Saturday, January 27, 2018
El Valle to Boquete
Today we spent seven hours on a total of four different buses, then took a taxi to pick up a rental car, finally driving an additional hour to Boquete, a town of eternal spring located in the misty mountains of Chriqui Province. Here's how it went...
Early morning in El Valle
Up at 6:00 a.m. to start our long day. Left the room key in the door since no one was around and walked to the bus stop just outside the hotel, catching the 7:30 El Valle-San Carlos bus/minivan as far as Las Uvas ($2 each), which took about half an hour.
Las Uvas is on the Interamericana Highway, so buses pass by frequently. When we arrived, there was a very crowed small bus leaving immediately headed west toward Penonome ($1 each), so we rode it for 50 minutes or so, as far as Anton, where we got off and waited for a westbound bus to either Santiago or David, whichever came by first, whenever that might be. Less than 15 minutes later, we boarded a bus to Santiago ($5 each). This was a real-sized bus, comfortable though a little chilly. The ride from Anton to Santiago took about two hours.
Tom's "aisle" seat
In Santiago we were at the bus station less than 10 minutes, barely long enough to use the baños and find the bus to David ($9 each). This was a mid-size bus with seats for 27 or so passengers, but eventually it held many more. All of Latin America seems to work on the “there's always room for one more” theory of bus management, even to the extent of plopping down kids on strangers' laps, like they did here – not on the gringos' laps, though – the kids would have freaked (and so might the gringos)! The music was REALLY loud on this bus, but this time I had my earplugs handy.
Passing from Veragus Province into Chiriqui Province, the bus pulled over at some kind of roadblock, where an official-looking fellow stepped aboard and said something indiscernible in Spanish. Some of the passengers were digging out their IDs, so I fished out our passports and held them up where they could be seen. The official didn't touch or open the passports, but he nodded to me that he saw them, which apparently was enough, and we were quickly on our way,
We arrived at the David bus station three hours later and caught a taxi to the airport for $5. The taxi was in bad condition, and I'm a little surprised it made it. At the airport we picked up our rental car from Budget, a white Kia Rio with only 8,668 kilometers on it. In Panama you're required to buy the rental company's liability insurance, but you can waive the collision damage insurance with the proper paperwork from your credit card company, so we did. All told, the rental was $95 for three days.
Our little Kia
It's less than an hour's drive from David to Boquete, but we circled around a bit looking for the B&B because the GPS wasn't precise and the B&B didn't have a sign out front, but I pulled up a photo from Booking.com on my phone, and a friendly Seventh Day Adventist missionary pointed us in the right direction. We arrived at 4:15.
Casa Alegria, Boquete
The hotel: The Casa Alegria B&B has only five guest rooms, and we'd reserved the Cielo room, a large clean room with a king-sized bed, a sitting area inside the room, and another sitting area in the lovely garden. The view of the mountains is spectacular, and there was even a rainbow when we arrived! There's a locked gate out front so we had secure parking, and it's just a five-minute walk to several restaurants. The host of the B&B, Dean, is originally from Manchester, England, and lived in Florida for several years. The hostess, Carol, is from nearby David but speaks English fluently, as does their young daughter. The room was $82.50 per night. We stayed here three nights.
Our room, "Cielo"
Spacious and new
Rainbow over the garden
Boquete is a small town (population 19,000) in the Chiriqui highlands next to Volcan Baru, Panama's only volcano and highest point (11,401 feet). The weather is fantastic and the surroundings scenic, making the area very popular with expats.
We got settled in at the B&B and then walked to the main strip, just a block away, to find some dinner. We ate by the plaza at Baru Restaurante & Bar, getting a delicious pizza and Cokes for $19. Interesting: Most restaurants in Panama add a 10 percent gratuity to the bill automatically, but you're allowed to cross the tip off if you're some kind of ass. Who does that?
After dinner we went to Boquete Brewing Company, very near our B&B. How convenient! Quite a mix of customers here – expats and tourists from around the world, city folk from Panama City, and a few locals. Good beer, decently priced at $4.50 per pint. They had eight or ten beers on the menu, and we attempted to order five different ones, but they were out of two of the choices. This seems to be a thing in Panama where there's way more items on the menu than actually available. Anyway, we had the Wood Morning, a coffee amber; the Portergeist, a good but surprisingly low alcohol porter at 4.5 percent; and La Coima, a northeast-style Pale Ale. Cool place.
Boquete Brewing Company
The brew room
Back at the B&B, I was exhausted from the day of travel, the Dramamine, and the beer and went quickly to sleep. Tom ventured back out for juice to go with our rum and planned our tomorrow...
Tom
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