Mon 12th 1635 Pretty full and satisfactory day. Daunting amount to write. Just start bashing it out I guess.
Met Andy in reception at 11pm. At first and at times a bit uncommunicative but not a bad chap. Had done SBA tour from Colombia to Panama, advised me to take one of those 5l bottles of water as water available is limited and/or possibly iffily filtered. Said some SBA islands are rather polluted but broadly spoke highly of trip.
Shuttle didn't turn up. Niceish chap at reception (who had checked our voucher not long after 11) called us a taxi (no charge, since we'd paid for shuttle) about midnight. Incidentally real party atmosphere from nearby bar (locals) as we sat in reception but Andy popped out and said there were actually about ten people in there and it was half empty.
1915 I made an effort to start a chat with 60ish guy sitting on his own at table, he turned out to be a pretty cool retired Canadian guy. I had already had two beers at Boquete Beer Co and he made me a vodka orange and we had a slightly over frank poltical conversation. I honestly don't believe I actually said a single thing which is remotely illiberal, but my level of paranoia is such that I vaguely wonder we got overheard and labelled as evil in some way. (In a kind of "they are having a coded discussion which actually says other things" way, maybe.)
Let me write more about today.
Anyway, so we got dropped off by taxi and went up the trail and Andy was setting a fair pace (I subsequently found out he is/was in Dutch military and had been for five years and runs every day, and to jump ahead he basically powered ahead of the group with some other guy later on) but I kept up OK. Anyway, due to delay we started trail maybe 0030 but we caught up with a not particularly slow group who had started 30-60 mins before them and kind of merged with them. They were all pretty young but they weren't so super fit that they were "challenging" and I felt we all had a similar pace and rested a bit and I wasn't asking to rest and was among the faster of them at least some of the time etc.
Some of them were feeling a bit ill but apparently weather forecast was good so they had done it anyway. We made pretty good time and got up to the top maybe 0600ish. The trail was steep (fortunately mixed easier and harder bits) and a bit rocky but basically nothing amazingly difficult, risk of slipping over etc but nothing otherwise horrific. Hard but not terrible.
(It feels extra busy out here tonight. Perhaps because I'm the tiniest bit drunk and/or off the back of that conversation I feel a bit edgy.)
It was not generally cold but up at the top I did put my gloves on (and I had worn ss red and ls swedish blue and fleece the whole time) and it was pretty nippy (but not I think hypothermia or loss of fingers toes cold) and I and one other guy went and hid in the shelter of a building related to the aerial complex, and some guys had set up tents over there.
No one else in my group (I think Andy did, but I didn't see him as he had gone way ahead) wanted to go up to the bit with the cross but I did. I felt a bit harried (altho I was willing to walk down on my own in daylight, esp given prob carnival holiday induced business, but still socially awkward) but I went up there and it was all pleasantly borderline unsafe scrambling to get up there and I saw the sun rise from the area with the cross and asked a nice couple (she turned out to have a British passport, but by implication was not "natively" British) to take a photo of me with cross in background and I then also scrambled over to a nicely mildly unsafe viewing area. A local guy who spoke good English (and who really didn't seem to want money) appointed himself my tour guide and pointed out that (and I wish my regional geography were better) you *could* indeed see both Caribbean and Pacific (so yay, I am now one of those ultra rare people who can truthfully say they did see this - and I do have photos, tho in reality I may never be able to identiffy anything) and pointed out various things like geographical features and Volcan town on the other side to Boquete and David etc, although I then had to rush off and join pseudo queue of people scrambling amicably enough over the rocks to get back to the main aerial bit.
Luckily I (I think by coincidence) met the guy I'd sheltered with and some of the other group there and we walked down together and the group gradually reassembled, including Andy before he powered on ahead. I genuinely did feel relatively comfortable with the group, tho more so on way up in dark than on way down, and I was a bit jealous that they seemed to have had more fun and be generally more together than I was at anything resembling their age or even now.
I was yawning a bit on way up but I (and I think all of us) kind of got second wind and I'd say maybe 10kmish of the hike back was OK even kind of fun. The last 3kmish was a drag, I was hot wearing fleece but i had taken swedish blue top off and it wasn't too bad and I knew the fleece wouldn't really fit in bag so I just kept it on. All of us were feeling pretty much same.
