Boquete

It turned out to be painless again to get all the way to Boquete, simply involving a stroll back to the mad junction we'd been to the day we went to the canal, a locl bus to the main bus termainl and then another bus to the city of David. From there we just hopped on a connecting bus to Boquete, just 1 hour away.

As usual Sarah ran around checking out the hostel options, and we settled on the cheapest and nicest place of them all. In fact it was such a nice place (Hotel Marilos, only $10 a night), and such a nice town, that I was seriously tempted to stay for a third night, but in the end the weather wasn't great, time was tight and I was anxious to make a fair bit of progress up towards Mexico (as we were hoping to get to California to visit my aunt and see my Ma for Christmas).

So the next day we had the luxury of sleeping in quite late and then strolled the few km's to the animal refuge of Paradise Gardens (Mullin's had stayed in Boquete a few months back and volunteered here for a few weeks). It was a fantastic place, only started 3 or 4 years ago by an English couple who retired here, and they have done an amazing job of landscaping the grounds and erecting enclosures for the various animals. We spent a few hours just being guided around by a lovely chatty, friendly American retiree and then just strolled around on our own amongst the amazing toucans, the baby sloth, the margay, some mad rare cat thing I can't remember the name of, the crazy gang of 7 macaws, the hummingbirds, etc.

After the refuge, Sarah went back to the hostel to relax while I strolled to the other side of town to check out a coffee factory and a neighbouring private garden that's open to the public. The gardens were again really impressively maintained - lots of ponds with carp and more impressive landscaping (and not a single other soul anywhere to be seen, which was nice).

The coffee factory, though, was a bit disappointing. I had wanted to do tour of the coffee planation itself, but that was way too expensive (and much more so than the guidebooks suggested, so I suppose business must be good), but they had a factory tour option that was cheap. When I got there though, the factory was really small, and you could see into the whole operation from big windows in the walls of the adjoining cafe. So I just had a coffee (not even that great to be honest!), and just watched the couple of guys working in the factory.

Like I said, I could have stayed another day or two just relaxing in Boquete (and given the way this trip has moved along at a snails pace so far, if it wasn't for the time constraints I almost certainly would have), but the next morning was an early start to try and blitz up through as much of Costa Rica as possible.