After the hustle and bustle of Panamá City, I headed to the beautiful quiet mountain valley town of Boquete. Although there is not a whole lot to do in the town itself, there is an abundance of activities on offer within the nearby attractions of natural beauty. 

It was in Boquete that I chose to give ziplining a go; what's not to love about ridiculously high platforms in the cloud forest, with just a wire connecting them together and plotting the course? In order to reach the first platform we trekked through the forest, which is home to various different funghi and trees, as well as the rarely-spotted colourful bird called the Quetzal.  As we reached our destination - complete with harnesses and helmets (health and safety has reached Panamá) - a couple of people decided to drop out and walk back down, but the majority of the group elected to stick with the more fun option. 

The views over the cloud forest were stunning, and fortunately the weather held up well for a change. This afforded a great view of the beautiful nearby volcano, as well as the contents of the forest itself. There were many waterfalls that were raging from the previous days of rain, and birds flying from tree to tree as I whizzed past them. The longest of the 15 ziplines was almost a kilometre, and has seen top speeds of 70kph: I have no idea how fast I went, but I didn't apply the brakes at all and it certainly felt pretty quick!

Aside from the ziplining I also wanted to climb up Volcán Banú, which is a volcano situated very close to Boquete and it's summit allows (on a clear day) views of both the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean. I had heard that the best time to go is a night for cooler climbing conditions followed by an amazing sunrise. However, due to adverse weather conditions in the form of constant rain, I deemed it too dangerous (ie demanding) to tackle, plus I figured the view would be rubbish! 

Therefore I did not do too much in Boquete, unless you count numerous trips to the supermarket as world-class fun? The hostel I stayed in had a fantastic kitchen, which was put to great use whilst I was there... ratatouille, quiche, home made burgers, Thai stir fry... the list of culinary delights prepared by all goes on. I even baked a delightful chocolate fudge cake for everyone which went down a treat.   Then, along with the hostel's "cleaning lady" (Alan), I made some super-hot chilli salsa, which did not go down quite so well, and left everybody's eyes watering!

Although it could be said that I did not do very much here, I really enjoyed my time in Boquete. The town and the hostel both have a really nice homely feel to them, and I found it very difficult to leave. A well-made cup of tea, a good supermarket, a great kitchen, an incredible selection of films, and trying to impersonate oddly-designed furniture is severly underrated! However, after I checked out of the hostel for the third time, it was finally time to leave as I was already running late for my reunion with the French girls off my San Blas trip...