Boquete: land of eternal spring
Well, I suppose spring is sometimes stormy, eh? But apparently this wind is unusual, even for boquete. It storms on and off but in the interim i have gotten out for some hikes and now know that this is a really beautiful place. I had my reservations about boquete because it has become quite a retirement haven for americans. I didn’t want to end up in “del webb’s sun city boquete” ☺. But the center of town still has some local flavor and it appears that the retirees stay in their mountain fortresses most of the time.
There is a real alpine feel with steep, green valleys and a crispness to the air. This is big coffee growing country. Jennae, a friendly brit and I decided that we would rent bikes (here at nomba), cab up 8 steep kms to a coffee finca (farm), then bike down another road back to town (and do a waterfall hike on the way). Well, after dawdling during breakfast at the finca it was becoming clear that the very stormy weather was not going to break. Since I’m still fighting my cold I decided I didn’t care to ride several hours in wind and rain (yeah, I’ll blame my cold) so I cabbed back down to hike in the sunnier valley. I’m glad I did. Tho the other 2 were troopers determined to make the best of it, it was clearly not an ideal ride.
Lots of friendly folks here at the hostel from holland, israel, germany, canada, japan and uptown oakland (yes, oaktown is in da house!). I can say that ryan, the owner of nomba, is a wealth of info after being a rafting guide boquete for several years and now running this hostel and a new one in panama city. He’s extremely friendly, helpful and good-looking. Heck, doesn’t hurt to be easy on the eyes.
Tags: boquete, central america, panama, Travel
Peggy Rehm
January 8th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
Hi Peggy, I got back to Fort Collins just fine and am freezing my butt off. I envy you big time. I brought back 12 kilos of coffee purchased in mercado central in San Jose and am a popular guy in this caffiene riddled town. Now its back to work, ugh. I enjoyed your entries and look forward to more. Roberto of Fort Collins