Panama-news (new version)

Boquete, a smal town one hour north of David, located on the slopes of the Baru-volcano, next to the Costa Rica border. We arrived here last monday. The weather here is cold compared to Panama-City. In this region most of the rivers can be found. There is rain every day, but unfortunately the heavy rainseason is over. As a warming-up river we paddled the "Witches"-section of the Chiriqui, a grade 3-4 boulder section with some fine rapids towards the end. Next was the Cochea-river. We paddled a 4 hour section through the jungle and small gorges, grade 4. Starting as a little steep torrent, the river gains volume thanks to the big number of tributaries. At high water-level this run becomes a rollercaster. Very nice scenery. Due to a lack of water we had to paddle the lowest part of the Caldera. Not to difficult, grade 3-4, but another nice scenery. A tucan cought our attention at the put in. The take-out is at the dam, at the confluence with the Chiriqui, on a very muddy beach. A couple of years ago you could continue after the dam on a section called the "Playrun". Now the river is dry, all of the water is deviated to another valley (sh...t). Yesterday we paddled the upper Chiriqui, a section called the "Frijoles". This 13 km stretch is very steep and bouldered. The highlight of the trip so far. It took us 5 hours to paddle the river with our 8 persons group, and we managed to get of the river just before dark. Luckely our driver had some ice-cold beer waiting for us. To reach the take-in, a 4x4 monster-truck, drove us up the Camel-Trophy-alike steep and muddy track. The river was super: a must-be-done-river for future Panama-paddlers. Make sure you don't have too much water. Today we are chilling in Boquete, drinking some beers and planning the trip to the Chiriqui Viejo. We are considering crossing the border next week to paddle some rivers in Costa Rica.



Happy paddling,

Steven Van den heuvel