boquete botanical garden
A friend of a friend of ours had a house in the city which we stayed overnight at. It was great because we got to walk around the community, which was small and super quaint. The most amazing part about the region was that the air was very similar to that of Vancouver--crisp and colder because of the elevation and proximity to the mountains. The house we stayed in had a super cool wall made of bottles, and they even put a design of a tree on the front! After walking around we played UNO and drank rum all night for a really nice and fun relaxing evening in the small volcano town :)
For breakfast we went to a local restaurant where I got to try a 'Panamanian Style' meal including Hojaldres (like a beavertail without sugar) and Salchichas (sausage). My whole breakfast cost me 50cents which I thought was crazy but also very sustainable for the local people. We ended up walking around looking for a dessert in the area called Fresas con Crema. However, after 2 hours of walking back and forth through the entire town, we stopped at a local Panaderia outside the Bus station and I settled for a delicious Tres Leches cake before our trip home!
The bus ride was 1.5 hours back to Terminal David and then 8 hours from David to Panama. We basically crossed more than half the country which was crazy! The last bus was express, but since we didn't get the express bus back to Panama, our bus ride was longer but they had movies playing in Spanish. It was interesting to see what kind of comedy they had here and they even showed two movies that were American (but dubbed in spanish). The ride back was definitely long, but it was bearable because the seats reclined and we also had a lot of leg space in the front of the bus! I highly recommend getting to the terminal early to get seats like these :D