And then we got to base - oh, one local guy - there were if I didn't already say scores of locals going up during day, most looking pretty miserable, also intermittent 4WD going past which we had to stand aside for and waved at - and there was supposedly a bus but we asked and got confusing information and there was some cocern with mobile reception and those guys called their hostel manager to see if he could sort out transport for us and we started walking down towards where we thought bus went and then those guys flagged down a random passing car and the driver said he'd take us into town for free (and a Colombian woman in the group chatted with him during drive and he said the bus stop was 13km away!) and there were too many of us so he called a friend who took two of the guys in the back of his pickup. Utterly bizarre. I swapped phone numbers with a couple of them and as one of them slipped the guy USD5 and I had been wondering about doing this I did the same.
I then came back into hostel, had chat with Bruce who was in dorm, had much needed shower and change, dutifully washed clothes (which are in laundry area as I write this drying) and then went out for dinner at the local restaurant and had a couple of pints (USD5.35, 6 with tip) of decent craft-ish beer at Boquete Beer Co which went down way too quickly (I was going to have a third, to try the mojito blackberry beer, but it was off, so I didn't have a third), went to super Baru to get ham and water and came back and made another 4 ham sandwiches with leftover buns and guzzled those on terrace as started to write this. I then got coffee and engaged the Canadian guy in conversation and here we are.
I had a quick look at Lost+Found while at BBC. Not sure it's on hostelworld but they seemed to have availability on own website for say 3 nights after here. Dorms approx 20/night but some of these are "pod" dorms with curtained off bunks etc. Frankly it feels a little like Bolita without the clothes optional, you have to hike in (20 mins) and it is in jungle so they warn of insects and mud etc. They don't let you take alcohol in and I dunno about food but I suspect (unlike Bolita) they have bar and restaurant. I may well do this but not decided yet. It may be a little more "formal" than Bolita (eg no charming outdoor dorms) but perhaps sort of call and worth a visit.
Oh, met Turkish woman in this group on hike who was at bolita for 2 weeks earlier this year and she said there was some nudity and she also got really friendly with locals and volunteers and owner and had a sort of super cushy time as a result.
As I say group broadly speaking very amicable. Met (self-identified) Florida redneck 19yo who seems to be pretty amazingly together for his age, works/worked as professional diver and sailor and is really into cars and mechanical type shit and seems knowledgable about outdoor stuff like identifying flora and fauna and so forth. Exchanged numbers with him and it turns out he has a US version of the Toyota Space Cruiser which it turns out we both have an admiration for the design of (me from childhood, him rather more retroly).
I think that's got the basics of today down.
Tomorrow I just may try to do Pipeline hike (tho Florida guy said he hears it's not very fun, and 3 Cascadas might be better, tho I am unlikely to engage in the swimming related aspect of this mid-hike) but I don't really know. If I do *nothing* that is not an utter fail by any means. I will play it by ear and see how I feel in morning.
1947 I feel vaguely tired but not terrible. It is oddly busy out here tonight compared to eg practically deserted yesterday. I will probably aim to go to bed 9ish but if I am chatting with someone I may push it longer.
Due to returning vaguely middayish I had a shower and changed clothes before it got dark/cooler and I feel vaguely sweaty and it is mildly warm out even now, but it's not terrible.
Oh, I think were all agreed it was much nicer doing the hike up in the mostly comfortable coolness of night instead of in the day as all those people were doing. (We did meet quite a few people on trail up at night, but not hundreds.)
My can of mojito in fridge has maybe disappeared but I've not had a great look for it and it may well be there and I'm not gonna get massively worked up about it.
Oh, stars were very cool on the hike up. I missed some amazing shooting stars but still pretty cool. Saw southern cross and pointers. Of course we didn't/couldn't spend that much time admiring them due to hiking but there was a bit of this. No moon so apart from (cool twinkling coal fire ish appearance) relatively unintrusive lights of presumably Boquete town there was relatively little light pollution.
Looking at L+F again there is a chance you have to book meals at restaurant in advance or cook food you take in in their basic kitchen, but with "only" a 20 min hike in it may be that either carting food in to cook or walking into town to eat there is not a huge deal.
I will probably book this tomorrow.
People were sharing out food (lollipops, M&Ms) on hike but luckily I had my 2x180g mani garapinado which went down tolerably well for sharing purposes so I didn't feel too much of a freeloader etc. (Actually still have one full packet and one of the energy drinks which is in fridge here.)
2343 Bed. Like an idiot stayed up talking to Canadian guy (Robert) about privacy and helping him with WhatsApp and Panamanian SIMs.
