This is our room at the Hotel Bambito. It's named for the "bambito" trees that grow in the area and were used to build the hotel. The wood for the floor of our room, for example, comes from red bambito trees.
The room was very nice and clean. You can't see it in this picture, but the windows are very large and overlook the gardens in front of the hotel. The fountains are right below our window and we can hear the water gurgling all night. It was very pleasant.
By the way, Dad's camera takes great pictures. Much better than my camera. The view is nice, huh? You can also see the mountains. The weather was clear and cool, like what you would expect up in the mountains during the summer season.
Dad took these pictures the morning of our last day in Volcan. The lady at the reception desk called us a taxi and we were waiting for him out on the lawn. That long stretch of windows overlooking the water is the hotel restaurant where we ate breakfast and dinner.
The road behind dad is the main road connecting Volcan, David and Cerro Punta. Across the street is a bus stop where Charlie (the manager of the hiking tour) told us we could easily catch a bus to Cerro Punta. So after we returned from Volcan Baru we decided to go to Cerro Punta and have a look around and maybe eat dinner. Unfortunately, we were waiting on the wrong side of the street...and it started to rain. A small, crowded bus that said "Cerro Punta" across the front stopped and we jumped in. That bus was actually coming FROM Cerro Punta and heading in the opposite direction. We did not figure this out immediatly, but rode the bus for 10-15 minutes and attempted to communicate with the young guy collecting fares.
Unlike other Spanish-speaking peoples, Panamanians speak very very fast. I could barely understand what the guy was saying. He dropped us off at some tiny bus terminal (which was really a gas station with a bunch of people hanging around under the shelter of a tin roof) and we decided to take a taxi instead. It was raining pretty hard. We managed to flag down a taxi and get to Cerro Punta. The taxis, by the way, are really really cheap. The ride to Cerro Punta cost only a little more than taking the local bus, which is nothing more than an old cramped van with 2 dozen seats.
This is the Hotel Cerro Punta. We asked the taxi driver to recommend a restaurant; he said this place had the best food in town. It looks like someone's house from the outside. The old lady who runs the hotel and restaurant was so sweet and nice. And the food was fantastic. And cheap: 3 large dishes, 2 fruit smoothies, a glass of white wine, 3 cups of coffee and icecream all came to less than $25 dollars. Both Dad and Omid said the food was better than anything they had eaten in Panama City. Dad had fish fillet and Omid had pork chops. I had a meat dish wrapped in bacon. Each dish was served with garlic, onions and cilantro and a side dish of french fries. If Dad and Omid gained nothing else from this trip, they at least learned how to order "french fries" in spanish. They asked for papas fritas everytime we went out to eat. We were also the only people in the dining room. We had the whole place to ourselves.
This is the dining room of the Hotel Bambito. We arrived at the hotel very late on Friday night because our flight from Panama City to David was delayed one hour. Then we took a taxi from the airport in David to the hotel in Volcan, which was about 1 1/2 hours ride. The taxi trip only cost $30 dollars (Dad tipped the guy well because he felt bad that the ride was so cheap).
Anyway, we also learned that Boquete is closer to the airport than Volcan. We decided to leave for Boquete on Sunday morning, look around, have lunch, and then go straight to the airport. What is interesting is that Volcan and Boquete are very very close, but there is no direct road from Volcan to Boquete because of the mountains. You have to go back down to David (which is by the ocean) and take the main highway to reach a road that will take you up North to Boquete.
We were the only people dining in the restaurant. Do you want to know how small the Hotel Bambito is? After the porter had showed us to the room and set our suitcases down, we asked him if the restaurant was still open. He assured us that is was. And he know this because he worked in the kitchen.
The bell boy who carried our luggage was also the cook!
Also also...there was a duck! A duck that looked like Chubby!!! We could see the duck every day from our window.
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