Panama 2022 - Week 8
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Day 50 – 11/11/22
A slow day of meetings and office work. We started the day with a 7:30am Teams meeting with SG, followed by a 9:00am in-person meeting with Joe, who was visiting the island today. At lunch Joe asked if we’d come across any Fer-de-Lance vipers yet (Bothrops asper), as apparently, their populations have boomed on BCI this year. We hadn’t, but would now live in fear for the remainder of the trip.
Day 51 – 12/11/22
Our last day on the island before a week’s holiday. PC went to census the last two seedling plots whilst EJ and I went to check and refresh KL’s insect traps. He’s off island for a few weeks, so we’ve agreed to do his traps in return for all the boat rides he’s given us. The first set of three traps – one at a lightning-struck tree, one at a tree fall and one control - was fine, but the hike along Fairchild to the second set was a killer.
We spent the afternoon doing little jobs and packing. At one stage, I heard some high-pitched calls which sounded strange for a bird. It turned out that a pair of Tamarin Monkeys were making their way through the trees around the buildings. This was only the third time we’ve seen them since being here.
Day 52 – 13/11/22
Eleven and a half hours of boats, buses and taxis can only mean one thing. Holiday! We woke at 5:30am to catch the 6:30am water taxi to Gamboa. From there, we were driven to Panama City, where we managed, more through luck than competence, to book ourselves onto the 9:45am bus to David. This gave us an hour and a bit to have a second breakfast and stock up on snacks for the long bus ride.
The bus from Panama City turned out to be a very comfortable coach. The only drawbacks were a constant, very powerful air conditioning system blasting straight into your face and the enforced watching of fairly inappropriate, non-family-friendly films at full volume in badly dubbed Spanish for five and a half hours. Once we reached David, we transferred to a more rustic, US-style school bus for the final leg of the journey to Boquete, which took around 40 minutes. I managed to sit and stare out of the window, but PC had his ear chewed off by a friendly, elderly, Trump-supporting American lady whose voice cut above the noise of the engine and the air rushing through the open windows. As soon as we arrived, we checked into our hotel and immediately walked to the nearest restaurant we could find, having not eaten anything since 9:00am.
Day 53 -14/11/22
Today we gorged. We all woke fairly early, having been conditioned into 6:30am breakfasts for the last two months. We set out to find a good breakfast café and after a few failed attempts we found a nice spot. I ordered the spiced apple pancakes and in no time three, inch thick, dinner plate-sized pancakes arrived with a layer of cooked apple slices on top. I only managed to eat my way through the top layer. Boquete, it turns out, as well as being a popular tourist destination, caters for many retired American ex-pats and some of the meal portion sizes reflect this. After breakfast, we went to one of the many local coffee shops to begin EJ and PC's quest to find the perfect cup of coffee, in this, one of the key coffee-producing regions in Panama, and home to “the best bean in the world”.
We returned to the hotel briefly before heading out again for lunch at a highly-rated sandwich shop, another coffee stop and an exploration of Boquete itself.
After a couple of hours relaxing back at the hotel, looking at the birds outside our window, we went for dinner in a pizza restaurant, moved down the street for ice cream and coffee, and then found a bar for the rest of the evening. All in all, a delicious day.
Day 54 – 15/11/22
After a relatively slow start, we hailed a taxi to 'The Lost Waterfalls' - an extremely well-known and popular beauty spot. Our big hope for the holiday is to see a Resplendent Quetzal and today was our first possibility to do so. We had no such luck, but had an enjoyable day.
The hike took us a couple of hours up some steep climbs, but as the temperature and humidity were lower than we'd been used to recently, we absolutely flew up them, putting our BCI trail fitness to good use. Taking a break from fieldwork by going on a hiking holiday seems a bit silly, but we didn’t care. The only thing that spoiled the views and the experience of the waterfalls was the number of other tourists, as is always the way. There were three waterfalls in total as you make your way up the track, each one as beautiful than the last, although the view from the top of the second was the highlight.
We got back to Boquete at about 2:30pm and had lunch in another of the many Italian restaurants. After a relaxing afternoon, we headed out for dinner at 7pm, struggled to find anywhere that served vegan or veggie food, and ended up at yet another Italian.
Day 55 – 16/11/22
Today felt surprisingly like a family holiday. By which I mean, we woke up early for a morning hike in the rain and completely failed to see any of the wildlife we were hoping for.
We set the alarm for 5:30am and headed to a trail that had previously had sightings of Quetzals. We climbed up and up, going in and out of the clouds and rain showers as the elevation increased. Along the way, we visited a 1000-year-old Mexican Ash tree and entered into cloud forest, where mosses and epiphytes hung off of every available branch. At the end of the walk we visited our fourth waterfall of the week - the best one so far. Before heading back to the hotel, we spent some time watching hummingbirds flitting around a flowering tree just before where the taxis waited to take people back to the town. There must have been about twenty or thirty of them, humming birds, not taxis. They are exquisite little birds.
In the afternoon we went on a coffee tour. We were driven up the slopes of the Volcán Barú to Don Pepe’s plantation where we were shown all the bushes, the fruits, the processing equipment and the drying beds that go into the production of coffee beans. After the tour, we were taken to sample six different coffees they produce, including Gaisha, the most expensive and best coffee bean in the world (although we weren’t sampling the very fanciest of the crop). I tried a couple of small sips, not being a coffee fan. EJ and PC however, were in their element and tried quite a lot more. I did most of my Christmas shopping here - a lot of people are getting fancy coffee beans this year.
Day 56 – 17/11/22
The day started in a rather lacklustre manner. We had hoped to go to one of the nearby hotels that has a trail system and rope-bridge walks and go for a wander followed by some breakfast. Instead, a taxi driver said it would cost us $20 to get there, three times more than we’d been paying for longer journeys and that it would cost us $35 each to walk the trails. We knocked that idea on the head and went back to the hotel to see what they recommended.
After an early lunch – a phenomenal veggie sandwich (we’ve eaten well here) – we caught the bus to the El Pianista trail. The route started with a river crossing and then wound through pastoral fields that bordered the forest. This was pleasant and not too dissimilar to what you can find in the UK if you ignored all the birds and didn’t look in any great detail at the plants.
Once we entered the forest the trail became spectacular. The further we went, the higher we climbed, crossing back and forth across the river and making our way up small streams. In some places the path followed deep trenches about 2 feet wide and 12 feet deep, carved by water. Down every slope the trees were covered in epiphytes and moss. This was the cloud forest environment we had been keen to see. As we climbed above 1500m we entered the cloud itself. From this point, there were no views anymore, but the atmosphere was epic. We reached the summit of the ridge (1850m) by 4pm and just took in the breeze as the cloud whipped around us. In all directions, all you could see were a few trees and then nothing but white.
We headed down at a good pace so that we would be out of the forest before it got dark and managed to get the bus back to Boquete by 6pm. This had easily been the best hike of the trip.
We finished the day with tacos from a Mexican food van off the main food strip, which was some of the best food we’d eaten all week. We followed up with a ridiculous amount of ice cream and called it a day.