Panama 23.10.2011 to 31.10.2011

From the town Nelly, Costa Rica we got a bus to the boarder and it was easy to enter Panama. At the Panama side somebody shouted out of a shuttle bus "David". We took that bus to the main bus terminal in "David" and transferred to a chicken bus to Boquete. We arrived around 1 hour later the lovely mountain town of Boquete and found a nice private room. The rest of the late afternoon we spent in our room and hostel, as we were really tired from our 3 am trip. We had a great TV and watched some American movies and shows and ate popcorn. What a relaxing start!






The next morning we went to the hostel close by to book a coffee tour. As we had another hour and a half we went back to our hostel to have breakfast. We quickly found out that we were one hour behind, as Panama had a different time zone. We had no idea! So we quickly finished breakfast and run to our meeting point and arrived just about 5 minutes late.
There we met Raul who took us to the coffee plantation and explained a lot about the coffee beans. One specialty coffee bean was called Gaisha and really expensive. Also the owner of the coffee plantation made all the coffee processing machines out of parts of a Jeep.




















The afternoon we spend walking around town and enjoying the atmosphere.

We decided to leave Boquete the next day as all the tours were really expensive and had to decide between the popular Boca del Torres in the north, a 4 to 6 hour trip or to go to a remote south island called Boca Brava. As we wanted to go after to Panama City we decided to go to Boca Brava.

We took the bus back to David and from there we took a small shuttle bus to Horconcitos were the bus driver let us out in front of a house and someone took our bags to bring them to the next shuttle who drove us to Boca Chica. Arrived there we took a small boat to Boca Brava. It was almost sun set when we arrived and we walked quickly to a beach before we returned to dinner.
The next day we rented a Kayak and paddled around the Islands. We found great beaches and it was a bit of an adventure no to loose our Kayak with the coming high tide.














The rest of the day we chilled at our hostel and planned our trip to Panama City the next day.

We arrived in Panama City just after sunset and found a bus to take us to the Plaza de Cinco Mayo and we walked the rest of the stretch to the hostel. We were watching our backs but as we saw elderly women walk on the street we felt save in the area.

We arrived at the hostel of our choice Luna's Castle. You will either hate or love this place, there is no in between. It is loud, filled with very independent travelers, small rooms with no windows and a bar that is just happening for locals and guests of the hostel likewise. We stayed there for 5 nights and we loved it there and we met amazing people there.

The first day in Panama City we walked around the beautiful part of Casco Viejo with all the traditional houses that are nicely renovated, under renovation or are still fallen apart with a lot of charm.










In the afternoon we walked past the fish market to have some Cevice and walked along the beach walk towards the high rise buildings of the Panama sky line.






The next day we went together with Kathy and Henrik to the Panama Lock Milaflores to see large ships go through the small passage and learn about the Panama Chanal.






In the afternoon we visited together the ruined of the old town of Panama.


On Sunday we went to the a Zoo behind the Miraflores Locks to see some more exotic animals and we got to know the national bird of Panama. The Harpy Eagle.






The last day in Panama City we kept it quite to walk around town to organize some stuff got more Cevice and prepared for our flight the next morning to Ecuador.