Panama: Day 6 and 7 - Mamallena & St. Patrick's Day

After a good 12 hour sleep to make up for the lack of sleep on the bus last night, we packed our stuff up and hopped on the bus to Boquete to check in to Hostal Mamallena. We are looking at booking some excursions through this new hostel. They offer a few jungle hikes that go to hidden waterfalls, hot springs, volcanoes, etc. You can also book a tour of a high-end coffee farm, which might be neat to see.

We originally were going to do a triple-combo walking tour that hit the hot springs, the hidden waterfall, and the swimming gorge but after meeting some cool Dutch guys, we decided to link up with them and go on an all-day biking tour that ended at the swimming gorge. We didn't know what we were in for...

We were warned it was a really tough course, but I felt I was pretty fit and could handle it. The course ended up being the most difficult and tiring 8-hour bike ride up and down huge mountains on the roughest terrain I have ever experienced. It was a real challenge.

The scenery was beautiful and we got to see pretty much all of the mountains surrounding Bouquete.

No Central-American bike tour is complete without a sketchy bridge.

Minnie getting patched up after a few spills, smiling as always.

The swim at the end was incredibly refreshing.

Unfortunately, I had no energy to do any swimming...except for a few badass cliff jumps.

With whatever small amount of energy we had at the end of the day, we bought in to the $7 - all you can drink St. Patrick's Day party at Mamallena. It was a really fun night and I met a lot of great people. We had a guy named Ben who randomly walked in and played the Tin Whistle all night. He was a master at it and could play all my requests.