We never made it to the hot springs...

Dania had met an American family who wanted to take her to the hot springs of Caldera. She told me about them and said that I could come along.
At 10 am we took the bus in the direction of David to get off at a gated community where that American family was living. After about an hour, everybody was finally organized and we went to Caldera. There we went to a hotel resort in the mountains to meet some more Americans. This resort had a pool and we spent a lot of time there.

There seemed to be a case of miscommunication because Dania had thought that we would go straight to the hot springs and would be back by afternoon, so that I could work from 3 pm on. However, the Americans planned on spending the whole day there until 8 or 9 pm. But they were really nice and promised me to bring me back to the main road to catch a bus to be at work in time.
But the hot springs were about 4 km away from that resort and nobody wanted to drive us there because they said it was too hot to walk the remaining 500 m up the hill to the springs. Instead we decided to find a waterfall close to the resort. But after trying out several trails which all ended in dead ends, we gave up.
By that time, it was already time for me to go home. But on the way we wanted to stop at another waterfall. This time we found it and it was very beautiful and the water was refreshing and clean. When it was 3.30 pm I made the Americans drive me to the main road to Boquete.

However, catching a bus in Panama is not so easy because they don't have set schedules. And after waiting for 40 minutes, I finally made it into an overcrowded bus. Since there weren't any seats left, I stood in the aisle (how I would do it in Germany as well). But then a woman moved over and pushed the person beside here even further towards the window so that I could sit down. I was surprised because most Panamanian women are not very friendly towards blonde girls. But then I realized that only men were standing in the bus and that all the women got offered a seat. I guess, in Panama girls don't stand up in buses.
At 5 pm I was finally at the hotel...only 2 hours late!!! I was glad that I had already called in at noon that I would be late because I knew that Americans would never bring me back in time.

And I thought there was no nightlife!!!

After about a month in Boquete, I finally managed to go out. Why so late, you might ask? Well, before I didn't have a collegue and although I could have called in a replacement for the late shift, I don't feel comfortable enough to go out alone in Boquete as a blond girl.
But Sabine has always told me that there is not much of a nightlife in Boquete because during the week the bars close at 10 o'clock.
After meeting Dania, a girl from Israel, at the office of Boquete Outdoor Adventures, we immediately became friends because she was travelling alone and I don't know much people here who are my age. In the afternoon we went for a walk with the dogs and for the night we planned on going for a beer. She collected a few more people who stayed at the hostel with her and we went off to Zansibar. We tried to get Jim (the owner of Boquete Outdoor Adventures) to come with us, but his excuse was that he has to repair his fridge...how lame!
I ordered a Long Island Iced Tea which turned out to be very strong and as a groupe we smoked two shishas (water pipes). After three more beers and a shot, I was pretty drunk. However, the other people in the group had met some Panamanians who knew a bar which would be open after 10 pm. So, we squeezed into a car (having 4 people on the back seat), were driven to Romero (the 24-hour grocery store) because the guys wanted to get some cigarettes and then we parked in the back of a building which didn't have any lights on the way to the entrance. To get inside you had to know somebody who knows the bar because before you were let in, they checked the faces through a camera. Inside there was a pool table, the drinks were cheap, and it was smoky. But I didn't really feel like any more drinks, so I just talked to various guys (mostly Panamanians). At 2 am I decided that it was time to go home because I knew I would have to get up at 7 in the morning. But when I left the bar, I realized that I didn't really know where I was. Furthermore, it was foggy and it night, everything looks different anyway. So, after going into the wrong direction for a few minutes, I recognized a restaurant figured out that I would have to turn around. It turned out that this secret bar was quite close to the hotel. But I still had one more obstacle to overcome: I have never before tried to unlock the door to my room because I always came through the main door of the hotel. It turned out that unlocking the door was much impossible and by the time my collegue woke up, the lock was so jammed up that she had to open the main door for me. (The next morning I again tried to unlock the door and was glad to see that it still wasn't possible although I was completely sober! :-P Then I practiced with Migdalia, our cleaning lady, a bit and now I can open that door in much shorter time.)

Flying from tree to tree!

The last free tour I did was with Boquete Tree Trek. They are having canopy tours or you may call it zipline tours.

After a very bumpy ride on benches in the loading area of a truck up into the mountains, they tied us into some kind of climbing equipment. Then we had to survive another bumpy ride even further into the mountains and finally you could see the ropes which were hanging between the trees. All in all, the tree trek is about 3 km long and the longest rope is 410 m long. It definitely was a lot of fun although on one rope I didn't manage to break and crashed into the tree. But luckily it was padded! One of the girls in our group was afraid to go on her own, so one of the guides always went with her: he was her so-called taxi. Unfortunately, it was a bit rainy that day and I even started to freeze a bit. However, it's definitely worth doing!

PS. A little shaky tour through downtown Boquete:

Just buying the suncreen is not enough to prevent the sunburn...you also have to apply it!

This Saturday I went to an island called Boca Brava with Guillermo.
This time he picked me up much earlier and we went straight to a village called Boca Chica where you can get a water taxi to the island and we told the capitain of the boat to pick us up at 2 pm again.

