Boquete Outdoor Adventures

Boquete Outdoor Adventures in Panama is an agency that organizes group activities, we book most of our activities through them after reading great reviews on Trip advisor and we were not disappointed. The name describes our experience in Boquete perfectly, it was filled with outdoor fun and exhilarating experiences.


On our first day to Boquete, we shopped for a good travel agency with safe and inexpensive tours to book the activities we wanted to do. we ended up settling for Boquete Outdoor Adventures like I mentionned earlier. The first activity we booked was white water rafting, which to be honnest terified me. It ended up being lots of fun! It took about 2h30 for our raft to navigate the rapids, with a short stop for a sandwich buffet lunch on a black sand beach midway. The rapids were class 2-3-4, which wasn't very extreme, but it was exhilarating nonetheless! I loved every minute of it, it was definitely worth it and much less scary than I anticipated. The tour included transportation to the river, lunch and all equipment for 75$ per person, not bad!

We booked an expedition to the Baru Volcano on the next day. We were warned several times prior to booking that it was a difficult and strenuous hike, they weren't lying. We started hiking in the dark night at 5 am and by 5:15 pm, we were just coming down the trail to the car. Overall, the whole thing took us about 12 hours, with one hour rest at the top for lunch. We hiked 26 km up and down the volcano, aided by walking sticks to make it a little easier on ourselves. It was very rewarding to complete this hike and the view from the top was breath taking! Today, everything hurts and I have the worst sunburn on my nose (think swollen blisters =S I look like Frankeinstein), but it was worth the pain! This expedition included transportation to the mountain, lunch, water, snacks and a guide for 75$ per person.

We intend on booking a rock climbing expedition for tomorrow, which should be a lot of fun as well! For today though, since we're strained from yesterday's hike, we are resting in our comfy hostel room and will probably go to the lavanderia because all of our clothes are dirty! So far, Boquete is an amazing town, with a cool climate, friendly people, cheap food and hostels and beautiful views. We will probably stay here a couple more days before heading back to Costa Rica to go on a coffee farm tour and perhaps to some hot springs! We might also book the Island tour offered by Boquete Outdoor Adventures! It looks beautiful and relaxing, we could use some of that ;)

Btw, I don't have pictures of the rafting, because obviously the camera would have gotten wet, so it's all Volcano Baru pictures and some pictures from our failed attempt  at the Café Ruiz farm visit (we arrived 10 minutes after the last tour so we ended up having a coffee and leaving instead).


So far so good! Boquete Outdoor Adventures was definitely a good choice and we are having a great time here in Boquete :)

Hostel Balboa Bay - Panama City

Hostel Balboa Bay review and description! Hope it helps :)

Although our stay there ended up being just fine, this wasn't our first choice. In fact, we rode a cab to over 4 other hostels which were full before we settled on this one.

Price : 35$ Per night for a private double (with a double bed and a single bed), with private bathroom, cold water, television, air conditioning and free breakfast cooked for you upon request.

Services/amenities : 5$ wifi, 2 computers available for free in the lobby.

Rooms : One thing you can safely say about the hostel Balboa bay's rooms is that they are was very spacious and clean. The bed was quite comfortable and the bathroom was clean (although it did have a second door leading to what appeared to be a second room which was a little odd - there was a lock on the door to make sure no one could get in though). The main issue with the room was that there was a big gaping hole in the ceiling, about  one and a half foot wide. Although there seemed to be nothing coming out of it, it still made us pretty uneasy.

Staff : The staff was polite, but not particularly chatty.

Overall, we enjoyed staying at Hostel Balboa Bay. It was a nice place and a pretty good deal considering all that was included in the price. The location, near the city centre was near shopping malls, but not in a very scenic neighbourhood. We could walk around just fine though, which is more that you can say about most Central American capitals.

Hostel Casa Verde - Bocas Del Toro

 Hostel Casa Verde is probably the coolest hostel we've stayed in so far. It has tons to offer and is relatively cheap :D

Price : 33$ per night for a private double, including shared bathrooms with hot water ( I never had hot water while I was there), air-conditioning and mini fridge in the room. Free wifi.

