Panama
November 2006
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With the clock ticking on our time with Noah we picked up the pace and trucked toward the Panama Canal and Panama City. We spent a night in Playa Las Lajas, the mountainous town of Boquete (Panama’s Aspen), and finally Playa Santa Clara. When we drove from Santa Clara to the Panama Canal we were all giddy with excitement. When we drove across the bridge over the Panama Canal we almost couldn’t believe that we had done it. We spent several hours learning about the history of the amazing technical and human achievement of the Canal’s construction at the Mira Flores Locks. We watched ships passing through the locks and took lots of photos of the impressive site. Since Noah had to fly out the next day, we found a hotel near the airport in Panama city and enjoyed our last few hours with Noah. After saying goodbye to Noah we drove back through Panama City to Santa Clara where we would camp and rest for the next few days recuperating from the blistering pace we had set with Noah.
We picked up another hitchhiker in Santa Clara, Guliano from Italy. Guliano rode with us out to Playa Vanao or “Vanado” where we scored some fun surf and good camping. Despite the rain we explored Punta Cambutal before going back to Santiago to drop off Guliano and get the van lubed up. From Santiago we went to Santa Catalina, one of the most famous surf spots on Panama’s Pacific coast. After a great camping experience in Santa Catalina, we headed to the mountains again checking out the town of Volcan. Volcan is a town that seems like it should be in Switzerland rather than Panama and we took to the nice weather and nice people quickly. The hiking on Volcan Baru was great and we even checked out a local festival and met a very nice ex-pat who works his own finca up in the mountains outside of Volcan. We took an unofficial tour of a coffee beneficio with its founder’s son and grandson who taught us all about the coffee growing, picking, sorting and packing business.
Panama surprised us with its excellent roads, infrastructure, clean water and mountains. The people were incredibly nice and we found that we, as usual, had a hard time finally leaving. It is nothing like the somewhat over-touristy Costa Rica and as with every country in Central America, completely different from its neighbors.