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http://homeonthehighway.com/panama-volcano-baru-land-of-the-quetzal/ Our adventures driving the Pan-Am. Sat, 04 Feb 2023 03:36:00 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.1.15 http://homeonthehighway.com/panama-volcano-baru-land-of-the-quetzal/#comment-923 Sat, 13 Oct 2012 14:29:00 +0000 http://homeonthehighway.com/?p=3213#comment-923 The Treadwrights are holding up great. We’ve been balancing and rotating them every 7500 or less. Gotta love the cheap labor at tire shops!

]]> http://homeonthehighway.com/panama-volcano-baru-land-of-the-quetzal/#comment-910 Wed, 10 Oct 2012 22:39:00 +0000 http://homeonthehighway.com/?p=3213#comment-910 Hey Justin, We drove up as far as we could, setup camp, and hiked the rest.

]]> http://homeonthehighway.com/panama-volcano-baru-land-of-the-quetzal/#comment-893 Sat, 22 Sep 2012 01:39:00 +0000 http://homeonthehighway.com/?p=3213#comment-893 Great post. Looks like you had fun! Did you hike the Volcan Baru or drive?

]]> http://homeonthehighway.com/panama-volcano-baru-land-of-the-quetzal/#comment-863 Thu, 23 Aug 2012 18:57:44 +0000 http://homeonthehighway.com/?p=3213#comment-863 […] We booked it south from the Osa and were soon at the border of Costa Rica-Panama. Within an hour or so we had gotten all our paperwork squared away, changed some Costa Rican colones into U.S. dollars (the official currency of Panama) and drove on in. Country #9. Our friends at fromatob.org have a nice writeup on"How to cross the Costa Rica-Panama border with a truck". BIENVENIDOS! A few friends of ours had crossed the border a few days earlier and told us of a town called Boquete nestled high up in the mountains. After spending the last few weeks in sweltering jungle temps we were looking forward to a few days of cool weather. We bee-lined it for Boquete. Boquete is a small town in the highlands of Panama. It's cool weather makes it very popular with Panama tourists and ex-pats alike. The dormant and normally cloud-covered Volcan Baru dominates the skyline above Boquete. It is the highest point in all of Panama. Our guidebook mentioned that most of Volcan Baru was protected national park land. It also mentioned a 4×4 road to the Volcano peak, elusive Quetzal bird sightings, and camping possibilities. We were sold. I guided the truck through the town and started snaking up through some small fincas and houses towards the volcano. We arrived at the ranger shack around 5PM, jumped out and told the guard we were going to drive the 4×4 to the top. He started laughing. I pointed out the window to the 4runner and he said "Oh. We'll you can try" and wrote us up some permits. I wondered just how bad this road was going to be… We drove up the gravel road which quickly turned to dirt then to straight up rocks and boulders. Maybe the ranger wasn't so crazy after all. We were less than 1/4 mile past the guard station when I first had to engage 4×4. Example of the road-bed The scenery was beautiful though. Mountainous cloud forest surrounded us. We inched along up the road navigated around and over gigantic boulders. At one point we took a shortcut through a farmers land to avoid a treacherous looking section of the trail. After about an hour of driving the sun started to set. We had only driven about 1 mile and had not found any campsites. However, we also had not seen another soul and by the conditions of the road I doubted any joyriders would be making their way up the mountain. We pulled over and setup camp on the side of the trail. View from our campsite. We are deep in pristine cloud forest, perfect Resplendent Quetzal country. Made a nice meal and went to sleep in downright chilly weather. It was 45F according to our thermometer. Coldest weather we have been in for quite some time. Had to brush the dust off the sleeping bags and thermal underwear! I woke in the morning with one thing in mind. QUETZALS. Read the rest of the story on the blog at PANAMA – Volcano Baru, Land of the Quetzal | Home on the Highway […]

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