That was hot!

The next day, Dania, Sofia (my new collegue) and I went to the hot springs in Caldera. Those springs are natural hot springs which are heated up by the volcanic activity in this area.
After walking/hiking on bad roads and knee-deep mud, we saw the the hot water pools which were fenced in by stones. You could see some air bubbles filled with sulfur coming up, but it didn't smell bad at all, fortunately. And they have their name for a reason: they are really hot...nearly too hot to bear. After a few minutes in the water and a ton of photos, our faces were all red and we were ready to jump into the cold river close by.

Unfortunately, we had to go back after only two hours because we had given the taxi driver a certain time to be back. We didn't know that it would be so cool and relaxing. But Sofia and I already agreed that we'll go back soon and next time we will have lots of time because we will hitchhike.

Crazy girls!

I decided to show Dania the Pipeline Trail in Bajo Mono.

Unfortunately, I couldn't borrow any car, so we had to take the taxi and told them to be back at a certain time because in Bajo Mono the phones have absolutely no reception.

We were both really excited to have a shower under the waterfall, but since it wasn't very sunny, we very soon found out that the water was way too cold to go down all the way. Since we still had a lot of time before the taxi would pick us up, we had a crazy idea and took the most amazing pictures ever. But I can't show them to you! :-P

On our way back, we decided to go back down and walk along another trail for a while because we still had lots of time.But then it started to rain. At first it was just a drizzle, but then it rained heavely and, of course, we didn't have an umbrella or a rain jacket. We couldn't even find any shelter under the trees either and a few minutes later we were completely soaked. But then we found an old greenhouse which at least gave us some shelter from the rain. So, we sat down, covered ourselves with towels and ate cheetos while waiting for the rain to stop or the time to pass. However, the rain didn't stop and we started to freeze. But then we saw something really funny, well...actually something cool. Some indigenous people passed and they had natural umbrellas: huge leaves...very smart!

Fortunately, the taxi was on time and we were so glad to be taken back to the dry house!

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.