Quetzel Trail

Seven in the morning found me awake in bed, annoyed by the barking dog across the street. I walked down to the typico (typical, local food) and had an omelette and coffee for $1.65 and the walked back to the hotel. As I was uploading some pictures, Mackie, the owner, who is about to burst with a son waddled up. We chatted for a bit and she inquired about Juan Salizar, the Bocas Wharf Rat. I relayed tales of his Bocas adventures, which in no way surprised her but did amuse her.

As Chester is in town I gave him a call. He was in a meeting and had been requested to cook for a party for one of the cast from Little House on the Prairie and 50 friends, so he was tied up for the day, but we agreed to get together tomorrow morning.

The morning was wiled away with posting pictures, reading email and surfing the web. The aclock ticked passed 11:30 so I packed up for my noon meeting with Dean and Jody to walk the Quetzel trail. With five minutes to spare (I hate being late) I approached their lodge to find them exiting the drive. "What the hell, you're leaving without me?" Jody replied, "I couldn't hear you last night and Dean was past it, so we thought that maybe we agreed to meet at Amigos." We walked to the town center and hailed a cab, got in, thought he was over charging us and got out.

We walked a couple of blocks to town center and hailed a cab. A young asian couple made steps toward the cab. As they were waiting in front of the bus stop, we thought that they were waiting on a bus. We indicated that we were going to Quetzel Trail and agreed to share the cab. Once again, I was assigned the front seat and the other four squeezed into the rear seat of the small sedan.

The ride to the trail was longer than we expected, the Lonely Planet obviously had bad information and we felt bad about our treatment of the previous cab driver. Upon arrival we paid the driver our $2 each. The friendly rangers took the $5 entry fee and showed us the map. It was apparently 8 km to Cerro Punta. Our round trip drive on Thursday was 300 km.

This trail was like an M.C. Escher drawing, uphill all the way on a closed circuit. Returning to the ranger station we were advised that there was a 20 minute walk to the bus stop to catch a ride into town. I guess these people tuck there heads between their knees and roll down the hill. It would been 10 minutes on a bike as it was downhill all the way, but it took us 45 minutes to reach the bus stop. After 20 minutes of waiting we resume hiking and finally flagged down a van that moved its cargo and drove us to town.

We were informed that Saturday night is fight night in Boquette and that we could watch fisticuffs in the alley behind the grocery store. I walked home and took a nap that lasted 8 hours.

It is 3:30 in the morning, so rather than describe the walk, I'll just post the pictures.