A Place to Retire - Boquete

After a week I finally left the archipelago of Bocas as the locals call it, for the highlands of Boquete. I was meeting a friend in the city of David at the bus stop so I wanted to get an early start. By early I mean around 9, hey it was island time! Anyway, I waited and waited for my friend Travis at the bus stop that I directed him to over the e-mails. Once he was 3 hours late I started to think of all the possible disasters he may have encountered on his journey from Indianapolis, Indiana to David, Panama. These ranged from missing his flight, to his bus from Panama City crashing on the Pan-American. Of all the scenarios I came up with it never once crossed my mind that there may be two bus stations in David. Well there was, and lucky for Travis, he had enough foresight to explore the city for my location. Finally we bumped into on another, and were ready for the next journey, our trip to one of the world’s top retirement destination, and a climb up Volcan Baru.

(A modest breakfast! Actually that's all they brought!!)


(Yes, this are what coffee beans look like before they are brought to America.)

Lucky for us we happened to be in Boquete during the annual Festival de Flores y Café. This yearly celebration of flowers and coffee was rated the top festival in Panama by Lonely Planet, and we happened to stumble into town as it was taking place. Luckily we found a room, although it only had one double bed. This was when I had my first hot shower of the trip, something I didn’t savor long enough thinking there would be more to come, you’ll find out later that I was wrong in my assumption. The next morning Travis and I set off for our climb up Volcan Baru, standing at 11,398 feet tall it is Panama’s tallest mountain. It’s a dormant volcano that sits on the continental divide and towers some 8000 plus feet over the town of Boquete. Most people take a cab from town the first 9km to the ranger station at the entrance to the national park, however we figured we would get the whole experience and walk from town, making the grueling walk just that much longer. Travis and I have made this mistake before, on a trip to Pico de Orizaba where it is recommended to hire a ride for most of the approach, we instead made a long day of walking down a dust choked road in the blaring sunlight, leading to a significant dehydration issue and a nasty sunburn.

(Who knew there was bamboo in Panama?)

Anyway, we decided to make this mistake again, and turned an already hefty hike into an epic journey. We hiked and hiked, and finally made it to the top just before sunset. We were hoping to see a nice sunset since all day the skies were blue, but of course as we set foot atop the summit the clouds rolled in. We had about a 48 second view from the top! We descended a bit and set camp in an abandoned structure, fearing the possibility of rain. We both set up our traveling hammocks hoping for a peaceful night after our trying hike. Unfortunately hammocks don’t keep you too warm, and with the temperatures dropping into the 30’s and 40’s over night, neither Travis or I got a wink of sleep. By 5 am I was ready to climb out of my icy nest, and try to warm myself up. Travis and I walked back to the summit for a hope of clear skies, it’s rumored that one can see both the Pacific and Atlantic from the summit, but we were socked in again with heavy cloud cover, so we decided to retreat back to Boquete.

Once back in town we were treated to the loud ever present noise Panamanians call music, which really just sounds more like people yelling off pitch and out of key in Spanish, until around 5 am when the flowers and coffee festival calms down. We kept it short and sweet, the next morning we had some fried bread for breakfast, packed up, departed from a place I am surprised is the number 3 places in the world to retire, and headed to the beach!

(We had to get out share of street meat at the festival!)


(There is our cozy double!!)

There is more Panama to come, two different beach towns, and all sorts of excitement, so come back soon and hopefully I’ll have the rest of the trip’s story and pictures posted!! Also if you want more information on Panama, click on the title to this post and it will link you to Lonely Planet’s Panama page.