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Panama
The flowers of Boquete
Written by Tyler Cole | 23 April 2010
As mentioned in the other post on Boquete, we made a quick stop at a free garden called "Mi Jardin es Su Jardin" filled with an array of flowers. Instead of trying to write some contrived description, I`ll let the pictures speak for themselves:
Getting some cool weather in the Panamanian highlands (Boquete)
Written by Tyler Cole | 18 April 2010
Leaving from an uneventful stay in Panama City, I decided to skip over probably the most popular tourist destination in Panama (Bocas del Toro) due to time limits and get some cool weather in Boquete. Initially recommended by a doctor that I met while desperately trying to get to Panama, as soon as he said cool weather I was dead set on getting there. Besides that, there were some nice hiking trails that I explored with Brett, a Philly native that I met in Panama City. It´s also known for its coffee and strawberry production in the area, but I never got around to seeing any of that. Most of the pictures of flowers are from a free garden in the area called ´Mi Jardín es su Jardín´, and and I put them on a separate page (click here for the link). Pictures below.
Panama City. ´Nuff said.
Written by Tyler Cole | 16 April 2010
After arriving from the exhausing boat trip with the Panamanian tuberculosis researchers, taking things easy was mandatory in Panama City. Approaching the city, the driver asked if I had a place to stay, and I said I was planning to just look on the internet nearby the district that supposedly had a lot of hostels (San Pedro). He said he would drop me off at a hostel he knew in the area, which normally is a danger signal to me since there are always commission networks of taxi drivers and owners of horrible hotels, but I was too tired to protest. The hostel actually ended up being legit and apparently popular with touists (it was the Our Pick in LP, something I try to steer clear from since they tend to turn into cattle-herding operations). I took the obligatory visit to the Panama Canal and basically just relaxed while battling a minor stomach disruption. It seemed like a cool city, but I didn´t really give it much of a chance before heading to the cooler Boquete. Pictures below.
Step 2 in getting to Panama (the hard part): Nausea-inducing island hopping (Kuna Yala/San Blas) with the tuberculosis researchers
Written by Tyler Cole | 14 April 2010
After arriving in Puerto Olbaldia (for the first part of the trip from Colombia to Panama click here), the first port on the Panamanian side and a fairly depressing, lifeless, and beachless village, I realized I had only about 20 dollars in my pocket and zero access to banks until getting to Panama City. Since all of the towns are so isolated in the Darien region there are no ATMs, something I hadn't really bothered to research before leaving from Colombia. I needed to make it a long distance up the coast to the nearest town that had a road connection to Panama City (apparently a 5-14 hr boat ride depending on who you talked to) that would cost me at least forty dollars. When I arrived at Puerto Olbaldia I got my entry stamp in my passport to Panama from an incredibly rude immigration officer and walked down to the dock to figure something out. There were a few ships in the harbor going in the right direction over the next few days, but most of them weren't permitted to carry passengers. In terms of the small boats that were allowed to carry passengers, I was informed that they might come, they might not, they might be full, they might not, they might be willing to take me for the cash that I had, they might not...basically a lot of information that was totally...
