Boquete, Panama--one of my favs

January 24, 2009

For the past week we have been residing at Spanish By The River in Boquete, Panama. This place is paradise. After making a quick “supermercado” stop in David, we headed up the mountain towards Volcan Baru. In Alto Boquete, about 5 km before Bajo Boquete, we turned towards Spanish By The River. We have taken 2 hours of Spanish language classes each day this week. Estaban, our instructor, is a young man from Turrialba, Costa Rica. He definitely had his work cut out for him and excelled at the job. Reminding us about how to write and say past participles, imperfects, and pronouns, he has definitely helped my ability to speak with proper form. We are also staying in the nicest accommodations of the trip. We have a private room with private bathroom, wi-fi and computers, communal big screen tv, and communal kitchen for $25 total per night. Besides the inside amenities, there is a garden full of sugar canes, platinos, oranges, and lemons, as well as a dog, Elsa, and parrot, Pepe, which are nonstop entertainment. Pepe was found abandoned on the side of a road with a broken wing. Although he cannot fly any longer, he seems content with wandering through the fruit garden all day and doing back-flips in his cage at night.

As for the excursions this week, they have been great. We first visited Paradise Gardens, a wildlife sanctuary near Boquete. This facility had a variety of animals from monkeys to cockatoos to margays and baby sloths. Each animal had a story. Whether they had been caged by previous owners in 2’ by 4’ boxes or left there by unwanted owners, they definitely had a better life and were being prepared to return to the wild. Paradise Gardens owns a piece of land further away where they acclimate animals to their natural habitat.

We also had the opportunity to go rock climbing upon basalt formations. The horizontal and vertical slabs were definitely a challenge, but it was a very welcomed one. After a day of climbing, we decided to go to natural hot springs. We traveled to the caldera, walked near the river, and found the very warm springs. Thankfully not too developed (like the ones in Ouray), these were a real treat. A real treat, until I emerged from the water with a new stinging sensation on my leg. Throughout the night the two spots on my leg got a bit redder and a sticky matter seemed to be emerging from them. As best I can tell, after 2 days, is that I must have been sucked on by a leech. The shape of the sore is the shape of a sucker, but instead of one spot where is may have sucked, its whole body seems to have burned off the top layer of my skin. It burns like hell and is very red, and still producing an interesting sticky wet matter (like a burn). Is this normal? Docs? Leighton put some Neosporin on it and bandaged it, so hopefully the burning sensation will go away within the next few days. Today’s hike towards Bajo Mono and Sendero los Quetzales didn’t help the matter. Okay, enough about the gross stuff.

We hiked around the area today and realized that if we were ever to purchase land, this would be an ideal place. The whole region feels fairly safe. It is cool enough that you need a sweater in the evening. And, I have never seen so much beauty-waterfalls, lush vegetation, cliffs, and rushing rivers. You must only watch out for floods and landslides. This year they had a much larger flood than normal, which managed to wash out a major roadway. Hopefully we will be able to post pictures soon. If we can’t get them up on this site, check facebook. If I am not friends with you yet, feel free to add me. Well, Leighton is almost finished with making a wonderful dinner, so I better get going. I hope everyone is enjoying their winter!