Boquete is a bust, but beautiful

Feb 22

Today we got up at 5:30 for a 6:00 pick up. We thought we could grab breakfast at the airport but that didn’t happen. We were picked up at the airport in David in western Panama and driven to Boquete in the mountains where it is windy, sunny and cool. We are staying at a small guest house with five or six rooms. We have a small kitchenette and dining area in our room so we can have breakfast or simple meals in our room which is our preference. We tire of eating in restaurants three times a day.

We dropped our bags at Valle Primavera and walked to town about ten minutes away and ate a fabulous breakfast. I had huevos ranchero and they were the best! The place was packed with gringos and one table was locals.

Boquete has about 20,000 residents and a small downtown. We walked through town after breakfast and checked out grocery stores. We were able to find granola, olive oil, chocolate, and other life sustaining items.

We came back and unpacked as our room had been vacated and cleaned. We read and napped then headed out for an afternoon snack. This is a coffee growing region. For that matter 65% of Panama’s food is grown in Chiriqui province, where Boquete is located. We stopped at a coffee shop and had Americanos which were a disappointment as they were weak even with two shots of espresso but the banana bread and carrot bread were excellent.  Later we went out to dinner and had fish tacos with large chunks of fresh caught, not farmed,, fish. Woody’s in Vancouver has better fish tacos but he uses a light batter. Afterwards we went in search of soy milk or some other alternative with no luck. Ron got a small box of milk and I bought an orange t could squeeze over my cereal in the morning.

We tried watching the Academy Awards but they had simultaneously translation so it made it difficult to know what the categories were and who won. We mustered through and headed to bed a bit after midnight. I tossed and turned and didn’t get much sleep. The wind howled all night.

Feb 23

I slept until 8:30 then we started our day. After showers and cereal we started looking for a local realtor and made an appointment which got changed from Tuesday to Friday. Rent is inexpensive here. A small furnished casita  rents for $520 a month, a three bedroom house for $800-$1,000 or more if you want to be in a gated community. We walked to town and inquired about adventure activities here. There are more banks, real estate offices and adventures activity shops than grocery stores. Other shopping is limited to small souvenir shops and not much else. A number of women here wear long dresses in bight colors with geometric appliqué designs on the wide collars and sleeves. I think they are local Indians. We have had no water in town since mid morning. We were told that the fire department had tapped a hydrant to fill trucks and that depleted the water pressure so no one south of that hydrant had any water. It is now 4:00 p.m. and still no water. The electricity also went off today for awhile. This town feels too small for us.

Water came on sometime before dinner. We went downtown to eat and discovered two places open and chose the one nearest to us: Mike’s Global Grill. It was a bar with almost all expats. I did see two locals. Some folks looked like they had been there all day. There weren’t any seats available so we sat on a sofa and ordered. I had pumpkin soup and Ron had rotisserie chicken. We split a salad. Like I said earlier, I think this place is too small. I am beginning to sound like Goldilocks, I think.

Ron suggested that we move to David, a town of 104,000 which is the second biggest city in Panama. It is hot and humid because it is close to the coast. I told him I had read that it had less to offer than here. I pulled out our chapter in Lonely Planet and read to him the restaurants listed for David. There were four: one was a grocery store and it was suggested that you buy some fresh veggies for your meal. Oy! Another place was a Chinese cafeteria. Can you imagine anything worse? Chinese food is so overcooked and then to put it on a hot table to sit until someone chooses to eat it. Yuck! I don’t think we will be going to David right away.

Feb 24

After breakfast we walked to the Tuesday market, an expat event with all kinds of vendors: fresh veggies, meats, prepared foods served hot or to take away, jewelry, homemade bug repellant complete with gross photos of people with horrendous reactions to regional bug and snake bites, used books and DVDs. We didn’t buy anything and fear that if we lived here this may be the highlight of the week. Afterwards we went to see a rental that was dumpy and rents for $800. a month.

We had a great sandwich at the place where we had breakfast on Sunday. We read in the afternoon and arranged for a coffee plantation tour tomorrow and a massage for Tricia. Yippee!  We ended the day eating fish and chips down the road from where we are staying. The weather continues to be windy all day and night, cool and sunny. You;ll notice that there aren't many pictures of the town.  That's because there isn't much to take a picture of.

Feb 25

Today we went on a coffee plantation tour. It was great. There is so much to know about how coffee is grown and how it is processed. This particular plantation is a specialty coffee grower so his process is different than the standard finca (plantation). They pick the berries from Nov-April. They then pour water over the berries and remove any berries that float, as this means the coffee bean inside is too little to be worthwhile.

Clockwise from bottom right: coffee berries,
dried berries, roasted beans, raw beans

Berry husk and raw bean

Tea made from coffee berry husk -
tastes like regular tea

They then pour the berries onto a plastic tarp to dry out. From here they go onto tables that have a cloth which the berries are placed on and stirred several times a day to help with even drying. They are dried for a month in the sun rather than a mechanical dryer, which would only take 4 days). Then they remove the skin which will be used for an herbal tea they sell for $20. a pound.  They then soak the berries to help remove the husk from the bean. The berry is then processed through a machine to remove the husks.  The beans are dried again and then roasted.

berries on the tree

dried berries

Ron got to roast the beans today in our tour and it is more intense than I would have thought. The temperature is carefully monitored and throughout the process once the temperature has reached 320 degrees Ron took samples every time the temperature raised 10 degrees. As soon as the color was right and the temperature reached near 430 degrees the beans were quickly removed from the heat and were placed in a device than constantly stirred the beans and extracted the hot air and chaff. The ground beans are supposed to ‘rest’ for 8-24 hours before being made into coffee. We then made coffee with a medium and a dark roast and compared the two. The finca (coffee plantation) helps support a school for the indigenous Indians. Richard, who is one of the owners, found out that some children really wanted to go to school so badly that they were walking four hours each way everyday to attend school. Richard paid for a dorm to be built on the school grounds. This enabled these children to stay at the school during the week and come home on the weekends. Richard continues to support the school with the money he earns from the the fruit trees that are used as shade plants for the coffee plants. Each person on the tour received a bag of coffee after the tour. Richard sells most of his coffee to a specialty coffee company in

After the tour we dashed home, ate a quick lunch and I headed out for my massage which was terrific. Ron went grocery shopping. We relaxed in the afternoon then went to Mango for dinner. Unfortunately they were having a private event and not serving dinner tonight. So we went to Manchu Picchu and had dinner. I wish I had kept track of how many restaurants we attempted to go to in Panama that had moved, had closed or who were not open or not available the night we attempted to go.  What a strange place!