Chiriqui is also the home of the Chirqui Land Company, an American company that had plantations in the Chiriqui town of Puerto Armuelles. The banana plantations in Chiriqui had wonderful American schools and so there has always been a strong bond between the U.S. and the people of Chiriqui. Costa Rica and Panama fought a short war in the 1920s near Puerto Armuelles. The Coto War; the war lasted months, and was fought over a small piece of territory, some Costa Ricans were held prisoners during the war on Taboga Island at the mouth of the Panama Canal. In the end the war was settled by the Americans in favor of the Costa Ricans.

Leaving 
We had come to the highlands because we needed to get out of Panama City: our first stop was the town of Cerro Punta. The best way to go to Chiriqui is by flying, if you make the car trip it’s about 8 and half or nine hours to Cerro Punta from Panama City. Take the plane if you can; it’s not too expensive and a short hour. The plane lands in David; in David rent a car: there are National, Alamo, Thrifty and Budget rental car offices in the airport. In the airport ask for directions to David, as you can get easily lost between the airport and the city center. 

We rented a car and drove to a supermarket, picked up some wine; there was still a little sunlight left in the sky and the grocery store was old, in the downtown of David, and had a very good selection of beer. We drove up the inter-American highway in the direction of the Frontera and turned right at the town of Conception, this took 25 to 30 minutes, the sky was dark, there was fog on the road as we headed to Cerro Punta. 

The road was new and we were staying at the Bambito Hotel, where I had stayed 7 years before. 

We arrived to the hotel: the first thing we saw when we pulled off the road into the entrance of the hotel, after the 50 minute ride from Conception was a sign that said “Nueva Administración” – “New Administration.” What a funny thing to see as we pulled up, and I thought to myself, my god, what kind of mood will this be. But the place was exactly as it had been when I had come 7 years before; there were no visible changes. The Hotel was originally built by Italians in the 1970s; the wood is blonde, very nice large mirrors and beds; the Junior Suites have balconies and the Hotel, though old, feels very new: the people that built it must have put it together very well, because the fountains in front of the Hotel are always on; in fact, there is water moving all around the hotel and the views from the front of the hotel are incredible.

The road that passes in front of the hotel leads to the town of Cerro Punta. After leaving the hotel, the road runs through a small canyon and along a rapidly flowing river; the river must have cut the rock out of the canyon over thousands of years. After you drive through this small, short canyon, the land opens up in front of you and you are in a very beautiful open valley, with agricultural fields running up mountainsides. There is plenty to do in the areas around the town: there is Parque Amistad which leads up to and over the border of Costa Rica; years before there had been a European Colony near Parque Amistad, lot’s of Germans but also other Europeans as well, I think mostly Czech. The one time I hiked into Parque Amistad, I ran into some Germans. There is also Parque Volcan which includes the highest volcano in Panama; the volcano is no longer active, the Park is a very good place for long walks.

We drove around the valley and enjoyed the fresh air. The valley is full of plants and flowers that you would normally only see in a flower shop in the U.S. or Europe, but in Cerro Punta the flowers and plants grow in the wild. The houses are A-frames with wood alpine exteriors. Most of the houses in Cerro Punta are made of wood. There is water all throughout the town and the soil is black volcanic: lots of onions and lettuce being grown and flowers. The Panamanian supermarket chain El Rey is the major producer in Cerro Punta. Land is not readily available; we saw one lot that was going for $25 a square meter; we saw a two hectare place with 4 small bedrooms, two-bathrooms that was going for $250,000. It was set up and back from the town and the owner, I think, is the owner of the Hotel Quetzales – also a very nice place to stay.
But back to the Hotel Bambito and the new administration sign. We checked in and went to our room. As I walked into the room with the bellboy, I remembered that Jimmy Carter used to come to the Bambito to fish. There was a bar in the room and thick glass ashtrays and an old disconnected stereo system from the 1970s. We went to the restaurant and had a good meal, then went back to the room and talked. People quietly pulled up during the night and walked to their rooms, no noise, very private. After I woke up with a terrible headache, we went to breakfast and then checked out and walked around the grounds of the hotel taking photos. They have a pool and two tennis courts with lights. The price of whole thing - flight, rental car and hotel - can be as low $119; you get breakfast free and you can eat strawberries and crème, bread and cheese in the town of Cerro Punta for lunch. There is also a pizzeria in Cerro Punta and other small restaurants. The $119 package is available through National Car Rental, Aeroperlas and the Bambito Hotel, rent a car first with National and they can offer you the package. 