Services/amenities : Waterfront, deck, tubes, grill, hammocks, restaurant/bar, full kitchen, cheap laundry service.

Rooms : The rooms were pretty bare apart from a couple drawings on the walls, but clean enough. The bed was comfortable and the linens very clean. The walls are definitely not very thick though, and we could hear conversations (and by that I mean a screaming drunk girl in the middle of the night making a scene) very clearly. Also since there is music from the bar right downstairs it's not the ideal place for an afternoon nap. The party moves on to nearby bars pretty early though, so it's not really a problem at night.

Staff : Friendly and quite helpful for the most part, they always answer our questions and even chatted with us a couple times.

Restaurant/bar : The restaurant at hostel Casa Verde was pretty expensive, but the food served was high quality. The choices were pretty limited too. Their BLTs (5$) and burgers (6$) are very good, but the grilled cheese (4$) tasted a little bland.

Bathrooms : The bathrooms always appeared very clean, with ample supply of toilet paper.

We loved staying at the hostel Casa Verde and would definitely recommend it! The atmosphere was nice and laid-back, the perfect spot to spend some time just relaxing near the sea.

Adventures in Panama [Travel update]

Adventures in Panama of all kinds this week :) We went diving, surfing, boating, biking, to the beach, to the arcade, to the casino, to the mall, to the Panama Canal and more ♥ We had such as great time.

After finishing our diving certification in Bocas Del Toro, we decided to move on to Panama City. Just before we left, Mathieu wanted to try out surfing once again (we took a one hour class in El Salvador 2 years ago) since the surf is reknown to be good in Bocas Del Toro.  We read about the surf school Escuela Del Mar from the Lonely Planet which recommended it for beginners. The school is located on a smaller island called Isla Caranero which can be reached by water taxi in about 5 minutes. We grabbed a water taxi and he enrolled for a 3 hours class. In the mean time, I stayed quietly on the beach with my latest read : The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown (I've finished it now and it was awesome). I didn't go through with the class since I'm afraid  of waves, but Mathieu told me the class was great. He was able to stand up at least 8 times! Impressive =D

On the day of our departure, we rented bikes and decided to go for a ride to one of the beach nearby. The playa Bluff beach, a fairly isolated beach is located about 10 km from our hostel. We rode with our bikes for about 30 minutes to get there.  The first half was easy, on a fairly leveled road, but after a while, the road stopped and we ended up riding on the beach for a while. After that the road turned into a very bumpy sand and gravel path which lasted about 3 km before we finally reached our destination. The beach, apart from another couple somewhere further the coast, was completely deserted. It was gorgeous. The sand was soft and warm and the sea was slightly agitated which was a beautiful sight.

On our way back to town, things got a little more complicated, my bike suddenly got a flat, about midway. Fortunately, taxi pick up trucks are fairly common on isla colon so we hailed one, hauled our bikes in the back and rode back to town for only 2$. Overall, the experience was worth the effort and time. It was a nice little adventure ^^

That evening, we took the night bus to Panama City and booked an hostel for our stay in the city. On the first day we went to the shopping mall and spent an entertaining day of urban fun. First we went to the casino and played slots and well as some 2$ black jack. Then, we went to the arcade for a couple games of Pump it up (a dance arcade game similar to Dance Dance Revolution). After that, we went for a couple drinks at the Hard Rock café and caught a movie in the evening (The latest X-men). We ended the day by sharing a plate of spicy chicken wings with blue cheese dip and a three cheeses burger at the Hard Rock Café.

Yesterday, we went to see the Panama Canal in the morning. We got to witness the passing of a large boat through the canal, it was very impressive! We then visited the museum and went back to another shopping mall to finish up the day. We got chair massage, got some ice cream cones from the Hagen Daaz store and spent the afternoon window shopping. We had a great time in Panama City.

Today we left for the quiet town of Boquete, a 9 hour ride from the capital. We got a really inexpensive hostel (the cheapest we have had so far by a large margin) and intend on doing some hiking nearby, perhaps a canopy tour and even maybe a little white water rafting (if I can muster up the courage!) this is our last chance to experience tons of adventures in Panama. We will be moving on to Costa Rica soon after.