We arrived in Panama City, weary after not having slept for 24 hours, and hit the sack in Luna's Castle (our hostal) muy rapido. We wandered around San Felipe for the following day, discovering that underneath the altar in the main church there was a tunnel used for smuggling drugs. Stange, we thought.
Leaving the city the next day, we took a mere 7 and a half hour bus to the sweltering hot David city, finding our hostel empty... Not the best sign... We tried to get dinner to discover that the restaurant's menu was fish, and only fish, although they could stetch to chicken if desired. Which it was not.

We decided not to stay long, and got up early the next morning for Boquete... Or El Paradiso! We stayed in a lovely hostel called Pensions Marilos, which was home to a parrot which would greet us on entry, causing us some alarm! We had a private room which was heaven, never before appreciating the luxury of being able to create a mess. While sitting outside (and Lily burning) we met 3 other backpackers, who were planning to climb Volcan Baru leaving at midnight. We, however, decided that falling asleep while ascending a mountain was not desirable, and so walked into town to see what we could do. We found this amazing sounding 5 hour hike through the cloud forest, which we promptly booked.
The next morning we went to meet our guide at 8, after having feasted on peanut butter sandwiches. We got into a very vintage Landrover with our guide John, who was Panamanian/American. Boquete is amazingly fertile due to Volcan Baru, this we could see on our drive up in the amazing flowers/plants and general surroundings. He told us how 2 weeks ago he had thrown 2 bad tomatoes out the back door, and now he has 2 baby tomato plants! Amazing! We hiked through the primary forest ending up at a beautiful waterfall. On the way we saw loads of howler monkeys,including a baby daaah! and lots of Quetzals - very rare birds. There were really bright flowers everywhere too, and wild orchids that you could smell but not see. We imagined we were in Pandora (being Avatar-lovers), and John displayed to us how similiar the two were. We even got to see the big Navi tree! All in all, an amazing morning!!