Sendero de los Quetzales - Cerro Punta to Boquete

Rodrigo and I hiked Sendero de los Quetzales the first day we were in Cerro Punta. It was raining a cold, but still a very nice hike. The hike started in Cerro Punta and ended in Boquete. Due to the lack of a road between those to spots, its either a 6 hour hike or a three hour drive. That made logistics a bit complicated, but it all worked out. Enjoy the pretty pictures :)

I got to the rangers station, checked in, and asked for a map. They proceeded to show me this. Doesn't show elevation, doesn't have grid lines, doesn't do much of anything actually.

So, we were about 30 minutes into our hike and I heard something big move. I timidly look around the corner and see these guys looking at me. We weren't on the trail yet, but the hike started with an one hour walk up the side of a mountain along a road only passable by an ATV.

Our trail was comparable to a slow running stream.

MUD!!!! Love my boots though :)

Lunch Anyone?

Landslide that had occurred recently. Saw it in the middle of the hike, but heard about it in the beginning. It knocked out a road further down the mountain and made it a little complicated to get to the trail head.

Everything in the jungle here will either bite you, sting you, or prick you. I had to get used to that. I had never seen thorns on the bottom of a leaf before. I fell a few times (have I mentioned that there was lots of mud?). The first time I tried to grab onto a tree and ended up with a few thorns in my hand. The times after that, I just went with it.

More poky things.

In a taxi in Boquete!!! Made it out alive :-) We had a really nice taxi driver pick us up at the ranger station. He made a few stops on the way back to Cerro Punta to show us some stuff. The rest of the pics are from the trip back after the hike.

SERIOUSLY PANAMA?!?!?!?!?!?!?

I get home at 2:00, want to crash into my bed and wake up tomorrow afternoon, but I can’t. There are several reasons for this, the primary one being that my entire house has visibly molded, including my pillow. I am typing this from my tent in my front yard. Oh yea, I don’t have internet either. Or gas. And Ciudad del Saber is likely going to file a complaint against our house for the whole tent in the front yard thing (they file complaints when we try to dry clothes outside). I get sporadic internet from the house across the street. I’m getting more than usual, considering I am in my front yard and therefore closer to the house across the street. Oh yea, it’s 4:06 am. On the bright side, I do have a machete in my tent with me. Pictures will come as soon as I have a decent enough internet connection (or my own internet connection) that I can upload them.
Update: Picture is up. I'm sure there will be more to come as I think we'll be in the tent for a while. I bought a blow up mattress for $10 today to toss in there. We're doing about 10 loads of laundry washing anything soft that will fit into a washer; pillows, sheets, clothes, hammocks, etc. so we'll at least be a little more comfy tonight than we were last night. Love you all!!!

Canopy Tour - Isla Bastimentos

Funness!!!!! A canopy tour on Isla Bastimentos in Bocas Del Toro. It was a huge series of ziplines and high ropes course elements that took about 2 hours. Loads of fun :)

Bocas

So, I´m in an internet cafe and it took about an hour just to upload the pictures (you have no idea how much I hate blogger right now), so commentary is going to be sparse. I´ll add more commentary and pictures when I get back to the city. Carolyn and I are currently in the middle of our ¨vacation within a vacation¨. We started out in Bocas Del Toro. We got there taking a 10 hour bus from 8 pm to 6 am from Panama City to Almirante. I didn´t sleep a wink. More on that later. We then took a water taxi from Almirante to Isla Colon and the fun began. By fun, I mean sleep. I´m in Cerro Punta now and have been for about 4 days, but for the sake of time, I´m limiting this blog post to Bocas.

This is the lookout from Red Frog Beach. Absolutely gorgeous.

Carolyn and I chillaxing on Red Frog Beach

So... You can´t tell, but we´re in a litle dugout canoe with something along the lines of a trolling motor slapped on the back of it. We got SOAKED. This is how we got to and from Isla Bastimentos for our Zipline ride. It was an adventure in of itself.

 Wooooo!!!!

So... Ï have lots of pictures from the Zipline ride that we bought from the photographer. Unfortunately, I foget to bring the disc with me to the internet cafe, so all I have is this one from the end. It was one of the coolest things I have ever done. It wasn´t only a zipline, but also a high ropes course. It was only me, Carolyn, and Rodrigo (a friend who travelled with us the first week). We had three guides and a photographer. So much fun.

Have you ever tried to take a self portrait of two people in a double kayak? Not easy. We took about five, and got two with our faces in them. It didn´t help that it was rough. We didn´t flip. Have no idea how.

I got tired and decided to sunbathe (in the midddle of the channel). Unfortunately it was a little rough so I had to do a little bit of work in holding my paddle out to give us balance. Life´s rough.

Toe's not thrilled with my nap in the ocean, but I still convinced her to try it.

Here´s Toe sitting on the dock looking pretty. It was a gorgeous day. We didn´t get many of those.

 Me chilling on the dock

So, at Red Frog Beach, a little kid came up and asked "Quiere buscar una rana roja?" which translates to "Do you want to look for a red frog". Rodrigo and I (Carolyn was off climbing things), of course, said yes. This kid proceeded to take us on a 1 hour hike. He was bafefoot and Rodrigo and I were in sandals. We were slipping all over the place, but the kid wasn´t. Figures. Anyway, he found a red frog, shows it to us, turns around and says, "Dollah". He was cute, so we gave him one. He found us a few more after that and got us out of the forest. Good thing, because I had no idea where I was at that point.

There´s one in its natural habitat. they´re tiny, but very red.

So, we were sitting on a dock and I was trying to take a picture of a jellyfish, and a boatman came up and said "they don´t sting. You can pick one up". I looked at him and said something along the lines of "you first" It seemed like a good tourist trick to me. Tell them the jellyfish don't sting, then laugh histerically when they find out otherwise. Anyway, he picked one up, and sure enough, they don´t sting. We then proceeded to pick up jellyfish. We stopped just short of throwing them at each other.

A nice boatmen let Toe drive. I proceeded to put all my water sensitive belognings into my dry bag.

I caught three little fishies. Considering I was fishing with a handline, I was glad they were little fishies and not big fishies. Check out that hair. That´s what you get after a day of swimming in salt water and boating.

Pretty shot from a boat ride :)