Panama - Boquete

After our wild party day on the Bocas and an especially extensive hangover breakfast with some of the people we had met the day before, we left the Caribbean for now and made our way to Boquete. A small village in a mountainous region from where we wanted to climb the highest point in Panama - the Baru Volcano.

Since we planned to be at the summit for sunrise, we had to start our hike just before midnight.

As a little warm-up for the big hike in the evening, we spontaneously joined a few Dutch people from our accommodation to hike to the Lost Waterfalls - luckily!

The three waterfalls were surrounded by beautiful nature, so the leisurely, about four-hour hike (climbing and hiking on more or less well-maintained paths) became a little highlight. We also couldn't resist taking a short dip in the ice-cold water despite the 15°C temperature.

In the evening, after dinner at 9 pm, we went straight to bed to get at least two more hours of sleep.

At midnight, we reluctantly got up and started our hike, half asleep. 20 minutes by car later, we found ourselves at the beginning of a small trail. In front of it, there was a lowered barrier with a sign: 'Volcan Baru - 14 km'. We didn't see a park ranger here in the middle of the night, only a dog greeted us wagging its tail and accompanied us for the first few hundred meters.

We were incredibly lucky with the weather, and the entire way was under a clear, beautiful starry sky. I had never seen so many shooting stars in one night before.

Six hours, 14 km, and 2200 meters of altitude gain later, we made it to the summit on time.

And our luck continued - as the clouds kept clearing, we had a beautiful sunrise and could even see the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Caribbean Sea to the east. Unbelievable!