Baru - the volcano that wasn't

Our trip into the beautiful Chiriqui highlands in northern Panama to ascend the imposing Volcan Baru didn't exactly work out as planned.

We arrived in the gateway town of Boquete exhausted after two days' travel that included a soaking speedboat ride, a delayed flight, a frantic search for a bus at three different terminals, two eight-hour bus trips, a crowded local bus ride and two border crossings that took us from the Corn Islands in Nicaragua to Panama.

Volcan Baru, whose summit is over 3,000 metres high, can be scaled via an 11km track which you can do without a guide and doesn't require any ropes or complex mountaineering manouvres. Even better, you can camp right at the summit and walk back down the next day. Sounds perfect, right? We gathered our preparations and were set to leave the next morning when Adam kicked his foot against a big rock and sliced the top off his toe, and couldn't get his hiking shoe on.

We were staying at a really nice hostel - a huge house with a fully stocked kitchen set among beautiful gardens with a little river running through them. The only problem is the room that we had booked wasn't in the actual house - it was this slapped together, awkward little cubby house overlooking the river.

It was in a great position, but there were big gaps between the walls and ceiling and mosquito screens that didn't fit the shape of the wall. And there were mosquitoes aplenty. Even though we bought mosquito coils, we awoke in the middle of the night with mozzies buzzing all around us after the coil had burnt out. After this, we didn't exactly feel like hiking anyway, so Adam's foot provided a good excuse for us to rest up.

The treehouse - great location, but total bugfest

That night we decided to pitch our tent on the lawn behind the house instead, because it was mosquito-proof. Meanwhile, we bludged around in the big comfortable living area of the house, watched CNN and cooked ourselves delicious food - which we hadn't been able to do in nearly 2 months. This was all fine until it started to rain. It wasn't particularly torrential but it rained steadily all night.

I was sleeping great until a strange wet feeling at my feet informed me that our tent was not waterproof. The entire bottom end of my sleeping bag was soaked through. I curled up and attempted to sleep in a little ball in the dry half of the sleeping bag. Meanwhile, Adam's pillow at the other end was getting wet. In the morning massive puddles had accumulated in the corners of the tent.

In light of the waterproofing fail and the continuing rain, we decided that going ahead with the hike was simply inviting further disaster and so we called it off, packed up our bags and set off on yet another bus trip to our next destination - Panama City!

The tent - waterproofing fail