Finca Lerida Ecolodge Boquete

... lots of English books including my favourite series, Magic Treehouse.
Then we went up the mountains again on the other side of Volcan Baru past the town of Volcan. We knew where the park was, but it took too long to get there so we decided it would be too long of a walk and we would only get 10 minutes of hiking in the park before we had to leave. On the way back we went to the small border crossing Rio Sereno which ...

... town. Its hard not to have fun any day or any night of the week.



On Monday, the ex president of Panama passed away from a heart attack.
He was old, so it wasnt tragic. None the less, the country lowered
their flags and took a day off of work to observe the loss. As a
result, class was cancelled on Tuesday. This was great for me as I had
been a little bothered about not having more full days in Boquete to do
some more challenging excursions ...

... 25 bucks!!!! We were STOKED! That's almost a weeks worth of groceries! And it was FUN! Apparently we did a good job because we've got the gig whenever we want it...rent's covered, now food?! Nice!

Saturday morning was a little rough to say the least. We were exhausted but had to be up and ready to go to David by 1030. Long story short, we were supposed to go with GHA to Santiago (half way between ...

... to move on to our next stop: Aldeas Infantiles SOS. SOS is a program that was founded in Switzerland after WWII for the homeless and orphaned children of the war, and currently operates in about 100 countries all over the world. It's basically like a foster home community, set up like a neighborhood with a total of 15 houses, each sleeping 8 to 10 kids plus a "mother". Each "mother" is responsible for the children in her house- she takes them to the doctor if they are ill, maintains ...

... private residence. The residence is closed to the public but you are allowed to stroll through the gardens. There are paper mache cows dotted around the garden and ponds filled to bursting with koi, big ones. We also happened upon a little chapel that could only hold about 10 people max at the end of the garden, and also stared at what could only be described as the worlds largest residentially owned satellite. This thing was huge, and a funny adornment for a garden ...

... machines that shell the fruit, wash the beans and dry them all in one process. Coenje´s farm is one of the locations for this machine and he proudly showed us this work of art. The machine is also very economical using only something like a litre of water for every 40 kilos of beans, instead of 40 litres of water for a kilo of beans as the old machines used.

Coenje also took us through his herb garden, showing us a leaf that smells pretty bad and is quite ...

... into Boquete to find a meal since we just came off of cooking for ourselves for the past 5 days (for the most part). We made our way to the Panamonte Hotel. We had fabulous meals of smoked pork chop and dry aged filet. It was delicious!!! All this with a bottle of wine and dessert and did I mention that Scott ordered Carpaccio for an appetizer (blick, and he thought so too) for $60. It’s really, really affordable to have a bit of luxury in Panama.

... continuing on in Central and South America. Back on the road and we ended up in Chitré, which is down on the plains and very hot. It is rainy season at the moment meaning it normally rains in the afternoon, except for in Chitré where they still haven't seen any rain. We went for a little bus adventure one day and ended up in a tranquil little town called Parita. It was hot and we needed a beer, so we popped into a tiny bar for one beer. The locals, 3 men and a barmaid were very ...

... to town for dinner that night at the Art Gallery and Crepes at the north end of town. Even though the town was dry, our friend Jamie asked for wine, just in case and sure enough, the waiter said they were serving "cafe blanco and cafe rojo" and they brought out wine in coffee mugs for us. Seemed multiple tables caught on and soon everyone was drinking coffee for dinner.

... it was a Sunday, but we figured it'd be worth it to give it a shot. Sure enough, we got off in the middle of nowhere and there was a so-called coliseum filled with drunk guys, pruned roosters and a dirty carpet ring about 15 feet in diameter. We were so excited just to have found the place. It was quite an experience. The roosters come out like little dragons, with their feathers all pruned to make them more light and agile. They have spikes taped onto the back of their talons and ...