We are off to Panama early on Saturday morning. The car service picks us up at 5 am for our 8 am flight to Panama City where we will connect to David.
Our flight on Copa Airlines is fully booked. It turns out that there are two different tour groups on this same flight. Everyone is cheerful and the flight is without issues. When we arrive at Tocumen International Airport in Panama City we head to Immigration. The queue is quite long and William becomes concerned that we may not have enough time to go through Immigration, retrieve our bags, go through Customs, recheck our bags and then find our domestic flight to David. We slowly snake forward, but it becomes clear within 20 minutes that as long as the queue maintains the pace we should be able to make our flight.
After Customs a Copa Airlines representative takes our bags and provides guidance on how to find the Domestic Terminal. We walk to the end of the International Terminal, go outside, make a right at the end of the building and proceed to the door of another building. The Domestic Terminal turns out to be one small waiting area where busses can pull up to transport us back to a specially roped off gate in the International Terminal. How funny!
When we arrive in David our driver José is waiting with a sign that says "Miss Anne". He piles our suitcases into the bed of his crew club pickup and we're off. He tries to provide commentary along the route to Boquete, but soon realizes that even basic Spanish is a bit of a stretch for us to comprehend. But, he cheerfully continues to try.
José deposits us into the hugging arms of our friends Nanci and Vic at Casa Serena in Valle Escondido around 8pm. We chat on the back patio until 10 pm then crawl into bed for a well deserved nights sleep.
Our flight on Copa Airlines is fully booked. It turns out that there are two different tour groups on this same flight. Everyone is cheerful and the flight is without issues. When we arrive at Tocumen International Airport in Panama City we head to Immigration. The queue is quite long and William becomes concerned that we may not have enough time to go through Immigration, retrieve our bags, go through Customs, recheck our bags and then find our domestic flight to David. We slowly snake forward, but it becomes clear within 20 minutes that as long as the queue maintains the pace we should be able to make our flight.
After Customs a Copa Airlines representative takes our bags and provides guidance on how to find the Domestic Terminal. We walk to the end of the International Terminal, go outside, make a right at the end of the building and proceed to the door of another building. The Domestic Terminal turns out to be one small waiting area where busses can pull up to transport us back to a specially roped off gate in the International Terminal. How funny!
When we arrive in David our driver José is waiting with a sign that says "Miss Anne". He piles our suitcases into the bed of his crew club pickup and we're off. He tries to provide commentary along the route to Boquete, but soon realizes that even basic Spanish is a bit of a stretch for us to comprehend. But, he cheerfully continues to try.
José deposits us into the hugging arms of our friends Nanci and Vic at Casa Serena in Valle Escondido around 8pm. We chat on the back patio until 10 pm then crawl into bed for a well deserved nights sleep.
The morning arrives and provides an opportunity to appreciate our location. The Valle Escondido development includes a resort with a hotel, condo's and free-standing villa's. The villa we are in is very nice and Vic and Nanci have rented the two bedroom walk-out apartment (Casa Serena) on the lower level. The patio overlooks part of the golf course and two swimming pools below while straight ahead is a small mountain covered in trees. We soon see why the patio is the right spot for enjoying meals and cocktails.
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