Last Sunday we went for a drive with our friends and neighbors across the street. She works hard, takes care of her family, and doesn’t get out as much as you would think. She hasn’t been to Volcan for three years, and to Cerro Punta since she was a child even though these places are only 1 – 1/2 hours away. So, we decided we needed to have a field trip! Of course as soon as we made plans her husband had work come in, but on Sunday he was free and everything worked out. It was even a perfect day, sunny, blue sky with some fluffy clouds, and no rain until we were on our way home.
Of course we have a ton of photos. The area is very beautiful, and it’s so interesting to see all the vegetables growing up the sides of the mountains. We also ended up in some places we hadn’t seen before. I’ve tried to organize our photos in some sort of order so you can see some of the places we visited.
We had such a good time! And, talk about Spanish immersion. Neither of them speak English so it was an entire day of Spanish.
CERRO PUNTA – the area of mountains covered with vegetable farms
GUADALUPE – we took a left turn instead of a right turn (as we had on our previous trip here) and happened into the little town of Guadalupe. The downtown is only one block full of plant shops, produce shops, handicraft shops and little restaurants. We had a fun time walking around a bit.
FINCA DRACULA – I’d heard of this place so we decided to stop and take a look. They have a website if you want to know more. According to the site the place is named for a rare orchid, one of thousands of varieties of orchids on the farm. We didn’t want to pay the $10 admission and couldn’t find anyone to talk to, so we only walked up the road to the office in the beautiful grounds and took some photos.
On the way back we stopped at the Bambito Hotel because it’s a beautiful spot.
We returned to Volcan intending to visit Raquel’s Ark, but they weren’t home. So, we headed on down the road to Sitio Barriles. This is a very interesting archaeological site and I like it not only for that, but because the grounds are gorgeous and full of beautiful and interesting plants and flowers.
Last, we stopped at the Janson Coffee Farm. We’d been here before and remembered how beautiful it was. They also have excellent coffee. It’s interesting because you have to drive down the airstrips to get there, and we discovered that there is a gate now to get on the airstrip. There was an attendant on hand to open it for us though. Lucio says he knows some of the Janson family, and told us they have a helicopter to get to the farm, and also have some serious racing cars that they race in the US.
It was a wonderful day and we all had a great time. I’m sure there will be more field trips in the future! Haydeé hasn’t been to Boca Chica so I think this will be our next field trip. That’s another beautiful place not to be missed.
The Panama Adventure 
Wow these are great photos!
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Thanks, glad you like them 🙂
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Fantastic pics. I was wondering what type of camera do you use Kris?
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Thank you so much. Some were taken with my Nikon D5000, and the others were with a Panasonic HDC-TM90. It’s hard to miss though when there is so much beauty to photograph.
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Magnificent. Makes us want to just go and get on the plane now. Can’t wait to see you guys again.
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You’ll be back before you know it!
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Very nice. Personally I think the area around Cerro Punta is much more scenic than Boquete. It’s a shame that plain of 2-D photos can’t show the depth and wonder of an area like Cerro.
I don’t know about the place where you live, but nearly every house around my neighborhood has an outdoor cooking area. Few of the houses have a/c so cooking outside keeps the house cooler, and wood fires are used under the huge fogón when cooking tamales.
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I agree! Boquete is beautiful but I always feel hemmed in by the mountains on every side. I like the more open feeling of the Volcan / Cerro Punta area.
There aren’t outdoor cooking areas in my neighborhood. There are some BBQ’s, or a spot for a fire with rocks to put the pan on but not outdoor kitchens like this. I would love to have one though! When we were thinking of building a house that was my main request. Now that we’ve decided to stay in our rental, I think we are going to get a BBQ in the near future so we can do more cooking outdoors.
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Cerro Punto is also called the Switzerland of Panama.
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I can see why! I think I read somewhere that there actually were Swiss people who settled there in the past.
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great post as i’ve scheduled my 5-night trip to boquete this past week! lots of good ideas for things to do. i’ll be in your hood march 3-8 and it would be fun to get together with you and holly!(and respective spouses, haha)
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Really! 😀 Oh yes we must get together. We’ve got to schedule a PC trip one of these days too. I want to take that canal boat trip. We will be in touch 🙂
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sounds good! if it lines up with my days off i’m happy to play tour guide in PC. (check calendar on isp.edu.pa for those days!)
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Thanks! I’ll see if we can coordinate something
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