We stayed in Cerro Punta for an hour or two and then drove back down to David: we ate at a pizzeria in David in front of the Hotel Nacional David. Very good place and then headed for the town of Boquete where Gabi’s oldest friend in Panama mother lives. The drive from David to Boquete is very short. Boquete has been in the news a lot lately for being one of the best places to live and retire to worldwide. And I can see why. But the real beauty of Boquete is the farm land up above the cliffs that overlook the town center, that is where the air and views are incredible. We were tired and we pulled into Boquete at sundown around 6:30pm. There is a Sushi restaurant in the town along with coffee shops: not normal for a small Panamanian town, the people we talked to from Boquete were O.K. with the changes and large influx of outsiders, though we heard some people were not.

We called Gabi’s friend’s mother and she sent her younger daughter to come get us. They had a new car and we followed them up into mountains. Coffee fields all around us now, with the late day sun against the dark, green metallic coffee leaves. The views of the valley below were open and as you wound up the road, going higher and higher, the landscape changed and then changed again around you. One moment it was Panama, then Costa Rica, then Ireland and then the greenest Pennsylvania. I was floored by the changes. 

We turned left across traffic and went up a small country lane that was not paved but had two concrete strips that you drove on; short green grass grew up around the concrete. The views were of open fields and wooden, brightly colored houses. We entered the farm and met Marilyn’s mother: she reminded me of people I had known when I was living in the countryside of Panama, but she was stronger than the people I had known; she lived in a place where the soil gave back food. The earth was volcanic and anything that you planted would flourish in the soil. In the poorer areas of Panama this was not so and people were hungry and struggled. Nothing worse than a farmer who can’t grow anything. We went out into the fields and looked at the carrots, the onions, yucca, bananas, zarzamoras (Raspberries), beans and papaya. She was a strong fiery person, very conservative, but decisive – which is often the case – and wanting to tell us about the evils around us. Men were evil; they talked pretty but never stayed around: she secretly wanted to have a male companion and hinted so, but none of them – men – had ever stayed around long enough to trust – “they’re all dogs.” I was in dangerous territory as my wife Gabi caught onto this line of thinking very quickly, two-on-one. I moved the conversation to letting the mother know that I had lived in the countryside of Panama and had always liked it. We became friends after that. She liked shotguns; she had had a Brazilian shotgun she told me – she didn’t have it now – she said the dogs kept people away now and anyway on this side of the valley there were no problems. She told me that on the other side of the valley men were being raped, so people were carrying guns. She never told me who was raping these men. She pointed in the distance and she told me an American had bought a piece of property nearby recently: she liked Americans, at last someone, and she was looking after the place for him, making sure no one was stealing anything. We then walked up to an area that was open and airy; in the distance I thought I could see where they were cutting the new Boquete to Cerro Punta road. Sean Connery is supposed to have a place along the road. Not that this woman would give a shit about that: who? We drank a little wine and talked about the bible, she did, I listened. What she said about religion was directly connected to her immediate world, her fields, her house, her family. As she talked I noticed a picture of a young U.S. military soldier on her old wooden cabinet. He had been a friend of her daughters; she couldn’t remember his name. He had stopped writing around the time of the first Gulf War – they thought he had been killed. Seeing the official army photograph of the G.I. didn’t really surprise me: lots of homes in Panama have pictures of U.S. G.I.s that came through Panama on their way to somewhere else. The winds pick up at night in Boquete and the stars come out; there is no light for miles and you have an encompassing dark sky, with high winds, and the sound of wind whipping through pine trees and in the distance you can see the outline of distance hills and volcanoes. 

We stayed in a little side section of her house and slept, not very well, the mattress wasn’t comfortable, but the air was good. We woke up around 6:30 and had breakfast; Corn tortillas with fresh mountain cheese and Nescafe – she didn’t like coffee even though it was the major cash crop in Boquete. We had an early plane to catch in David, so we left before 7:30am. The flight back was smooth; I was tired from the early morning wake up and slept a little on the plane and two hours more back at the house.

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