Met Andy in reception at 11pm. At first and at times a bit uncommunicative but not a bad chap. Had done SBA tour from Colombia to Panama, advised me to take one of those 5l bottles of water as water available is limited and/or possibly iffily filtered. Said some SBA islands are rather polluted but broadly spoke highly of trip.
Shuttle didn't turn up. Niceish chap at reception (who had checked our voucher not long after 11) called us a taxi (no charge, since we'd paid for shuttle) about midnight. Incidentally real party atmosphere from nearby bar (locals) as we sat in reception but Andy popped out and said there were actually about ten people in there and it was half empty.
1915 I made an effort to start a chat with 60ish guy sitting on his own at table, he turned out to be a pretty cool retired Canadian guy. I had already had two beers at Boquete Beer Co and he made me a vodka orange and we had a slightly over frank poltical conversation. I honestly don't believe I actually said a single thing which is remotely illiberal, but my level of paranoia is such that I vaguely wonder we got overheard and labelled as evil in some way. (In a kind of "they are having a coded discussion which actually says other things" way, maybe.)
Let me write more about today.
Anyway, so we got dropped off by taxi and went up the trail and Andy was setting a fair pace (I subsequently found out he is/was in Dutch military and had been for five years and runs every day, and to jump ahead he basically powered ahead of the group with some other guy later on) but I kept up OK. Anyway, due to delay we started trail maybe 0030 but we caught up with a not particularly slow group who had started 30-60 mins before them and kind of merged with them. They were all pretty young but they weren't so super fit that they were "challenging" and I felt we all had a similar pace and rested a bit and I wasn't asking to rest and was among the faster of them at least some of the time etc.
Some of them were feeling a bit ill but apparently weather forecast was good so they had done it anyway. We made pretty good time and got up to the top maybe 0600ish. The trail was steep (fortunately mixed easier and harder bits) and a bit rocky but basically nothing amazingly difficult, risk of slipping over etc but nothing otherwise horrific. Hard but not terrible.
(It feels extra busy out here tonight. Perhaps because I'm the tiniest bit drunk and/or off the back of that conversation I feel a bit edgy.)
It was not generally cold but up at the top I did put my gloves on (and I had worn ss red and ls swedish blue and fleece the whole time) and it was pretty nippy (but not I think hypothermia or loss of fingers toes cold) and I and one other guy went and hid in the shelter of a building related to the aerial complex, and some guys had set up tents over there.
No one else in my group (I think Andy did, but I didn't see him as he had gone way ahead) wanted to go up to the bit with the cross but I did. I felt a bit harried (altho I was willing to walk down on my own in daylight, esp given prob carnival holiday induced business, but still socially awkward) but I went up there and it was all pleasantly borderline unsafe scrambling to get up there and I saw the sun rise from the area with the cross and asked a nice couple (she turned out to have a British passport, but by implication was not "natively" British) to take a photo of me with cross in background and I then also scrambled over to a nicely mildly unsafe viewing area. A local guy who spoke good English (and who really didn't seem to want money) appointed himself my tour guide and pointed out that (and I wish my regional geography were better) you *could* indeed see both Caribbean and Pacific (so yay, I am now one of those ultra rare people who can truthfully say they did see this - and I do have photos, tho in reality I may never be able to identiffy anything) and pointed out various things like geographical features and Volcan town on the other side to Boquete and David etc, although I then had to rush off and join pseudo queue of people scrambling amicably enough over the rocks to get back to the main aerial bit.
Luckily I (I think by coincidence) met the guy I'd sheltered with and some of the other group there and we walked down together and the group gradually reassembled, including Andy before he powered on ahead. I genuinely did feel relatively comfortable with the group, tho more so on way up in dark than on way down, and I was a bit jealous that they seemed to have had more fun and be generally more together than I was at anything resembling their age or even now.
I was yawning a bit on way up but I (and I think all of us) kind of got second wind and I'd say maybe 10kmish of the hike back was OK even kind of fun. The last 3kmish was a drag, I was hot wearing fleece but i had taken swedish blue top off and it wasn't too bad and I knew the fleece wouldn't really fit in bag so I just kept it on. All of us were feeling pretty much same.
