After we had the guarantee that camera and books had savely arrived in Bocas del Toro, we left for El Valle. We took a little bus (like there were everywhere in Panama), which is pretty similar to the dolmus in Turkey. It stops everywhere, people make it stop in front of their door (even if it stopped for their neighbour 10 meters before), and it's never full. The funny thing was that all the busses we have been traveling with had stickers on the inside of both Disney characters (Tweety was a favourite) as well as stickers of Jezus or Maria. The two biggest religions here...
We had made a reservation in El Valle, but when we arrived at the hotel, there was no living soul around. After an hour or so, a guy arrived on his bicycle. It showed how non-touristy it was there. Only a week later we would meet the first other travelers again.
El Valle is a little village in an extinct Vulcano crater, on a higher altitude, so the climate is cooler. A lot of rich Panamenians own a second house here, but outside the weekend it's very quiet. And everything was in bloom, we couldn't figure out if the name of the town was there before the word was invented or the other way around. There was a big forrest-fire when we arrived, crystals work like magnifying glasses, and set the grass on fire with sun like that.
We climbed a rock formation called "the sleeping Indian", the edge of the crater. It went through beautifull rainforest, and on top of the Indian's "nose", I had to hold Florence, to prevent her from blowing down. She didn't, but her cap did....Luckily I could retrieve it after some mountaingoat-tricks. We were getting kind of lost in the jungle, till we bumped into some orange-pickers, who showed us the way, passed the black burnt fields.
We wanted to have dinner in a hotel mentioned in the guide, it turned out to be a real luxury one with a driveway with roundabout at the end. There were no guests, so their restaurant was closed. But after leaving again the care-taker ran after us, and said he could fix something for us. So we had a private meal in the bar/disco of this hotel with a disco mirrorball above our table, in the candlelight with pianomusic on the speakers. Very romantic and special, it gave us the good traveler's kick again, when things like this happen.
The guy took us after this dinner to a pont were there were the goldens frogs, more yellow then gold actually, he showed them with his torch, a private tour ;-)
|