We walked through little paths in the jungle to get to a lonely beach where the water was very smooth and you did not have to fight with strong currents. Due to the walk I was quite sweaty and was looking for a refreshing moment in the Pacific. But when I walked it, I immediately was disappointed: The water was neither cristal clear, nor cool; it was luke warm and did not refresh me. So, I didn't stay long in the water, but grabbed my book and read and read and read! When I looked up, I saw that all around us was a lot of movement: all kinds of crabs were going after their daily business of looking for food. And it turned out to be a lot of fun chasing them around the beach! :-P And we've even heard howler monkeys in the jungle.

Although it was very cloudy that day, it was still warm and I really enjoyed the beach. But since it was cloudy, I thought that I wouldn't need any sunscreen. However, I was wrong: now I have sunburns on both of my feet and knees and around my belly...ouch! It still surprises me how strong that Panamanian sun can be.

At 2 pm we waited at the pier for our water taxi. Well, Panamanians are always late, so we knew that we would have to wait a bit. But when at 2.15 the taxi still wasn't there, we called another taxi over that just came by. Back in Boca Chica we met the taxi driver of the boat who was supposed to pick us up, but he didn't look like he had a bad conscience because he had forgotten us.

We had been planning to eat something in Boca Chica. But on our way to the only restaurant in the village we met an American lady with three Panamanians who told us that the food was terrible there. So, we decided to eat Playa de Las Lajas, a very long beach.
On our way to Las Lajas it rained and now you can see how a very long empty beach looks like during rainy season. However, I bet it's amazing when the sun is shining.

PS. That's how it looks like when I am chasing crab!

Counting my bruises!

On Wednesday I went white water rafting again with Boquete Outdoor Adventures.
I have to say that I liked this tour a bit better than the one before. Somehow everything was more relaxed and Jim, the owner of the company (who came with us in his safety kayak) seems to be a cool guy, especially because he has a waterproof camera (so all the pictures are from him)!
However, the tour in general was similar: it was on the same river, we saw the same animals, and the lunch was similar. But instead of squeezing 6 people into one boat, they had two boats with 3 people plus guide each. I liked the extra space although it does involve a bit more work while paddling. The guides spoke better English and gave better commands and this time we didn't lose anybody. But I have a few new bruises anyway: one on my knee because the guy beside me hit me with his paddle and a few on my side because I was flying around in the boat again! And the transport to the river was a bit different: Instead of sitting on the loading area of a pick up, we all stood in the loading area of a cattle transporter; it must have looked very funny!

However, Panama Rafters was also on the river today and I felt a bit weird when the owner of this company saw me going with another operator this time. But I guess, it doesn't matter so much because they all know each other and the three boats (two from Boquete Outdoor Adventures and one from Panama Rafters) stayed together all the time anyway. Panama Rafters didn't even have his own safety kayak this time. I guess, Jim was responsible for them as well.
At the end, Jim bought a round of beers and we had them on our way back to Boquete. People who buy me alcohol always get extra points! :-P
So, I guess that I'd most likely recommend Boquete Outdoor Adventures, especially because they have the rafting tour nearly every day (more often than Panama Rafters) and because they have lots of other tours as well (island beach day, kajaking, hiking...). I might get to do the beach day next week! :-)

PS. At first I was in the second row of the boat and later on in the first.

Scared by a bird!

On the outskirts of Boquete, there is an animal rescue center called Paradise Gardens.
Before I went, I had checked their webpage and knew that they are asking for a donation of $5. But when I went there and talked to the people who run that place and mentioned that I’m from a hotel and want to see that place because I want to recommend it to my guests, they ensured me that I would not have to pay anything. However, I still gave them a donation because I think it’s a great idea.
It’s not a huge place, but a lot of fun. The first few cages included monkeys: tamarins and capuchins. The capuchins were trying to steal my jewellery and the tamarins would come really close to the fence to be pet. In the bird house I was attacked by a toucan. I’ve never really been a bird person and this one really freaked me out because he followed me everywhere! Then they had some really beautiful and huge parrots and cockatoos. The Margay cat was hiding, but at least the ant eater and jaguarondi said hello!

I think it’s a really nice place and worth going to although it’s not a zoo with thousands of different species.

Telling the difference!

Most people know that I’m not a big fan of coffee. I drink it about once a week and preferable with lots of extra stuff in it, e.g. milk, cream, sugar and or caramel, vanilla flavour….
However, here in Boquete we have lots of coffee plantations and a few of the companies offer coffee tours. And since I work at the hotel and my guests always ask me which one I could recommend, I went on the coffee tour of Cafè Ruiz.
Our guide belonged to one of the indigenous groups of Panama, the Ngobe-Buble, who even today work on coffee plantations as pickers and speak a completely different language. But of course, our guide spoke Spanish and very good English (surprising for a Panamanian). And I learned quite a lot of coffee. For example, Panama is one of the smallest coffee producers, but one of the best because one of the kind they grow is called Geisha and cost about $200 per pound. I also learned that coffee beans are red when they are picked and not brown and that the coffee fields of the expensive brand are not planted row by row, but with lots of other trees in between and kinda chaotic-looking! :-P

When we went into the packing and roasting area, we all had to wear funny hats and coats and we all looked as ridiculous as our guide.

