Month: October 2017

Caldera Petroglyphs and Hike

Main petroglyph at Caldera. Photo from TripAdvisor.com

Caldera is a very small town only about 17 miles from Vista Grande, 35 minutes by car. It is one of the towns that we passed through on the way to Bocas del Toro.

First we stopped off to see some petroglyphs on large rocks. The rocks were thrown out of Volcan Baru at some time in the past. According to this website, the carving was done about 1000 years ago. The area is a national park although there isn’t any really easy access. You have to go through the lower part of a fence (barbed wire above you so crouch carefully) and then walk about 10-15 minutes through a field to get to the park.

There are many, many relatively small boulders from one of the eruptions of Baru and some are quite large. To make the carvings easier to see, they have been painted white.

After we looked at the petroglyphs, we drove a little farther and then parked. We walked 4 kilometers each way (about 5 miles round trip) to Paraiso Escondido La Abuela Hostel where we looked but did not go into a very nice hot spring pool. The hike was fairly flat and had a mixture of full sun and nice shade along the way.

It would have been a wonderful hike if we had started earlier (we started about 9:45 by the time we arrived after the petroglyphs and Caldera may be close to Boquete but the temperatures are worlds apart. Caldera is only about 814 feet high where as Vista Grande is about 3858′.  Instead of temperatures in the 70’s, they were in the mid 80’s (plus fairly humid). So the town is aptly named since “caldera” translates to “boiler”.

We had brought enough water but didn’t carry all of it with us on the hike. Big mistake. I ran through my water and then Dan’s and finally Lesia’s. Dan went down to the river 3 times to fill the water bottles with river water to pour over my head. Finally Lesia walked ahead and brought the truck back so save me some walking although by then I was within 5-10 minutes of our parking spot…I could have made it but was glad not to have to.Here are some images of the cladera hike.

If we go back again, we will about 7 in the morning and take 2 containers of water for each person with us. That way we will be finished by about 10:30 and have a lovely walk. The 5 miles isn’t the hard part of the hike at all.

Panama and Soccer

Panama beats Costa Rica to go to the World Cup in Russia

The evening of October 10th we could hear lots and lots and LOTS of cars honking down in town. It was a weekday evening so it was odd. I sent a What’sApp message to Lesia, owner of the Vista Grande apartments and she didn’t know what was going on either.

The next day we found out that Panama had qualified to go to the 2018 World Cup Soccer for the first time. Now the celebrating made sense.

At midnight that night, President of Panama Juan Carlos Varela tweeted that all public and private businesses and schools would be closed the following day for a National Holiday. The people getting the holiday loved it if they knew about it. Unfortunately the announcement was very late and many people didn’t get the word. I heard tales of children showing up at school only to find out it was closed.

I’m told that workers who did work were paid 2 1/2 times the normal rate because it was a national holiday. Folks take their soccer seriously here!

 

Wh

Panama is one of 32 teams going to the 2018 World Cup in Russia

When we were in David on Thursday, there were already t-shirts for sale on the side of the road for the event!

Sassy Hunt

Most of you won’t know me but a very few of you may recognize me. My name is Sassy Hunt and Lindie’s granddaughter, Beth, gave me to her in 2016 when she visited Colorado.

I’m excited because I have been going on the travels with Dan and Lindie. For the longest time, I lived on Lindie’s rolling bag but when they were in Bocas del Toro, they finally let me go to some of the places in town with them too.

When I do something exciting, I will add a new post. In the meantime, here are my pictures of my adventures in Bocas.

Bajo Mono Club de Montana Hike

Bajo Mono Blu de Montana

Today we went with a local group of mostly expats on a nice hike to a beautiful area with gardens and a trout farm. There are a lot of hikers around here but this is the first time that we have done this much of a hike or gone with a group other than the folks at Vista Grande where we are staying.

Much of the hike was uphill however it wasn’t difficult, especially because we still had a normal amount of oxygen. I didn’t have any trouble. I realized that my problem with having to rest a lot in Colorado is due to the thinner air (oxygen), not my hiking abilities. Not altogether a surprise since all of my siblings are on oxygen at essentially sea level. When I had a stress test my oxygen levels stayed within normal so I’m not worried, just frustrated that I will probably continue to have this issue when we get back to Colorado, some day.

