So, week 7 begins on Sun 2nd Nov in David which is Panama's 3rd city and is situated towards the northern end of the country. Our bus from Panama City got us into David at 7am which meant that we got to enjoy the hostel room we'd booked for the night before for all of about 2 hours! And they still charged us.....and when I say 'they' I mean Andrea, the slightly sour American ex peace-corps veteran, who runs the place. She was nice enough but lost her sense of humour somewhere along the way we think.
We got moved to another room that morning and slept for a large part of the morning before going out for the yummiest pineapple smoothies I've ever tasted. Being excellent students we did some more spanish study in the afternoon while the rain poured down outside. Which was fine by me but not fine by James who had to trudge out to collect our laundry from the cleaners up the road. Let's just say he got soaked. We think we know rain in Britain but let me tell you you ain't seen nothing til you've seen tropical rain!
Mon 3rd Nov took us away from David, which was only ever a stopping off point, and on to Boquete. We got a bus up in Boquete in the mountains with a dutch guy called Jos who had also been staying in the hostel in David. When we arrived in Boquete there was a huge parade on in celebration of Panama's independence from Columbia. I've put some photos up in the album but this really had to seen, and heard, to be believed. It seemed to be different school groups who had dressed their female students up in various takes on military uniforms to 'march/shimmy' along to the drumming of the boys. The outfits were borderline inappropriate - and I hope I don't sound prudish when I say that, but honestly! The girls, without exception, were wearing white knee-high, high heel boots, short and very clingy skirts, fitted jackets and little hats set at very jaunty angles. None of which would have been so wrong if it weren't for the way they sashayed along the street in time with the music. Who taught these teenage girls to move like that? Their mothers?! Latin americans are born with rhythm - it's the only explanation.
After watching the parade for a while we went to check in to our hostel by the river and then went for lunch. Boquete is in an area famed for it's coffee production and as it rained all afternoon we whiled the hours away sampling the local produce. And very nice it is too.
Tues 4th Nov was supposed to afford me a lie-in as James and Jos got up really early to go white-water rafting on the Chiriqui Grande River. However, it would seem that Panamanians are so proud of their Independence that they celebrate with 2 days of parades. So, I was woken to the intense banging of drums at stupid o'clock. Nothing else for it but to go and marvel at the sights and sounds a second time. I then passed a very tranquil afternoon reading and writing my journal until the boys came back from their rafting adventure and we all went for more coffee!
We spent the morning of the 5th doing a little souvenir shopping in town before heading out on a tour of a coffee farm in the afternoon. Our guide was a dutch guy called Hans (which made Jos feel at home) and there seemed to be nothing he didn't know about coffee. This guy was passionate to say the least. He took us outside to look at the various species of coffee plant and then into the farm itself where he talked us through every part of the process from the beans being brought in from the fields, sorted, washed, sorted again, dried, sorted again and finally on to being roasted. After all that talk of coffee, naturally we were all ready to try some and Hans then took us to the 'Cupping Room' - no sniggers please. Apparently selecting the right roast for you is a detailed business and involved us first smelling different roasts to get a gut instinct and then tasting them with and without milk - just to sure we had chosen the right one for us. Interestingly light roasts have a greater variety of flavours and contain more caffeine than dark roasts. After much consideration we decided we liked the dark roast best and naturally bought a bag to take home. While we were 'cupping' a very shy and extremely sweet Ngobe indian girl called Maria crept in to see if we would like to buy any of her handicrafts. I bought the most gorgeous bag from her and she also allowed me to take her photo - which you can see in the album.
When we got back from the tour we were all suffering with caffeine overload so went for some much needed food and discussed politics all evening in light of the fact that Barack Obama had just been elected as the next american president.
We left the lovely town of Boquete on Thurs 6th and got the bus back to David where we said goodbye to Jos and got straight onto another bus which took us to Almirante. The bus journey was pretty uncomfortable as it was crowded, extremely hot and 4 hours long. At Almirante we got a water taxi to the island of Colon in the Bocas Del Toro archipelago. Several people had warned against actually staying on Isla Colon as it is a party place with a bit of a crime and drug problem so when we got there we got straight on another boat which took us to Isla Bastimentos where we had a room reserved at a great little place called Tio Tom's.
I should explain a little about Isla Bastimentos. It's not a very big island but it is very beautiful and very Caribbean. The residents of the only town, Old Bank, speak Guari-Guari. a Creole version of English which sounds awesome but is utterly indecipherable to us! Old Bank doesn't have roads, there are no cars on Bastimentos, instead there is one concrete walkway through the town which disppears as you reach the jungle. The people there are very poor, but through choice apparently. Tom and Ina, the owners of Tio Tom's, explained to us that if locals don't feel like working they won't bother and they just go without stuff. No bother. Everyone certainly seemed very friendly and chilled out and why not - they live in one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen!
Tio Toms' is built on a jetty right over the sea so you an actually see the water through the floorboards of your room. One slight downside is that all the toilets flush directly into the sea, which you'd think would be gross but actually the water is so full of life that you never see anything unsavoury in the water - it all gets eaten right away! Still wouldn't fancy swimming around there though as the local kids do......
We had dinner that first night at a place called Rooster and ate with some travellers we had encountered in Panama City and Boquete - it seems everyone is following the gringo trail!
Fri 7th Nov came and it would have been rude not to check out the island's famous beaches. The most beautiful one is Wizard Beach which you get to by walking through the jungle for 35 minutes. It's pretty isolated and exactly what you'd expect a Caribbean beach to be like. Crystal blue, warm sea, golden sand all of which is fringed with palm trees.....heavenly. We both had a swim and then went back to Tio Tom´s for some lunch and so that Bracey could hire a surf board for our return trip to the beach that afternoon.
We had a very slow start to Sat 8th - this is the Caribbean after all, no-one does anything in a hurry. Tom and Ina made us gorgeous pancakes with lots of fresh local fruit for breakfast which set us up nicely for our morning of activity. We hired a kayak and some snorkeling kit from Tom and paddled over to a nearby island where there is a renowned snorkelling area called Hospital Point. We stowed the kayak on a beach and James taught me the basics of snorkelling as I had never done it before. It took me a few goes before I remembered you could breathe through the snorkel but once I got the hang of it I loved it. I could not believe how much more life you can see just inches below the water than you can from above. As the water is tropical we saw loads of brightly coloured fish and coral. I was utterly entranced by this new world that had just opened up to me. I confess to freaking out just once when I thought I felt something swim up my shorts! We snorkled at a couple of different spots before paddling back over to Bastimentos for some of Ina´s awesome sandwiches. We took a water taxi over to Isla Colon and the infamous town of Bocas Del Toro. Of course it wasn´t nearly as bad as we´d been led to believe (barring the occasional offer of drugs from random guys) and we had a little walk around before using the bank and internet cafe which were the main reasons for our visit. We didn´t linger though and soon went back to Old Bank for a great creole dinner at a restaurant called Roots.
