Coffee and gardens, flowers and waterfalls

We still haven’t found any network fast enough to upload our photos or answer all the mails that we’ve received, so please be patient - we will write you, promise!

We are now in Boquete (Chiriquí province and in Panama’s coffee-growing region), which is one of the preferred places for Americans to retire, taking advantage of the fact that they can buy large areas of land, construct a villa with swimming pool, and live their pensioner’s life for much less than at home.

Nonetheless (for the moment being at least) the area still has some authenticity and remains very enjoyable. We have found a really nice hostel, soooooo beautiful… we have a waterfall with a natural swimming pool, literally right in our garden…pure relax…ping-pong, domino, disc golf (something like a mix between golf and Frisbee- very fun) and in the evening: happy hour and axe-throwing. And what is still better: the kitchen is clean!!!!!! Everything is clean!!!...we love this place. It is a pleasure to live in a shared community here.

Before, we spent some days in El Valle de Anton (Coclé province) where we have walked a lot …the vegetation and the gardens are incredible here in Panama, you can pass hours and hours watching the different flowers, butterflies, and birds. On the other side, the town itself was a little boring, but in any case it was a good idea to go there, the landscape was quite different because it’s in the mountains (it is a little colder too)…We visited another waterfall: El Chorro del Macho, went to relax in nearby thermal baths (facial mud therapy included), and a little natural park called El Nispero - kind of a zoo…the funniest animal: El Perezoso.

In Boquete, we slept two nights in another hostel where we met a guy who is working in social development for the UN in Panama…He showed us the different projects they are developing for the indigenous communities… the amount of things that they are doing here is incredible. It sounds very beautiful but it’s hard work: sometimes they have to walk for 10 hours to reach the isolated villages of communities like the Kuna or the Ngobe-Boglé.