Boquete

DAY 3

Today, we traveled.

A flight from Panama City at the smallest, dinkiest airport I've ever been in (and I've been to a lot of small dinky airports..), a car ride to the bus station in David from a nice French-Canadian fella who dad met on the plane, and a one hour $1.50 bus ride with locals on an old yellow school bus up the winding, bumpy road to Boquete -- a beautiful coffee-growing mountain town complete with a dormant volcano, great hikes, a river and, of course, great coffee.

DAY 4

Today, on New Year's Eve, we took a coffee tour in the rainy cloud forest about 5 miles up and away from town. The ride in the back of a truck on the steep road was part of the fun with views of lush green landscape, verdant hillsides, coffee plants, banana trees and a beautiful view from the peak of the mountain overlooking the small town of Boquete. Once we got to the coffee plantation, we toured and tasted the coffee bean plants in a heavy downpour, then stepped inside to stir, smell and taste eight of the region's award-winning coffees.

After getting back in town, we decided to take a hike uphill towards Volcan Baru. Along the riverside route, we saw incredible geometric rock structures and vegetation growing upon vegetation-- bananas, oranges, lemons, coffee beans, colorful flowers and even squash growing on a vine atop a palm tree. Life flourishes here in part due to the sunny, yet occasionally rainy climate and nutrious volcanic soil, which creates rich green hillsides in every direction.

At night, the entire town lit up with fireworks for New Year's Eve. They started around 7 p.m. and boomed and busted all night until around 1 p.m. For a town of 5,000 people, it seemed as if there were 20,000 out in town that night. Many of the indigenas trekked into town that night for the special occasion, getting drunk and fighting for women. No gringos were hurt -- they only fought each other -- but  between the fights and the fireworks, our New Year started off with quite a bang.

DAY 5

We took another truck ride up to the cloud forest today. This time for a 12-line zipline adventure through the forest and across the river. The guides said we reached speeds of 60 mph and a descent 1,000 feet during the thrilling ride -- quite an exhilirating experience for a Sunday afternoon. In our ziplining group we met a few good ole hardworking Southern boys who worked in nearby Chiriqui Grande and later a couple from Tennessee who were staying in our hostel -- what a nice taste of home when we were so far away!