Northern Highlands

When our time was up in Panama City, we caught the bus from Albrook Bus Station to David, this was an eight-hour bus ride, stopping along the way to allow passengers to board and alight.

The bus-route took us over the Panama Canal.

A few years back we sailed through the canal on a person-only ferry with big cargo ships in-front and behind, it was interesting watching all the workings of the locks etc. along the way.

Once in David we checked into our pre-booked hotel for the evening where we had dinner.
Next morning our friends Darrel and Susan picked us up after they had dropped friend of theirs at the airport and gave us a ride up to Volcan in the Panamanian highlands where we would be spending the next couple of months looking after a friends home and two dogs while they were back in the USA, this arrangement worked well as we would have had to look for accommodation anyway while there.

The dogs being a rescued street dog and a full pedigree miniature Australian shepherd.

While in Volcan over next couple of months we took to  hiking up some of the mountains around the valley. Our first venture took us to Los Quetzales. When we set of from Volcan the weather looked perfect for a hike up the mountain side.

It soon became clear we needed to don our fancy waterproof poncho’s. Commonly called Glad-Bags.

At the top we rested and had  lunch near some cabins. There were bird feeders hanging from the porch, as we sat eating our lunch, we had humming birds visiting the feeders.

On another hike we walked to the top of another mountain and found a farm. It must be a slow crawl up these trails (I will not call them roads) in a vehicle.

On yet another day we also hiked up to a Ranger station. The view was not that good due to being above the clouds and at an elevation of 2500M/8200ft. There we found flowers and some other interesting items. This is also part of the Quetzales trail and part of the Armistad National Parque which straddles both Panama and Costa Rica.

Some of the bugs in tis area were rather large.

While hiking in the rain forest above 1900M/6200ft we came across a small crab!

Volcan celebrates their cowboy heritage with a yearly parade.

We visited a couple of coffee plantations, one being Fina Hartmann’s close to the Costa Rican border, Stewart really liked their coffee.

In and around this area there was some unique flowers.

The roses were also in full bloom in December in Volcan.

While here we mingled with both the local and expat communities. Monday afternoon’s was Darts and Wednesday was Wing-night both being at the Wondering Sloth which we attended with Darrel & Susan.

We also started to play Pickle-Ball which we enjoyed immensely, it’s sort of a cross between table tennis and tennis. You use a table tennis bat on a tennis type court.

After our days in Volcan it is time to continue on our travels.
Next: Peru