-pat favorite and coffee farm extraordinaire town of Boquete. From El Valle, take one of the small vans that runs every 15 minutes or so, down the mountain to the main highway. Wait here for a bus. We weren't sure what the bus would look like and just asked every van and bus that stopped if they were going to David (where you have to go to get the bus to Boquete). About 5 minutes into our wait a large bus pulled over and said they were going to Santiago, so we hopped on and in Santiago caught a small van to David and then a awesomely transformed old US school bus into Boquette. Panama is loaded with decommissioned US school busses and some are really suped up, inside and out. We got a suped up one, and although it was crammed and all the windows had to be rolled up during a torrential down pour it was a memorable experience. Luckily, just before several of us passed out from heat, the rains let up and the windows dropped.

Just a cool picture.

At Fenix Cafe & home of Boquete Yoga

We really like Boquette and quickly dropped Boccas del Toro from our list, staying instead, nine days here. Enjoying yoga classes at Fenix Cafe, affordable and tasty coffees all over town. Our favorite being a small shack outside one of the grocery stores, next to a church. For $0.60 the coffee was hot, milky and consistently delicious. We stayed in town for five nights, right on a river and stumbled upon a luxury retirement golf community. We got to chatting with one of the residents, golfing with his friend who lives in town, and they talked all about how wonderful life is here.

Finca Lerida

The last four nights we stayed in a hostel about 3 miles outside of town, up in the mountains, surrounded by coffee farms. It stopped raining long enough to hike to a coffee farm / upscale hotel & restaurant and had a delicious coffee treat which made us agree that this farm does produce some of the best tasting coffee on earth.

Some of the best coffee on Earth

From the coffee producing mountains of Boquette we returned, via one night in David to catch the first bus out at 6:00a.m., to Panama city. Traveling to a city that you are familiar with is such an enjoyable experience because first arriving in a city is stressful. Figuring out the public transportation, where to eat, where to grocery shop, what to see and do takes a lot of work and can be stressful. So, returning to Panama City was so nice because we knew the bus system, had the right cards to get on the busses, etc. We decided to splurge our last two nights and got a room at a fancy hotel, with a huge swimming pool, next to the airport, since we had a 5:15a.m. flight. We enjoyed happy hour, lazy laps in the pool and the most comfortable beds with super soft and clean linens. We unloaded our bags and took inventory of what we still had, a year later, what we had acquired and laughed, because that's all that was left to do. We had dreamed big, saved much, traveled well and were returning together...with a lot of coffee.