All in all the tour took about 3 hours and at the end, we got to taste coffees with three different roasting stages and even I could tell a difference. The European roast (the lightest kind) tastes fruity and a bit like lemon. The Latin roast tastes a bit like chocolate. And the Italian roast (the darkest kind; nearly burned) tastes really bitter.
But although the real coffee growers make fun of places like Starbucks because they use a very cheap kind of coffee and change the taste through all the extra ingredients, it’s still my favourite place to get coffee! :-P

That's how Robinson Crusoe must have felt like!

I spent my weekend on an island. It was in a very curious location because on one side it was surrounded by a river and on the other by the Pacific.
Guillermo (Eva's accountant) has a house on this island. But the house does not have electricity or running water yet and although I had always refused to spend a weekend in a summer cottage without electricity and running water in Finland, I wanted to go to this island anyway because I have never before been swimming in the Pacific.
After Guillermo picked me up, I realized how different Germans and Panamanians can be. When a German takes you somewhere, everything is already prepared: food is bought, the gas tank filled and you go directly to the place. Well, Guillermo picked me up at 11 am. Then we went to David to a gym to see the child of a friend of him fighting taekwondo. After that we went to a grocery store and I was supposed to choose the food. Everybody who knows me knows how picky I can get with food. And going to a grocery store alone is hard enough for me. I stand in the aisles forever and try to find out what I might like to eat today or tomorrow. The easiest thing is to just put a plate in front of me and then I might eat something. After shopping, we went to Guillermo's office so that he could check his e-mails, then we changed cars and then we filled the tank of the car. So, at 2 pm we were finally on our way to the coast. After 10 km of gravel road we arrived at a rather broken pier and muddy-looking river water. The boat that was supposed to pick us up wasn't there yet and Guillermo explained that the guy with the boat was always late.

However, by 3 pm we had crossed the river which also inhabits crocodiles and we were at the island. I had a beer, spend some time reading my book in a hammock and then we went for a walk and collected a certain kind of seed which is called ojo de buey (ox eye). You can give it to a friend and that is supposed to bring him/her good luck. Eva has given me one as well and I have about 13 ox eyes to give away. But Guillermo has found many more.

The island is very pretty and the beach would have been all to myself. However, here in Panama it gets dark at 6.30 pm already and the current was so strong that it was impossible to go swimming.

The night was nearing and Guillermo and one of the two guys who live on the island set up a mosquito tent to sleep in. The mosquitoes on this island were horrible; they ate me alive and they did not seem to be too repelled by all that mosquito repellent I had put on my skin. I just hope that Eva was right when she told me that mosquitos here do not transmit malaria. (All the travel guides of Panama say that it is a malaria region.)

The night was hot and short because the cocks starting crowing at 6 am. We slept on the floor and I think I had stolen the camping mat from Guillermo. There was a big bag in the mosquito tent and it included that mat and since I wasn't sure that Guillermo would also sleep ustairs, I just took it because I have too much back trouble already for sleeping on the floor. I also kind of did not realize that I experienced my first two earthquakes over there. The house had a wooden floor and if you run or walk really fast along it, it moves and makes lots of noise. So, when at night I felt something move and heard some noise, I just thought that one of the guys is running around the house. However, as Guillermo told me in the morning it was two small earthquakes.
The next day I was longing for a warm shower, but I wasn't so keen on the jungle shower (water coming down from a big barrel) and since I continued sweating right away, it didn't matter so much after all. However, what I didn't like so much is that I had the feeling that I could never really get my hands clean there. I wash my hands fairly often: after petting the dogs, before and after preparing food, after using the bathroom (of course), after having been outside, after not having them washed for a while... And although they had water and soap there, my hands always seemed to be dirty and sweaty! :-/
On our way back we had to cross the river during low tide which turned out to be a bit difficult. At one point we all had jump into the river and pull the boat through 10 cm high water.

To get to the pier Guillermo always uses his old 4-wheel drive which doesn't have any doors, side mirrors or a rear-view mirror and the tachometer was also broken. I think knowing how fast you drive and to see if somebody is behind you on the highway when you want to change lanes is totally overrated anyway! :-P However, the missing doors were kind of cool because it made you feel like sitting in a convertible although you had a roof. But on our way back to Boquete, those missing doors caused a little uncomfort because it started to rain heavily and the cars driving into the opposite direction splashed all the water into the car on Guillermo's side and he was completely soaked. I found it fairly hillarious and just had to laugh. I didn't really get wet; just a few drops on my legs.
After a weekend on the hot island, I can just say that I like the cool climate of Boquete. There is a reason why it's called the town of the ever-lasting spring!

PS. I made a very funny discovery about different cultures: In Finland there was one species of snake that was poisenous and whenever somebody went for a walk in the wilderness, they would wear gumboots so that a snake wouldn't bite them. Panama has a few species of poisenous snakes and spiders and everybody walks into the wilderness with crocs or sandals; they don't care!