In any case, I did fine. Lesia, the owner of Vista Grande felt like the hike was too short but then she does 7-8 mile hikes about once a week. This was 700 meters each way so about 1.5 miles round trip. Then we walked more to get back to where the truck was so a good 2 miles or more today. Certainly not a long hike for Dan and me either. I was able to be towards the front/middle of the pack. Towards the front going uphill but a bit slower coming down since I had to be more careful not to slip going down.

The furthest that we went to was a very lovely area of lots of flowers and a small pond with lots of trout. Here are some pictures from there.

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Bocas del Toro

View from dock across the street from our hotels. Peaceful and serene.

Bocas del Toro is an archipelago (group of islands) at the northeastern part of Panama, very close to the Costa Rican border. This is an extremely popular tourist destination even though you are seriously warned not to drink the water (which also means not to eat anything that is washed such as raw vegetables and to avoid ice). Unlike other tourist areas like Granada Nicaragua where the nicer restaurants or ones that cater to tourists which use filtered water for drinking and ice, we didn’t see/hear of any in Bocas that did that.

Archipelago of Bocas del Toro

We were extremely careful not to drink unfiltered water and not to use ice or eat raw veggies. I would have thought I got the amoeba infection there anyway except that the incubation period is much longer. (I did try literally a single drop of homemade hot sauce in a restaurant a few hours before I got sick but that wasn’t the cause if it truly was an amoeba infection).

While I didn’t get to enjoy anything other than walking around, Dan went on an all day catamaran ride where he snorkeled and saw starfish (and got sunburned). We had planned to go on a bio-luminescence tour one night but couldn’t because of the diarrhea. By the time I was well enough to consider being on a boat without a restroom for 2 hours, the moon was out again so you wouldn’t be able to see the glow.

Other common activities in the area are bicycling (we did do that-me once and Dan several times), fishing, shopping the locally made tourist items, and the like.

Biking was easy on this part of the island which is fairly flat.
Water taxi

To get to Bocas, you go to Almirante, a small town on the mainland. As you arrive into town, there is often a person on a bike who offers to show you where to park and get the taxi (for whatever you tip the person). You park your car in a gated lot for $3 per day (not 24 hours so if you arrive on Monday and leave on Wednesday, you pay $9). From there it is a short walk to the water taxi that takes you to the island for $7 per trip per person or $10 round trip (if you do a better job of keeping up with your receipt than we did, LOL). That ride is about 30 minutes and the water taxis run every 30 minutes from 6 AM to 6 PM. The ride was fairly calm both ways since you are in a bay area.

Food is pretty good and not outrageously expensive. We had excellent seafood, usually Corvina which is a very mild sea bass.

The weather was mild with afternoon rains most days.

The drive to Almirante was verdant with rural, poor, windy, hilly roads, and was very pleasant. There are places where the road slumps several inches with no warnings. A lovely drive but quite long given the distance is only 180 KM (111 miles). It is supposed to take just over 3 hours but was really closer to 5, including a 30 minute stop for a bite to eat. Not sure why but many of the indigenous Guaymi peoples’ houses in this area are on stilts, in the mountainous area of the drive. (We did see clothes drying under some of the houses but don’t know if that is the reason for the stilts.)

House on stilts on road to Bocas

Volcan Panama

Horse farm outside of Volcan

Volcan is a lovely area about an hour and a half from Boquete. It is known as the Little Switzerland of Panama. It is a little higher altitude than Boquete and about 1/3 fewer people. It is more agriculture related and cheaper to live. The temperatures are similar to Boquete, 60-75 degrees Fahrenheit. We went there on September 15th which is the first day of their fall festival. We didn’t want to be in the crowds of people that would be there the next day for the parade however we did see quite a few float type decorations at various places along the road.

We couldn’t see the top of Volcan Baru, the highest point in Panama (11,401 feet) because as usual it was overcast. Baru is close to Volcan.

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Dan is a Softie

Dan and a horse tied up along our quiet neighborhood road so it can graze.

I don’t think Dan has ever met an animal he didn’t like and a flower he didn’t want to take a picture of. He goes right up to all kinds of animals and pets them. They seem to love him, I guess they know he is a kind soul.

Anyway, here are just a few of the pictures of the random animals and flowers we have seen in Panama. We’v seen a ton more plants and trees. It is obvious that Daddy was familiar with the flora from Central America when he planted various plants at the house he had built. Mimosa, hibiscus, oleanders, and much more are common around here.