Río Palo Alto

Even though Alena had told me so much about Boquete I still expected something completely different! Somehow I thought Boquete was this little village along a little road next to a river up a mountain. Boquete is basically just one street. But this one is like a proper road. Also the town is a lot more wealthy than most of the places I've seen in the last month. Lots of international restaurants and fancy shops. Proper houses with nicely cut gardens. Almost everybody seems to have their own car. But maybe this is not special to Boquete but actually just normal in Panama? They do have the canal and are definitely a richer country compared to Nicaragua or El Salvador. Also a lot of international people were living here and lots of western stuff was available all over town.
Of course this isn't necessarily a bad thing I just had to adjust my expectations that this was not the authentic little village with an old Panamanian Lady selling coffee in a rustic cafe.
When we arrived to the hostel we were greeted by the owner and his dogs. I understood immediately why Alena felt so much at home here. The hostel was one of the nicest and cleanest I have stayed and the stuff was super friendly and open hearted.
We had a quick shower and headed out again to the Brewery Factory. On the way we made a quick stop at another restaurant to say hello to some of Alenas friends. At the brewery we got some snacks from a food truck integrated in the bar and some of the good beer. I choose the coconut one. Sounds weirder than it was ;)
I liked the design and the vibe of the place a lot.
Usually there is life music at night but we missed it due to our belated journey. We shared a table with some guys from David and after a while Adam joined us. Adam was a guy Alena had met the week before who was playing at the Brewery and other places around town. When the brewery closed we walked over to Taboo Lounge - a bar that belongs to the only night club in town which was unfortunately closed tonight. We were the only people here and actually not really up for another drink but Adam said we should have one more cocktail together. So we went for purple rain - a new creation by one of the bartenders. They came in huge glasses and the bartender switched the music to purple rain immediately. Everybody took pictures of us and our huge cocktails and we figured we gonna show up on a lot of Instagram profiles tomorrow ;)
The bar filled up more and more and Adam seemed to know everybody. We ended up having another cocktail before we headed over to Mamallenas Hostal to visit Isaac, another of Alenas friends. We hung out for a while but I was super tired so we went home with just a quick stop at the 24h supermarket to buy breakfast for the next day.
The next morning after breakfast we took a collectivo to get towards the quetzal trail as we wanted to go for a hike around the area. The driver dropped us of at a crossroad but we walked quite a while from here without finding the trail. After a while we got to the turnoff for another trail to 3 waterfalls and as Alena hadn't seen that one as well we decided to take it.
The hike was partly more a climb but that made it more exciting and fun. When we got to the last waterfall we weren't sure if the guy at the entrance had said "you can climb up to the top of the waterfall" or "you shouldn't climb up to the top of the waterfall". Actually I had just seen him pointing to the top of the waterfall on a picture and assumed he was telling us to go there. So we decided we would just keep on going along the trail and see if it was possible. It was possible. And even though we are still not sure we were supposed to go up there it was definitely worth it.
When we got back to the street afterwards a collectivo picked us up right there. It started raining shortly after we got into the car so I guess we did everything right.
Back in town we went to one of Alenas favorite places for quesadillas and smoothies.
As it was Alenas last night she invited some of her friends for a home cooked dinner at the hostel. She made Spaghetti Bolognese and a salad that could have fed 10 people easily. Unfortunately we were only 5 but it gave us all something to eat the next day.
The dinner was really nice and it was nice meeting Alenas friends here.
The next morning I walked around town one last time with Alena and she showed me where the hostel used to be and another new hostel the owner is working on.
After I walked Alena to her bus I walked around town by myself for a while and found a little market.
Later I went back to that new hostel with the owner as he wanted some tips for the bathroom (I should start saying I'm a teacher or something). I think I didn't really help him as we talked about different options but kind of figured just the one he didn't like was working but it was nice to see a Panamanian construction side. When we got back to the hostel it started to rain again so I stayed inside on the sofa next to the reception and made some travel plans for the next days. For dinner I had some of the leftovers from the night before and I kind of didn't leave my spot on the sofa talking to other guests and stuff till I went to bed.
The next morning I left early to catch the bus to head back towards the Pacific Coast again.Read more