A prompt 5am started our day to catch the bus to Boquete. We were nice and early (family Nyemecz style) so after a bit of waiting headed to board our bus – only we couldn’t as despite having bought tickets they wouldn’t let us actually leave the bus terminal and until we’d purchased a travel card and loaded 25c per person. Never seen people get so excited over a dollar…anyhow eventually all sorted and onto a rather comfy bus. We drove for around 7 hours west through the Panamanian countryside – highlight being actually crossing over the Panama Canal as a massive container ship went underneath – so high up it still looked like a toy!

Our most pleasant bus terminal arrival to date followed in the town of David, nice and small, sun shining, reasonably clean. An hour taxi ride later and we arrived at our destination Boquete, a lovely little town up in the cloud forest. It is so beautiful – very well maintained, no graffiti as the kids called out, buildings in good condition, surrounded by such greenery. We stayed in a b&b just a bit out of town which has stunning gardens. Each morning we sat on an outdoor veranda for breakfast amongst the flowers, watching multi-coloured birds eat fruit that was left out for them, most relaxing. For the girls the highlight is the big outdoor hot tub in the garden, for us seeing hummingbirds darting around, such amazing small birds with iridescent colours.

After a diet of ham rolls on the bus journey (our standard travel diet), we enjoyed some great food in Boquete. The first night was a random local place just near the b&b, where we had roast meat and barbecued potatoes and the girls had an impromptu karate lesson from the (originally Egyptian) owner’s daughter. Second night was a Panamanian restaurant in the town where we all managed some veggies (hooray!), and the last night we walked to a rather smart looking place nearby which proved to be a highlight of our trip – good food, lovely surroundings, but the best bits were being given massive marshmallows to roast over a fire pit as a post dinner treat (much better than a mint all agreed) and loads of equally massive toads hopping around the lawn from the nearby river!

During the days we had two great trips. Firstly walking the route of the Lost Waterfalls. This was a great walk through the jungle to find three waterfalls – could have swam but they were a little on the fresh side! The path to the last waterfall required the use of multiple ropes to clamber up the rocky path, lots of adventure fun for the girls. It was lovely and quiet and so refreshing to be amongst the trees, next to the running river. The sound of the life coming from the Jungle was incredible, although our actual viewing of the wildlife was limited to lots of ants of all shapes and sizes, a few birds and a crab that eagle eye Hatty spotted.

The next day we visited a local coffee plantation for a coffee tour. It was pretty unique as they carry out the whole process from growing the beans to ultimately roasting and grinding them for sale. Equally special was the fact that it had featured on the Ben Fogle programme New Lives in the Wild, definitely one just for the UK visitors! The girls got to take part in all the steps of making coffee, culminating in roasting some beans to take home, and tasting the world’s most expensive coffee – Geisha. Spoiler alert – it wasn’t very exciting and tasted more like tea…

Panama has been a real find, somewhere we didn’t know much about before, but somewhere we will definitely be coming back to. So after a wonderful week, it is time to head to Costa Rica, somewhere we’ve been trying to get to since pre-pandemic! But first, our very own Race Across the World style day of travelling ahead of us….