February 16th-18th, 2015
I was glad that I had scheduled a shuttle out of Bocas as it
was another rainy day as I departed. As
we waited at the dock for our water taxi to begin the first leg of the journey,
a skiff with four military men towed in another boat. It turned out to be one of the two boats of
the company I was travelling with so although I was called to get on the first
boat to head to Almirante, we had to wait about an hour there as that boat
whipped back to Bocas and returned with the remaining passengers and then
finally we were off.
Sitting beside me was Chris from Sacramento and across the
aisle was Coby hailing from Montana with his fiancée Amanda, and they had just
gotten engaged the day before! Behind us
were some other American characters, skater looking Ryan with his girlfriend
Jenny and his sister Mandy. The trip
reminded me a bit of my shuttle back in Guatemala as it turned into a bit of a
party as the bus climbed its way up into the clouds on the windy road snaking
through the rainforest. Once we crossed
the summit we were greeted by mostly clear skies revealing the dry leeside of
the mountain range. As we continued
downhill towards the city of David (hey, great name), we could see the huge
bank of clouds seemingly stuck on the mountains. Then came the rainbow. It got more and more intense and lasted more
than a half hour as we started to cruise back north into the mountains.
Boquete itself is a bit of a strange town. Squeezed by a valley it has an upper and
lower section that are quite narrow so there are only 2-3 main streets running
north south. My first night I stayed in
the Mamallena Hostel which was associated with the shuttle company. It was a decent place, right on the border of
the central park of town. I discovered a
good restaurant next door with decent pizza and pretty wicked live music almost
every night. The core of the group were
locals but they invited expats up to play.
There were a couple of older guys who wailed on the electric guitar and
this one white fellow, probably in his 30s with dreads down to the back of his
knees (that’s commitment!) stood up and belted out some great solos on his
trumpet. Never judge a book by its
cover!
The primary activities in this small mountain town revolve
around hiking. The big one is to climb
up Baru Volcano where, if you’re lucky, you can see both the Caribbean and the
Pacific at the same time. Everyone I
spoke with who recently hiked it stated that they had not been able to see both
bodies of water. Add to that that the
trail up essentially was a bumpy gravel road and I have to admit I was not
enticed to do it however now I’m kicking myself as this guy I met at the hostel
named Eric from Ottawa asked if I wanted to join him, starting at midnight (in
order to summit at sunrise) and I declined as I planned to hike the famous
“Sendero de las Quetzales” trail the following day. Turns out he did see both oceans…damn it.
So the Quetzales trail, named after the strikingly colourful
bird that is not only the national bird of Guatemala but also the name of its
currency, supposedly requires a guide, or at least it’s highly
recommended. A few years back a couple
of Dutch women in their early twenties got lost and months later their bones
were discovered. However most places
charge $60-75 for a guide, for one person, which is a bit exorbitant for a
simple hike. I decided to first hike the
“Hidden Waterfalls”, a trail that does not require a guide with three
waterfalls to visit. I hopped in a cab
for the 6-7 kilometre ride out of town and just ten seconds after we started
off the driver almost ran over a 55 year old white woman. She was slowly walking across the road, some
ten meters from the crosswalk and happened to be just in the blind spot of the
roof strut on the left side. It didn’t
help that I had just asked the guy if he spoke English and he was trying to
respond. I saw the impending calamity
but clammed up with my Spanglish and just said “Whoa, whoa…” and finally he
stopped, as he just moved into the lady at about 5 km/hr. She was not happy (even though I think she
was partly to blame) and took her plastic grocery bag and slammed it twice
against the hood and some plastic plate or something flew out onto the
road. We just continued on. No harm no foul I guess…at least in Central
America.
The cabbie ended up dropping me at the wrong waterfalls
hike, one about 1.2 kilometers before the one I intended on hiking. I didn’t realize this until I’d already paid
my $3 entrance fee but figured it didn’t really matter, it looked like a lovely
valley to hike up and the lady claimed it was lovely and to keep my eyes open
for the lovely Quetzal. Part way into
the walk I passed a couple of older women and a man who were obviously birders. They each carried binoculars around their
necks and were peering up into the trees.
I asked them what they had seen and it was a flycatcher, not the big
prized Quetzal. I continued on and just
a few hundred meters ahead I spotted a blue and red coloured bird on a naked
branch. It didn’t sport the long
feathered tail of the male Quetzal but I wondered whether it might be a
female. The bird then flew to a slightly
lower branch and was mostly hidden behind leaves. The three bird watchers finally came up the
trail and shortly after I tried to point out the bird to them, a male flew up
and perched on a nearby branch, confirming my earlier guess. Awesome, a mating, or at least courting
couple. One of the ladies was kind
enough to lend me her binocs and wow, it is an impressive looking bird.
A nice ranch house at the start of the trail:
The view up the valley:
The female Quetzal:
The male has joined. He doesn't look too stunning in this photo from my little point and shoot camera, but trust me...gorgeous. The female is just above him to the right, behind some leaves.
Some cool trees:
I continued on to the waterfalls which were nice, but
perhaps I’m getting a bit waterfalled out on this trip. I only spent a few minutes in the chilling
mist before beginning my walk back.
About five minutes later I ran into Montana Coby which was a nice
surprise. He tried to entice me back to
the falls with the offer of a beer in his backpack but I ended up meeting up
with him and Amanda later that night back at my favourite Boquete restaurant
with the pizza and music.
My first view of the waterfalls:
I changed hostels after the first night to one called “La
Polilla”, which means the moth. Kind of
an odd name for a hostel. It is
affiliated with the original hostel that I had booked online called “El Refugio
del Rio” and I had received confirmation from the third party website but it
turns out there is a disconnect there and they were in fact full. However a guy named Juan emailed me and
offered a room in the moth place, which was obviously run by the same
owners. It turned out to be a lovely
little place, managed by Argentinian Juan and his girlfriend Nati along with
help from a young couple from Ontario, Jamie and Dan. They were lovely people and although the
place is a work in progress, I enjoyed my stay there.
La Polilla Hostel:
The view looking back the other way:
Paps, the hostel dog:
The backyard area:
A sculpted tree:
Nati (with the pot on her head), Jamie and Juan...beautifying the place one day at a time:
I had still planned on hiking the Sendero de las Quetzales
trail but the night before I was going to go I was crossing the main street
coming back from the grocery store and smashed my foot into a small embankment
on the side of the road causing me to fall down and crush my newly purchased
eggs. Wearing only flip flops I did some
good damage to my big toe plus I blew out the flip, or was it the flop. These suckers were from India and I’d only
paid $4 for them and they’d lasted about 2 years so they owed me nothing but I
would need to quickly replace them. So
the hike was out, no point in hobbling around a trail looking for a bird I had
seen the day before.
A chilled out day rounded off with a final pizza dinner at
Baru Restaurant finished my stay in Boquete, it was time to head southeast to
Santa Catalina, to hopefully scuba dive with whale sharks!
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