Junia's first backpacking: Santa Fe

After our wonderful but rather 'wet' time in Bocas del Toro, we took a plane to Panama City. I was a litlle concerned about the state and quality of the plane but when I saw that it was a old KLM Fokker 50, I was relieved. Always nice to fly in my (and apparently also Quirijn's) favorite Dutch build nostalgic 70s plane.

Our girls usually behave quite well in planes but this time, it was not our passenger' s flight. Kiara really didn't want to sleep and she would not allow her fellow passengers to have a short nap either. Whatever we tried, she made noise. When we embarked the plane, Alma had also decided to go out ' in style', meaning in her own pace and with a big backpack, hence blocking the entire pathway for the remaining passengers. Especially a 'scooter look-a-like' was not amused, telling me to "take care of my kids". Sure, you just "jump all over the world".

Anyway, when we arrived at the appartment, we were all astonished about the sheer size of Pamama City. It more looked like Hong Kong or New York with all the skyscrapers. The next day, after one night in yet another great apartment, we decided to stay a few days longer to get some big city vibes. We returned the car and did some typical big city things like visiting a mall, go to the theater ('Congelada - Frozen'), eat good food, look for the best roof top bar (rather disappointing, we ended up on the13th floor of the Trump Tower, which we refused of course), visted parcs and played in playgrounds. Wonderful after having been in the jungle and on the beach the last 5 weeks.

Getting out of the city was rather stressful. Driving a car in Costa Rica was OK but navigating our way of this huge and chaotic Central American city was of another order. We managed (WAZE is so amazing!!) and we arrived on the 3-lane Interamericana, where it became 'business as usual' again. The road up to Santa Fe passed through wonderful scenery and apart from some potholes, was in a very good state. It is such a wonderful country Panama!

The home exchange location was once again a 'picture perfect' mountain chalet. Too bad that the hot water boiler didn't work though when we arrived, and not when we left 4 nights later either. The host warned us several times for the deadly snakes that were roaming the area but he didn't tell us about the army ant nest in the cupboard. So when I took a blanket from a shelf I was directly attacked by those bloody creatures. Believe me, a bite really hurts and I was bleeding where they had bitten me. Amazing that such a little creature has such strong jaws. The vacuum cleaner became very handy and I played matador with the whole nest. After an hour or so, the whole room was spotlessly clean and Junia and Alma agred to sleep in the room again. Welcome in Santa Fe!

Although Santa Fe is all about hiking, we took it rather easy. One afternoon, we for example just sat and played with the local kids at the central bus stop. Our girls ("gringitas") where a nice attraction to the local youth with their blond hair. Another day, we visted a local organic farm and got a tour around the house. Yet another day, I was sick and the rest of the family did some homework, played games and looked at movies. Perfectly chill!

One of the things I was rather happy about was the fact that Santa Fe was still rather clean. It was not so heavily polluted as Bocas. Locals obviously appreciated their own environment and didn't throw their trash just about everywhere. When we left Santa Fe, we felt good about our visist. We also felt good about the fact that we had shortened it with a few days.

The ant nest in the cupboard (do mind the eggs.....rather disgusting)