Little America
Tuesday is our anniversary and it is also our travel day from Volcan to Boquete. These towns are just over an hour apart from each other and have similar climates - perpetual spring. Of course that means it is still the rainy season in Boquete - more on that a little later. There's a nice shortcut road between the two cities that we take and it is pretty scenic and for now the rain is holding off so it makes for a nice drive. We encounter two police check points and unlike in Costa Rica a few years back, we have and present our passports and we pass through without issue. I had actually read that in Panama the police can at any time ask for your ID and if you cannot produce it you can be thrown immediately in jail, not sure if it is really practiced but we are not willing to find out. We arrive in Boquete whose main road (and almost every other one) is under construction so it makes for a slow go but no real issues. We find the place that we are staying up a winding road that is part rocky gravel and all I can think is "Dave must think I don't know how to plan very well"...LOL. But it is actually a cute little Casita that for $50/nt has everything we could need.
We settle in quickly because we are hungry and need to find a place to watch the Red Sox game. Ciella, our host tells us to try Mike's Global Grill which is where we end up and exactly the right place to be. When we walk in, the game is about to start and we see a couple of Astros fans and everyone greets us with smiles and hellos until Dave decides to shout out "Boston's in the house"!! You could hear the enthusiasm go out of their voices but overall they are all still friendly and we chat with quite a few of them including the owner Mike. One guy (his name escapes me) came up to us and talked a lot about the area and basically told us that in this area the locals are very friendly and most of them speak some English and that as expats you can easily get by without having to learn much Spanish at all. Things like lawyers, doctors and dentists all speak English in this area and while there are many Americans and prices have risen a bit in the past few years, it is still overall cheaper than the states especially if you pay attention to your spending.
This is definitely a laid back local hangout that has good cheap food and drinks.About halfway through the game we decide to head back to the casita and stream the rest of the game. One thing I will say about everywhere we've stayed thus far, the WiFi is great and we have streamed everything easily and even though I'm sure it happens often enough if you live here, we have not lost power yet in any place that we've stayed at even with all the rain.
On Wednesday we decide that we are going to hike up what is called the pipeline trail which is supposed to be an easy hike compared to some of the more difficult ones in the area. The day looks promising so far but we sleep till 7 every day on vacation and then by the time we have our coffee and breakfast it's closer to 10 before we even leave the casita. Still, it is not raining so off we go. On the way to the trail there is a waterfall close to the road so we stop for the required picture and find a local selling his handicrafts there and we pick up a beautiful dream catcher for $5. I suppose we could have bartered with him but really, isn't $5 a great deal already?
We reach the start of the trail and check in with the station and start our hike which the lady tells us is about 1 hour and 1 hour down - that sounds perfect for us. Since we got a late start there doesn't seem to be too many birds to see but there is a lot of interesting plants and trees and plants on trees - I love the way some things just grow on others, it looks so cool.
About half an hour in to our hike up it starts to drizzle so we decide to get out our raincoats just in case which proves to be a wise move because next comes a steadier rain but it is still not bad so we soldier on - dumb move. We should have known from the pattern of our last couple of days in this area that once the rain starts, it doesn't end so quickly. But, once you're wet, you're wet so....we keep going. The trail runs along a stream which we cross over a couple of times and at times it hard to tell the difference between the sound of the stream running and the sound of the rain falling because as expected, it starts to rain harder. But still we move on, after all we are not completely wet.....yet!
Of course we are fools and are just kidding ourselves that the rain isn't so bad. I joke that we are auditioning for Survivor but an hour and a half of rain compared to days of it really isn't a fair comparison. By the time we do get back down to the car we are completely drenched, we have no towels, we have no spare clothes with us and our raincoats clearly are no match for the rain we've experienced (they are just small, thin rain jackets). So we get into the car trying not to drench the inside as much as the outside and head back to the Casita for a nice hot shower. Ummm except we can't quite get the hot water to cooperate and Ciella is not home right now. When you turn on the hot water, it gets HOT so you temper it with some cold and it is warm for about 30 seconds and then it gets cold, so you turn off the cold but the hot water is still running cold. If you then turn off the hot water and wait you can go through that same cycle again. It is no way to take a shower really but we need to warm up a little bit so we play around with it like this and at least are able to warm ourselves up a bit. We then hang our drenched clothes but honestly, the continual rain keeps everything damp and it will be really tough to get this stuff dry.
Tonight we have dinner at a more upscale place called The Rock - it is basically our anniversary dinner that we didn't quite have last night. The food is good and is certainly one of the more expensive places to eat around here but for a special occasion or meal it is great.
We make it home in time to watch the Red Sox game 4 which for us ended sometime after 11:45 (central time) and I feel bad for everyone back home who will have to drag their butts into work on Thursday - but a win is a win so!!
Thursday morning we head into town, grab some breakfast and walk around a bit. With the road construction - they are putting in new water and sewer lines - there's not much to see without trying to walk through it all but it gives us an idea of what there is to offer in this area. We finish the morning walking around the grounds where we are staying and once again, this is where we see a few small things that for us are very exciting.
In both of our mountain stays we were near some sort of running water and I found that it is often hard to tell the difference between the stream and the sound of a good hard rain. Waking up in the morning you have to look out the window to see which it is.
Tonight we watch game 5 of the Red Sox ALCS and are happy that Cora knows what he is doing because I"m sure all us armchair coaches would have brought Eovoldi back out for the ninth!!
Friday is our travel day and we are headed to Boca Chica on the Pacific coast. I hope it is less rainy and a bit warmer than our last couple of places but a quick peek at the forecast doesn't look too promising - we'll see.
Dave seems to have caught a bit of a cold and I'm not sure if it was the lady behind him on the chicken bus coughing or just the general dampness lately but we will see if we can't find him something at the Farmacia on the way out.
As the guy we met on the first night told us, this area does not require you to know Spanish although I think the people appreciate it if you try. It does seem like Little America since there are so many US expats here and this small town has many comforts to help one settle in. In my opinion, it would be a good place to get your feet wet (yes, sometimes literally) in the expat world since it would be an easy transition and there is lots of help here. It is not quite what we would be looking for initially because we would prefer a beach location and as easy as this place would make it, visiting here also helped us to confirm that we want the warmer climate.
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