Wednesday 23 May 2012

In which Layla and Roz find civilisation in the mountains

by Layla

And so we headed out for our last night on the town for a while - destination Divino Enoteca in Casco Viejo. Sadly at 8 o'clock on a Monday night it was pretty much deserted. A couple of glasses of tasty Chardonnay, a bruschetta, and a delicious polenta thing later, we went on a further hunt for signs of life, and found ourselves back at Ego, this time sitting outside in the square, where it was cheery and jolly and we ate a lot of food.

Back to the house, we dashed excitedly to our laptop, having downloaded the Christmas special of Downton Abbey and settled down with beer and delight to watch it... or at least half of it. At which point we felt so sleepy that we headed off to bed, bursting to know what happened next.

The next day I went out to buy breakfast, we finished our packing, ate breakfast on the balcony, and headed to the airport - this one the domestic airport, that was previously a US army airport, given to the Panamanians when the US gave up control of the canal. We flew a mere 45 minutes to David and found ourselves somewhere quite different - the mountains of Panama. We took a taxi to the bus station, an hour-long bus that crawled uphill, and finally found ourselves at our destination, Boquete, just in time for a late lunch. We walked up the hill in the scorching sunshine to Art y Crepas, a crepe cafe, and indulged in some tasty crepes and questionable wine, before calling the owner of the coffee planation where we'd arranged to spend three nights.

The coffee plantation really is up in the hills - a very steep drive from Boquete (itself at high altitude) found us coming up through the clouds to a very different weather system, and a very isolated world of fabulous views, brilliantly bright flowers, freshly picked and roasted coffee, and a friendly dog. There are just two little cottages up here and they are beautiful - classy, comfy, and a little white board on which we were instructed to write our breakfast desires. We picked up the hammocks provided and walked out of our back door down a little garden path to a really beautiful little gazebo amid the flowers. And thus whiled away the rest of the afternoon swinging lazily above the valley, watching the hummingbirds, and drinking fresh coffee.

Afterwards, we changed and went out for dinner to a pleasant enough restaurant to which our gracious host drove us (and picked us up), then skipped home to watch the final bit of Downton Abbey before bed. No, not obsessed at all...

We were woken this morning by light streaming in and glorious views, and our host delivering our french toast, fruit and orange juice. I'm writing this from the gazebo, before we go horse riding this afternoon. It's not a bad life...

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