And then we got to base - oh, one local guy - there were if I didn't already say scores of locals going up during day, most looking pretty miserable, also intermittent 4WD going past which we had to stand aside for and waved at - and there was supposedly a bus but we asked and got confusing information and there was some cocern with mobile reception and those guys called their hostel manager to see if he could sort out transport for us and we started walking down towards where we thought bus went and then those guys flagged down a random passing car and the driver said he'd take us into town for free (and a Colombian woman in the group chatted with him during drive and he said the bus stop was 13km away!) and there were too many of us so he called a friend who took two of the guys in the back of his pickup. Utterly bizarre. I swapped phone numbers with a couple of them and as one of them slipped the guy USD5 and I had been wondering about doing this I did the same.
I then came back into hostel, had chat with Bruce who was in dorm, had much needed shower and change, dutifully washed clothes (which are in laundry area as I write this drying) and then went out for dinner at the local restaurant and had a couple of pints (USD5.35, 6 with tip) of decent craft-ish beer at Boquete Beer Co which went down way too quickly (I was going to have a third, to try the mojito blackberry beer, but it was off, so I didn't have a third), went to super Baru to get ham and water and came back and made another 4 ham sandwiches with leftover buns and guzzled those on terrace as started to write this. I then got coffee and engaged the Canadian guy in conversation and here we are.
I had a quick look at Lost+Found while at BBC. Not sure it's on hostelworld but they seemed to have availability on own website for say 3 nights after here. Dorms approx 20/night but some of these are "pod" dorms with curtained off bunks etc. Frankly it feels a little like Bolita without the clothes optional, you have to hike in (20 mins) and it is in jungle so they warn of insects and mud etc. They don't let you take alcohol in and I dunno about food but I suspect (unlike Bolita) they have bar and restaurant. I may well do this but not decided yet. It may be a little more "formal" than Bolita (eg no charming outdoor dorms) but perhaps sort of call and worth a visit.
Oh, met Turkish woman in this group on hike who was at bolita for 2 weeks earlier this year and she said there was some nudity and she also got really friendly with locals and volunteers and owner and had a sort of super cushy time as a result.
As I say group broadly speaking very amicable. Met (self-identified) Florida redneck 19yo who seems to be pretty amazingly together for his age, works/worked as professional diver and sailor and is really into cars and mechanical type shit and seems knowledgable about outdoor stuff like identifying flora and fauna and so forth. Exchanged numbers with him and it turns out he has a US version of the Toyota Space Cruiser which it turns out we both have an admiration for the design of (me from childhood, him rather more retroly).
I think that's got the basics of today down.
Tomorrow I just may try to do Pipeline hike (tho Florida guy said he hears it's not very fun, and 3 Cascadas might be better, tho I am unlikely to engage in the swimming related aspect of this mid-hike) but I don't really know. If I do *nothing* that is not an utter fail by any means. I will play it by ear and see how I feel in morning.
1947 I feel vaguely tired but not terrible. It is oddly busy out here tonight compared to eg practically deserted yesterday. I will probably aim to go to bed 9ish but if I am chatting with someone I may push it longer.
Due to returning vaguely middayish I had a shower and changed clothes before it got dark/cooler and I feel vaguely sweaty and it is mildly warm out even now, but it's not terrible.
Oh, I think were all agreed it was much nicer doing the hike up in the mostly comfortable coolness of night instead of in the day as all those people were doing. (We did meet quite a few people on trail up at night, but not hundreds.)
My can of mojito in fridge has maybe disappeared but I've not had a great look for it and it may well be there and I'm not gonna get massively worked up about it.
Oh, stars were very cool on the hike up. I missed some amazing shooting stars but still pretty cool. Saw southern cross and pointers. Of course we didn't/couldn't spend that much time admiring them due to hiking but there was a bit of this. No moon so apart from (cool twinkling coal fire ish appearance) relatively unintrusive lights of presumably Boquete town there was relatively little light pollution.
Looking at L+F again there is a chance you have to book meals at restaurant in advance or cook food you take in in their basic kitchen, but with "only" a 20 min hike in it may be that either carting food in to cook or walking into town to eat there is not a huge deal.
I will probably book this tomorrow.
People were sharing out food (lollipops, M&Ms) on hike but luckily I had my 2x180g mani garapinado which went down tolerably well for sharing purposes so I didn't feel too much of a freeloader etc. (Actually still have one full packet and one of the energy drinks which is in fridge here.)
2343 Bed. Like an idiot stayed up talking to Canadian guy (Robert) about privacy and helping him with WhatsApp and Panamanian SIMs.
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