Next stop: Boquete, Panama

On December 4th, we crossed the border into Panama. Our motivation to plan the last two weeks in Central America was quite limited, so we decided to spend a few days in the mountains and a few days at the beach instead of constantly traveling from one destination to another. I was extremely nervous on the day of the border crossing, as my passport was only valid for 2 more months, but you actually need a validity of 3 months to enter Panama. Luckily, Paddy's theory that I was unnecessarily stressing was confirmed, as the border officer showed very little interest in it :)

Boquete is a small tourist town in western Panama, located at the foot of the Baru Volcano in a beautiful mountain landscape, making it the perfect place for hiking. However, on the first day, we simply did nothing and just enjoyed the cute town and the lovely hostel - after 5 weeks at the dog rescue center, it was absolutely necessary for us to relax and unwind (also, I hadn't watched a single episode of Santa Claus & Co. KG yet and it was time to get into the Christmas spirit).

For the next day, we had chosen a small hike that led to three waterfalls. Since we had heard about beautiful waterfalls in Nicaragua and Costa Rica but always ended up doing something else, we were excited to finally have the opportunity to see them in Panama. The trail was really nice, we hardly met any people and had a very relaxed day.

The following day, we had a slightly bigger project planned: we wanted to hike up the Baru Volcano at 11 pm to watch the sunrise from there in the morning. Moreover, we were supposed to have a great view of the two oceans from up there. During the day, we consciously decided not to do any other hikes in order to be well-rested at night - and then, of course, it started pouring rain at 9 pm. After much consideration, we decided to spend another day without any other hikes, hoping to be able to climb the volcano at night, which actually worked out. The ascent was 13.5 km long and partly really challenging, especially at the beginning when I was still adjusting to the altitude. After a few kilometers, we met two French girls and an Australian guy (who made it his profession to film himself climbing the highest mountains in each country - he has also hiked through Alaska for a month), and it was even more fun in a group. We left early with the shuttle so that we didn't have to rush and we were fortunately prepared for the cold and wet conditions at the top - we felt like we were wearing half of our entire clothing inventory from the trip and we had tea with us as well. But when we arrived at the top, there was a big disappointment: for two minutes, it looked like a beautiful sunrise, but then it suddenly completely clouded over and we couldn't see anything. NOTHING! Well, at least we laughed about it pretty quickly considering that we had hiked to the top of a volcano all night in freezing cold and rain ;) at least we had the most beautiful starry sky of all time for 10 minutes during the ascent! And we can say that we have been to the highest point in Panama :)

Initially, we had only booked 3 nights at the hostel in Boquete, but since we liked it so much (and the rain ruined our first attempt to climb the volcano in the evening), we stayed for 5 nights and had a really good time :)