Escaping to the quiet of Boquete

With the craziness of David behind us, yet still fresh in our minds, we were all too happy to see the mountains of Boquete looming before us. Having heard and read so many good reviews of Boquete, we were excited to finally be on our way to our final destination—a place that could potentially be our future home.
There were many signs along the two-lane roadway advertising the many new developments that are continuously popping up in this growing town, as well as places to stay and places to eat.
It was pretty countryside with lots of open land interspersed by small clusters of homes. It only took us a couple of minutes to drive the entire length of Boquete’s main street, which is lined with restaurants, gas stations, grocery stores, and a number of real estate offices. Pretty much your typical small town main street, except for the hoards of Panamanians waiting at the bus stop at the town’s center, a sight we had become accustomed to.
Since we were starving, we quickly took it all in, made a u-turn, and headed back to the Mexican restaurant we saw at the beginning of town. The food was excellent and the price was fair, but the service was slow to non-existent. I felt like we could have slipped out the door without paying and no one would have been the wiser. We didn’t, of course.
Now our mission was to find a place to stay. Wes was enamored by the Boquete Garden Inn signs that we passed on the way into town, so we decided to try to find it.
Although Boquete isn’t big, just a few streets north and south of the main drag and a couple of streets heading up into the mountains, it took us a bit to locate the Inn. Unfortunately our navigation system was no help. But when we did finally find it, we knew we wanted to stay and could only hope a room was available for the night.

No Bucket List for me ... at least not yet

I’m going to stray from my Panama stories for today to share a milestone in my life that happened yesterday—my 35th birthday.
Among other things, this blog is about my life’s journeys and adventures, and turning 35 got me thinking about what I’ve accomplished and, more importantly, what I hope to accomplish.
I know some people actually make lists of what they want to do by the time they are 40 or 50 or whatever. Hence the famous “Bucket List.” But I’m not really a list kind of person.
My lists are more about what I need to accomplish on a daily basis like don’t forget to pay the credit card bill, or do I have something to take for lunch today, or stop by the grocery store and get hamburger rolls so we can actually eat the Manwich I had planned for tonight. I suppose I’m not one to look too far ahead.
At one point in my life I thought, maybe I want to write a novel by the time I’m 40. But I’ve pretty much come to the conclusion that a book does not live in me. Or at least a character that I like hasn’t presented himself or herself yet.
Like anybody else I have things that I’d like to do pop into my head, like see the Grand Canyon in person, or have a permanently flat stomach, or sit in the front row of a Bon Jovi concert. But these certainly aren’t things I have to do before I kick the bucket.
So 35 came and went yesterday and my husband did an amazing job of surprising me with a wonderful mini-staycation, and my life list still consists of mundane things like can I stretch my half-tank of gas till the weekend?
What about you? Do you have a life list?

Move over Panama City, get a load of crazy and crowded David

We thought we wanted to spend a night in David (pronounced Da-veed), the third largest city in Panama, just 30 minutes from our final destination of Boquete. I had even gone so far as to email Hotel Alcala, a hotel located near the town square, about room reservations for Monday night.
Little did we know that David was Little China on Panamanian steriods.
The outskirts of the city looked relatively harmless with large department stores, some nice homes, and even a fairly large baseball field. As we got closer to the action, however, the city streets turned into pure mayhem.
Maybe it's because we arrived around early afternoon and that's when this agricultural town is hopping, but it was absolute craziness!
We drove in off a side street hoping to get closer to the town square, but the traffic was bumper to bumper and people on foot were everywhere. There are few, if any, traffic lights in town so we had to contend with stop signs and long streams of traffic. Basically, it was every person for themself as you desperately tried to snake through the traffic.
Believe it or not, I almost thought it was worse than Panama City.
We never did locate Hotel Alcala and I finally just said let's head on to Boquete. My husband needed no convincing and, without running anyone over or slamming into anyone's bumper, we escaped the madness and fled to the peacefulness of the hills.

Searching for rest in Santiago

We arrived in Santiago, our halfway point in our drive across Panama, while there was still thankfully some light left in the evening sky. This was the part in the trip where I wanted to fly by the seat of our pants, which basically translates into no hotel reservations.
There isn’t much in Santiago, but I knew from our guidebook that there were a couple of hotels. And, even better, there was civilization, meaning there was a McDonald’s and a KFC.
Turns out, one of the hotels, Hotel Plaza Gran David, was no longer in business with huge weeds growing through cracks in the sidewalks; and the second hotel looked fairly unsavory. By now, night was coming on fast so we had to make a decision if we wanted a decent night’s rest.
We drove on a bit further through town (granted the main strip through town isn’t too long) in the hope that we wouldn’t have to resort to sleeping in the car. And then our mecca appeared: Hotel La Hacienda.
It was a huge stucco building in bright colors of orange, yellow, and red at the north side of town. It looked inviting enough, with wagon wheel accents and cute horse posts in the parking lot. Its prices were a little on the high side starting at $57 for a double bed. Knowing we’d never be comfortable in a double, and the queen didn’t look much larger, we opted for the king-size bed for $71.
On the way to our room, we snuck a peek at the pool, which has an adjacent children’s playground. We then dropped our bags on the Mexican blanketed bed and headed down to the restaurant to enjoy a glass of sangria.

The beauty of El Valle

There are simply no words that will adequately describe the beauty of El Valle. It was breathtaking and the climate was perfect.
Here are some photos from our short few hours we spent there.

Incredible views!

This is Los Capitanes, a gorgeous resort just off the main road, where we had lunch outdoors surrounded by beautiful gardens. It was a little overcast and we could hear thunder in the distance, but El Valle stayed dry and we stayed cool.

A great market that I did read about in my Lonely Planet guidebook is open every day in El Valle's town center. There's everything here from fresh fruits and veggies to sculptures of the elusive golden frog and Panama hats!

We followed the main road just a bit further north to the famed El Macho waterfall. There are plenty of signs leading the way.

It costs $3.50 per person to see the waterfall and Oscar here was our guide. We even got our own walking sticks. Not for keeps, though.

At one point we had to cross a little waterway. It was touch and go, but I made it!

There are a few of these rope bridges that need crossing before you get to El Macho. As you can see, these are in much better shape than the one in "Romancing the Stone."