Parita, the oldest settlement in the Azuero Peninsula, celebrated its 450^th birthday August 18, 2008. Its rich history, not to mention its friendly, fun-loving residents, make it an attractive destination for the growing number of visitors to the region. Moreover, it’s located on the Carretera Nacional, only 15 minutes north of the city of Chitré, where a number of quality lodging and dining options can be found.

Chitre is anomalistic. Its large, bustling town square, modern grocery stores, and bevy of restaurants and hotels are perhaps more urbanized than any other pueblo in rural Panama. This capital of the Herrera province is vibrant with an odd farmer-meets-city charm, and its maze-like streets will swallow you whole if you don't know where you're going.

Las Tablas is one of the most traveled towns in the Azuero Peninsula. Not unlike a primed fraternity brother it is most famous for its wild parties during which people from all over the country pack its tight streets like meat in an overstuffed sausage casing. From rum, to vodka, to national grain alcohol, upon visiting Las Tablas you can rest assured you'll be welcomed in good spirits.

For some, the small Azuero town of Tonosi is known to be the subject of travelers remorse—this far away and seemingly-imaginary community near the bottom tip of the peninsula that is not nearly as exciting as it could be. For me though, a trip down to Tonosi is a charming jaunt back in time.

It's a region of unrefined beauty where jagged shores meet smooth rolling hills, where humble farmers go about their business as if this was how beautiful life was intended to be. It sits about 3 hours from cosmopolitan Panama City but appears to be a world away. Its virgin coastline of secluded beaches and waterfalls mysteriously resembles those of Costa Rica, Belize, and California: a developer's topological pipe dream. This is Azuero.

Being hungover is such a funny phenomenon because while the body is unable to do even the simplest of things, like tie a shoelace or put together sentences, the brain is capable of such deep and evocative thought that sometimes you are too profound for your own good. It was during one of these stupors, these dizzy and mischievous dazes that I decided to effectively make myself disappear.

I had been wanting to get away from the everyday annoyances of working in the city—the car horns and the phone calls and the 6 AM roaming broom merchants. More specifically, just over the past week or so, I had been exhausted from that fast-paced work atmosphere of the city, of pesky people scheduling meetings. I hate meetings: “Rome didn't create an empire by having meetings,” I'd tell them. “They did it by killing people.”

After a breakfast of ripe mangoes and lychee nuts, we packed our bags and headed out for more adventure, stopping at the island store to buy our wonderful hosts some cookies and soda—probably the last thing that those energetic squirrel children needed. Before we said our goodbyes, all the little kids brought us going-away-presents of freshly-caught sand crabs. Since Greeny and I had no use or real hunger for them we declined the offer, leaving more for them to enjoy. As we left, the kids and their tiny fluttering crab bodies waved adios.

We decided to stop for the night in Santiago—Veraguas Province—a province named for its hearty rainfall during the winter months. Fittingly, when we arrived, water was coming down so hard that gum wrappers and potato chip bags and even some boots were floating down the street. Even the Panama road map that we were living in had even gotten wet. I was getting ready to get out and enter our hotel when Jim said something that threw me off.

Panama culture is quirky and counter-intuitive so it seemed fitting that my decision to venture to the southern-most tip of the country—the remote and seemingly inaccessible village of Cambutal—evolved from the lone reason that most people won't go there.

If you picture the country of Panama as a stubby, wavy version of an uppercase “T”, Cambutal sits neglected at the bottom—the part where you pick up your pen and move on to the next letter. It lies approximately seven degrees above the equator on this knobby peninsula that juts out into the Pacific Ocean.

Continued from Part I: The Road to Cambutal

The annoying yet somehow endearing bark of the hotel rooster woke us up around six. After a breakfast of champions—steak—we set out south for the last little leg of our trip to Cambutal. The dirt roads were pothole-ridden while chickens and puppies scampered in and out of our path. We eventually came to what we had been searching for—a fork in the road—a checkpoint we were to meet a man in a black Nissan Sentra. This man Campo, which means “field" or "farm” in Spanish, was a small little farm owner who was looking to sell a lot of over 300 hectares. He stood welcomingly and asked us to follow him to his ranch.