Panamanian Hill County

Boquete is up in the hills around 1000 m, and although there was a lovely breeze on the coast it was absolutely gorgeous to get somewhere cooler. We even got our duvet (a super light one) out for the first time in god knows how long.

We're drove right to the end of the valley up an extremely steep road, that Elvis wheezed up despite his 5.2l V8 engine! We camped the night at the ranger's hut and did the beautiful Sendero (trail) Los Quetzales (a mythical bird that has been hiding from us all the way since Guatemala). It was only 5km each way but it was through thick cloud forest and I don't think a metre of it was on the level so it was a tough but rewarding hike to the mirador.

In need of a shower we headed back into town to a little Pension, and were revelling in our first HOT shower for months. The next day we chilled around town and in the evening saved a little kitten that the nasty dogs (not Maya I hasten to add!) at the campsite were attacking.

In the morning when we tried to leave Elvis didn't want to :( We had a re-occurance of our die-on-idle problem, but luckily we knew of an American mechanic in town so the following day he came out to give him the once over. There was nothing else for it but to spend the afternoon enjoying pitchers during happy (6) hour(s) at the local brewery, which had an amazing coffee amber on tap.

I'd actually got Elvis running again by cleaning up the battery connections and generally poking around without knowing what I was doing, but it was good to get Josh to give him the once over and he lined up a part for us at the bottom of the hill and showed me how to install it.

We're picked it up en-route back to Johnny Fiestas, where we chilled for a couple of days working out what to do next... (more to follow...)Read more