Beautiful Boquete, Panama

We left Nashville early in the morning to catch a flight that would route through Miami just ahead of the two incoming hurricanes in the Atlantic. After a delayed flight, a missed connection, and several hours, we made it to Panama City. We overnighted at the airport hotel and flew on to David the next morning. Once we arrived David, we jumped in a cab and went on to Boquete. And wow! We were pleasantly surprised. Even the medians were planted with beautiful hydrangeas.

Boquete is in the northeast corner of Panama very near the Costa Rica border. It sits high in the hills up in the cloud forest. Averaging around 72 degrees year around, there is no wonder why it is a hotspot for expats. Our week there was very busy, very active, and very outdoorsy. Our AirBnb was at the top of very steep hill. The road was gravel and was steep enough that even taxi’s would get stuck on the steep hill. I don’t know how many times we walked up and down it, but the first time almost killed us. By the end of the week, we had no problem going up and down. The walk was worth it for our view.

Boquete is The Place for people who enjoy outdoor activities. Scott and Keali spent one morning on horseback enjoying the amazing scenery.

Another day we spent on a raft going down some white water rapids. The rapids were class 1 on up to class 3. It was plenty of adrenaline for me, but Caden was dying for more. Keali went from terrified at the beginning, to loving it by the end and asking for bigger rapids. Scott was the front man in our raft and took a pretty good beating on some of the rapids. I was glad it was over by the end, but I was extremely happy we went.

We went up to Finca Lerida one day and hiked past the coffee plantation, discovered tomato trees, and into the cloud jungle to see some waterfalls.

Coffee plants

One of them loves hiking, and one not so much.

Another day we spent jumping from mini-canyons into a river.

The mini-canyons was one of Caden’s favorite stops.

It was interesting that driving down the hill to get to mini-canyons was only about 30 minutes, but the climate went from cool to hot. I’m unsure who had more fun jumping from the canyon walls, Scott or the kids. But Scott was the only one who was pretty beat up after all the activity. He was a trooper though even through bruises and sore muscles.

On a whim, we decided to head up to Boquete Tree Trek Resort. Because of the discount they offer guests at the hotel on all the adventure activites, we decided to go ahead and spend a night up there in order to do a hanging bridges hike as well as a some zip lining. Our guided hanging bridge hike was fantastic.

Hanging bridges high above the jungle

We learned about the native fauna and wildlife. We even got a glimpse of several Quetzals. The hike was beautiful and informative.

The “Poor Man’s Umbrella”

We learned about the magnolia tree being one of the first trees to make blooms. Because this was before bees had evolved, the blooms had to be strong enough to support beetles, hence the reason the blooms are structurally different than other tree blooms. There were too many things we learned to write here, but we were all in awe of the many hidden histories of the forest. It may well have been the best thing we did on the trip.

Miniature orchid spotted on a tree

An eye-catching mushroom display

Scott and Keali finished off the Tree Trek place with some zip lining. Caden wasn’t feeling 100% so he and I stayed at the resort and had lunch.

Some other favorites about Boquete:
Tuesday morning is a large street market. We were able to taste food from various parts of Central America made by people who had moved to Boquete. My favorite was a Venezuelan dish consisting of a thick tortilla cut open and stuffed with whatever ingredients you like. Delicious.

There are tons of American expats in Boquete. This is fantastic for ease of learning information. This is not fantastic for those of us trying to better our (minimal) Spanish skills.

Scott and I snuck out one afternoon to go to an American-owned bar to watch Tennessee football. There were so many Americans at the bar with us that wanted to visit, that we didn’t watch too much football. It was fun giving up the Spanish for a couple of hours.

There is a beautiful master planned community in Boquete called Valle Escondido. We walked all around it and envisioned moving there.

Cabs were abundant and cheap. Two dollars could get you anywhere in town.

We were all slightly disappointed when it came time to leave. We headed back into David to catch our flight only to learn that the flight was delayed/canceled (no one could tell us) due to a complete power outage in Panama City’s airport. We spent the night in what ended up being a really nice hotel (on the airline’s dime) and left the next morning.

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